HUNDREDS of university staff and students in Oxford backed the first day of strike action over fears pensions could be slashed by up to £10,000 a year.

Speakers and crowds gathered outside Oxford University’s Clarendon Building this afternoon to protest against changes which they said could cost university staff between 20 per cent and 40 per cent of retirement benefits.

A further 13 days of strike action – including tomorrow – are planned to take place over the next month.

The Universities and Colleges Union said Universities UK’s plans to change the terms of staff pensions could cause a recruitment crisis as staff look for financial security in other posts.

But UUK said it needs to end defined benefits for retiring university staff because of falling funding and that the current situation is ‘unaffordable’.

Dan Iley-Williamson, a Labour city councillor, college lecturer and PhD student, told the crowd in Broad Street: “Falling pay and conditions for ordinary staff, soaring pay for senior management; higher fees and increasingly access not by right, but by ability to pay. These are the hallmarks of marketisation, marketisation that is degrading our universities.

“This strike is about pensions, but it bears on this bigger issue.”

Students backing the industrial action unfurled a huge red banner along the Clarendon Building emblazoned with ‘Students 4 the strike’, while another in three parts read ‘Students 4 Staff’.

Philip Inglesant, a researcher in computer science at Oxford University, said: “We have been very pleased with the turnout. We had some pickets to try to raise awareness.”

The number of workers who went on strike will be known in the coming days. UUK said that students affected by the action – who are expected to number about a million nationwide – were the main losers and urged new negotiations.

It said an extra £1bn would be required to maintain current pension benefits – and that universities would need to cut teaching, jobs and research to fund the scheme in future.

It claimed UCU has failed to shift from its ‘unaffordable proposal at all’ over recent months.

Universities minister Sam Gyimah and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urged talks to be restarted as the first day of strikes got underway.

UCU said that it would be happy to meet for ‘talks without preconditions’, which Mr Gyimah had suggested.

A student holding the first part of the ‘Students 4 Staff’ sign, Rufus Rock, said he supported the strike because he said university staff deserved a ‘good quality pension’.

The strikes was also backed by the Oxford University Students’ Union.

Liz Truss, chief secretary to the treasury, provoked the ire of some university staff when she tweeted: “Some excellent lecturers are going in to work today. I salute you.”

Oxford Brookes University was unaffected.