Relations between two of the chief negotiators in national talks on lecturers' terms and conditions have all but collapsed, threatening the progress of the new joint negotiating machinery.

Jill Jones, a branch secretary of lecturers' union Natfhe at Westminster University, who sits on the union's national executive committee, is engaged in a bitter dispute with Westminster vice-chancellor Geoffrey Copland over the rights of union officials to time off for union activity.

But both Ms Jones, chair of Natfhe's higher education committee, and Professor Copland are leading national talks in a joint staff-employers working group on modernising the national lecturers' contract.

This week Ms Jones confirmed that 82 per cent of Westminster Natfhe members had voted to take industrial action short of a strike in protest at Professor Copland's plans to cut the number of hours Natfhe officials are allowed off for union activity.

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The union will begin a campaign to withhold students' marks from May 28, with plans to escalate if Professor Copland does not bow to their demands.

Ms Jones said this week that Professor Copland had shown contempt for Natfhe and its members, and was "punishing" the union for its success in preventing Westminster imposing staff contracts outside the national agreed terms and conditions in a dispute last October. She said his attitude was a "worrying sign" for the national talks.

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Natfhe said that Westminster was to cut the time allowed for Natfhe representatives for union activity from 25 hours a week to 20, despite the fact that the union had requested a modest increase in the time allowed to take into account major changes to staff employment rights following new legislation.

"It would cost the university ?10,000 to meet Natfhe's claim in full," Natfhe said in its election papers. "This compares with the bidding in the university's human resources strategy for ?4.6 million over three years, of which over ?1 million is for personnel initiatives with no direct benefit to staff."

A spokesman for Westminster said the university was "having to achieve savings on all its budgets". He said the cut in hours was fair and reasonable and the university hoped to resolve the dispute as soon as possible.