ACADEMICS are continuing their pay row action, which led to a one-day strike on Tuesday.
Lecturers, researchers and academic-related staff from university and college lecturers union Natfhe and the Association of University Teachers are now taking part in an assessment boycott.
This means they will refuse to cover colleagues' work, mark students' work or take part in exams.
Natfhe members are angry because they say the employers have broken public promises to use new Government cash and money from top-up fees to improve pay.
They say salaries have fallen by 40% in real terms over the past 20 years. They have submitted a three-year pay claim for 23%, to address what they say is years of falling pay for academics.
But the claim is likely to be refused.
A Natfhe spokesman said: "The union has sent the university employers a clear message to tell the truth about academic pay and make a fair pay offer before further action closes down our universities once again. The assessment boycott will be well supported and equally as effective as the 24-hour strike."
A survey, meanwhile, shows university vice-chancellors' salaries have soared by a quarter in just three years.
The annual survey in the Times Higher Education Supplement says 33 vice-chancellors earn more than the Prime Minister and 18 are paid £200,000 a year or more.
The top earner is Laura Tyson, Dean of the London Business School, on £310,000.
She is followed by Slaithwaite-born businessman Sir Richard Sykes. The former chairman of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is now head of Imperial College, London, and is paid £305,000.
Prof John Tarrant, Huddersfield University's Vice-Chancellor gets £164,000.
The news that vice-chancellors enjoyed an average rise of 25% between 2001-02 and 2000-05 provoked fury from the lecturing unions.
They said the rises were "hypocrisy of the worst kind".
