News:

Our Ref: MJR/VT/HE/18/12

24th April, 2012

NEW JNCHES Pay negotiations 30 March & 20 April 2012

This is to advise you that negotiations have opened in the 2012 pay round and to give you an update on where we are up to.

2011 Pay

As you will know Unite is still in dispute on the 2011 claim since our members rejected the 0.5% or £150 whichever was the larger offer back in September 2011. Your Unite negotiators and National Committee have pressed UCEA into improving their 2011 offer but to no avail. The National Committee at its January meeting voted to carry on with the dispute. UCEA advised its members to pay the offer into salary scales which I believe most HEI’s have now done.

Unite however remained in dispute on the matter and has boycotted meetings with UCEA as well as organising demonstrations outside the UCEA HQ in London.

You will recall I wrote to all groups late last year asking that you make a local approach to see if any HEI was prepared to offer a "bonus" on top of the 0.5% offer. I can now report that at York and Aberdeen local reps have secured lump sum payments. Royal College of Art also agreed a lump sum back in December.

Both Imperial College and University of Birmingham who are outside of national bargaining also agreed amounts and in the case of Imperial College this was £500 on to scale points for all staff.

The National Committee agreed at a special meeting on the 14th March to lift the Unite industrial action for a specific period of the 2012 New JNCHES negotiations scheduled to end on the 22nd May but if no offer on pay in the 2012 round resolved the 2011 impasse then the action short of strike including a work to rule should be reapplied. I wrote to UCEA at that time advising this was Unite's position and a copy of that letter is attached.[PDF 106KB]

2012 Pay negotiations

A joint claim was prepared by the HE joint unions consisting of Unite, UCU, Unison GMB and EIS. It was agreed to keep the claim as short as possible with the main concentration on a pay increase for 2012 in line with inflation and uplift for pay erosion over the last three years. This meant the claim consists of a 3.7 % RPI element and 3.3% "catch up" giving 7% in total...

Also included is a demand that all UK Universities outside of London raise minimum pay levels to match the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's (JRF) calculation for a UK Living Wage, for the 2012 pay round but also for future years. The JRF is currently expressed as £7.20 per hour for those on 37 hours per week. For those living in London there is a London Living Wage calculated by the Greater London Authority (GLA) at £8.30 per hour which would be the level for HEI's in London. The claim seeks to ensure these rates apply to all workers on UK campuses including contract staff. The reason for this aspect is to minimise outsourcing of jobs to contracting companies who could try to undercut the New JNCHES pay scales.

There were other aspects in the claim such as London Weighting Allowance which is traditionally included; Equality issues to reduce the pay gap between men and women in the sector and a demand for a disability leave agreement similar to the agreement achieved in further education.

At the first New JNCHES negotiations on the 30th March, the Employers Association, UCEA, were seeking further clarification but also claimed that due to uncertainty in the sector there were reasons why they could not meet the claim.

The trade union negotiators responded that surpluses at UK Universities now stood at a record £1.06 billion. Staff costs have decreased as a total of expenditure from 57.4% to 56.2%, a record low. This meant there was cash in the bank and pay levels have been deliberately depressed.

The Employers responded with an opening offer of 0.5% equivalent to just £65 per annum for those on the bottom scale point. This does not even match the current inflation rate of 3.5%.

At the next meeting on the 20th April the Employers wanted further details of the "Living Wage" idea, pointing out that if they agreed to go down this path it would mean the bottom spine points could be decided by organisations such as JRF outside of UCEA. They also tried it on by saying they now needed to keep larger amounts as surpluses hence the increase in money at the bank.

UCEA agreed to respond in more detail at the final meeting scheduled for 22nd May but not before they increased the offer by a massive 0.3%!! Worth another £39 a year to those on the bottom of the scales making the offer worth £104 a year for the lowest paid staff.

The joint unions unanimously rejected such a derisory offer. A copy of the joint unions' press release is also attached.[PDF 52KB]

Also attached is a report from a national organisation against fees and cuts (NCAFC) [PDF 809KB] that shows that pay rises of £382m has been paid to staff in Russell Group universities earning more than £100,000. This group accounted for 1.8% in 2003/4 but almost doubling their pay levels to 3.8% of total pay last year. This is where the money is really going.

It looks likely that the 2012 pay round will fall far short of our members aspirations. I have already written to the Times Higher Education Supplement outlining the issues and warning of a battle ahead. If members are angry about what is happening on pay they will need to express it in a more public way.

I will keep stewards and representatives advised of the outcome of the next meeting due on 22nd May

Mike Robinson
National Officer
Education