Higher Education Pay Talks - Update

UNISON’s Higher Education Service Group Executive (HESGE) met last week, to discuss the dispute around pay 2012-13, and the union’s strategy for the pay campaign.

The unions’ claim had been for a pay increase of 7%, comprising an element to match inflation, and an element to provide ‘catch-up’ following several years of sub-inflation pay increases – in other words, real terms pay cuts. The employers have offered an increase of just 1%.

UNISON’s HE branches consulted members about the 1% pay offer in June, and the result was a clear rejection, by a margin of two to one.

Since then, further dispute resolution meetings have taken place between the unions and the employers, but no increase in the offer has been forthcoming. The HESGE therefore agreed this week that we should seek, alongside the other trade unions in HE, to meet with the national employers’ side at ACAS, in a final attempt to get a significant improvement in the pay offer. It is hoped that these talks will take place in the next fortnight.

The HESGE also agreed that we should continue preparations for an industrial ballot, in the event that the ACAS talks fail. If the pay offer is not improved significantly, members will be balloted on whether they are prepared to take strike action to fight for a fair pay increase, with a recommendation that they vote ‘yes’ for strike action.

The ballot would take place in September – branches will be kept fully informed of developments, dates, and deadlines, and branches will be sent a range of campaign materials, recruitment materials, and background information, in advance of the ballot.

In the meantime, branches, reps and members are encouraged to visit http://www.unison.org.uk/he-pay2012 for the latest news.

Pay Meeting - 9 August 2012

Thanks to all who came to yesterday's meeting, addressed by Max Watson from the UNISON NEC - there was a good turnout, and a clear committment to a campaign to get a better, fairer deal on pay this year.

Full details (courtesy of Catherine) are below, but please do contact me (danny.millum@sas.ac.uk), Jo (josephine.grahl@sas.ac.uk) or Tony (tony.mabbott@sas.ac.uk) in the first instance if you have further questions, want to get involved, or want to join UNISON.

NOTES FROM AUGUST 9 MEETING

General

Higher Education pay is being negotiated at national level, by a collection of HE employers on one hand and a collection of HE trade unions on the other.

The employers are legally bound by the final decision made at these talks.

The issues

For the last 3 years in a row the pay increases in the HE sector have been below inflation. This means that effectively HE staff have had less to spend year on year¹.

Trade unions have asked that staff receive a 7% increase this year, to account for inflation and start to make up for the past few years.

The employers have returned a counter-offer of 1% and at present are not prepared to negotiate further. (Inflation is currently 3%.)

TUs have also asked that no one in the sector should be paid less than the living wage².

The employers have made no offer in response to the living wage question (effectively meaning it will not be implemented).

Financial info

The Employers say that financial uncertainty and falling student numbers mean that they are not sure what their income will be over the next few years. They say this is why they are not offering more than 1%.

No figures were available for the sector as a whole, but it was mentioned that the University of London alone had a reserve of £93.2million³ in the financial year 2010-11.

UoL had an operating surplus⁴ of £4.1million last year. The unions’ understanding is that this gets added to the reserve figure – so it is getting towards £100million at UoL alone.

Employers have admitted that the cost of wages is dropping year on year as a proportion of what they spend. At present the spend on wages in the sector is the lowest it has ever been.

Results

No industrial action has been taken about this is the past 3 years, but all unions have now rejected the 1% offer as being too low and not taking account of the living wage.

Union members will be balloted September about whether to take industrial action.

If action were taken, it could take the form of strike or ‘work to contract’ where members only do their contracted hours and tasks. This would take place in October. At present unions don’t know how long any such action might go on for.

However, the stronger the ‘yes’ vote in the ballot, the less likely action would be: if employers see that staff are serious in rejecting this offer, they are more likely to return to the negotiating table.

A recent consultative (not legally binding) ballot of Unison members at UoL got a 44% turnout, of which 94% voted to reject the employers’ offer of 1%.

What to do if you’re interested

Join the union⁵ if you are not already a member. Non-members cannot vote in the ballot.

All unions are encouraging members to vote yes to taking action.

However, they have stressed that either way what is needed is a strong response to the ballot: if people don’t vote, a strike may go ahead which most members don’t actually want. So the message is vote yes or vote no, but please vote!!

Make sure your union has an up-to-date address for you so that you receive your ballot paper.

I hope this has been interesting – a lot more anecdotal evidence was given but I couldn’t write everything down! You can of course contact me if you’d like a membership form or if you have any other questions. I can’t promise I can answer everything but I’ll try to find someone who can!

Best wishes,

Catherine

1.        One speaker reported that many members, not just those on the lowest pay grades, are now getting into debt and relying on pay day loans or Union hardship funds to meet their financial obligations.  

2.        The Living Wage Campaign calls for every worker in the country to earn enough to provide their family with the essentials of life. In London the current rate is £8.30 per hour. Outside of London the current rate is £7.20.

3.        I have double-checked that I didn’t write this down wrong!

4.        Operating surplus essentially means profit after expenditure (e.g. wages). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_surplus

5.        Unison and UCU are the two unions recognised by the University of London. Although you are free to join either union, traditionally UCU has represented Academic, Research and AMP Staff, and UNISON has covered everyone else. See https://intranet.london.ac.uk/927.html

Branch Meeting - Pay Claim and Ballot for Action

UNISON Senate House branch meeting

Speaker: Max Watson, UNISON NEC

Thursday 9th August 2012

1-2pm, Woburn Room, Senate House

In September 2012 all HE Unison members will be balloted over the 2012 pay claim. The unions have asked for a 7% increase on all pay points. In return the employers have offered a final pay offer of 1% - effectively a pay cut since inflation was 3% in the year up to April 2012.

Living costs have increased by over 12% over the last four years. In that same period, pay increases have been worth 2.4% of pay for many staff.

Our employers admitted to HEFCE last year that staff costs were at an all time low while reporting strong surpluses at most institutions. Our claim for 7%, which would only begin to make up for the below inflation wage increases of the last few years, is fair and reasonable.

This is your chance to hear more about the pay claim and to have your say before the ballot opens. Members and non-members are welcome.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Refreshments will be provided.

Contact Josephine Grahl | josephine.grahl@sas.ac.uk | 020 7862 5814

Latin American Fiesta

It's taken me a couple of weeks to recover, but I just wanted to update people on our June 30 event, which was a massive success. I think in total around 300 people came, with a great mixture of outsourced workers, students activists and staid union types like myself. MPs John McDonnell and Frank Dobson both spoke, but there were also speeches from workers involved with the campaign, and from comrades from as far away as Zimbabwe.

There was also a lot of music and much dancing...unnamed committee members were apparently out until 6am the next morning...

Anyway, a load of photos can be found here, getting blurrier as the night goes on, and you can read the text in English and Spanish of Membership Officer Robinson's rousing speech here.

Pay negotiations - update

Following the indicative ballot over the employers’ final 2012/13 pay offer, Sandy Nicoll from SOAS has reported back from the HE Service Group Executive that the result nationally was a 68% vote to reject the offer.

The Senate House branch vote was a 94% vote to reject on a 44% turnout – thanks to everyone who responded.

On the basis of these results, the UNISON Higher Education Service Group Executive voted unanimously to declare an official dispute with the employers and to enter into the disputes resolution procedure. This will lead to further meetings with the employers over the next few weeks.

If there is no significant improvement made to the pay offer at these meetings, the UNISON HESGE unanimously voted to ballot members formally in September over the offer and, if the result of the formal ballot confirms members’ rejection of the pay offer, to begin the process leading to industrial action. 

All the other Higher Education trade unions (UCU, UNITE, GMB and the EIS in Scotland) have now rejected the offer and the HESGE voted to attempt to co-ordinate any industrial action with them.

There will be a meeting for all Bloomsbury UNISON members interested in getting involved in the pay campaign this Wednesday (11 July 2012) at 1pm in room S16 at the Institute of Education (the room is off the IoE Students' Union bar). It would be good to see Senate House well represented at this meeting. The meeting will receive an update on the pay campaign and discuss how to make the campaign as effective as possible including organising joint meetings with the UCU, general publicity, etc.

We hope to see you there.

Bloomsbury Living Wage Campaign Latin American Fiesta

Senate House UNISON invite you to join us to mark our victory in the London Living Wage campaign at Senate House, which we are celebrating with a Latin American Fiesta.

When: Saturday 30 June, from 4pm until late.

Where: SOAS Junior Common Room, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG.

What: Food, drink, Latin American music, a live band and the bare minimum of speeches.

Who: Everyone – crèche facilities will be available.

How much:  ABSOLUTELY FREE.

For more information: See http://www.facebook.com/events/415140998531405/ or email danny.millum@sas.ac.uk.

"a new trade unionism for a modern workforce"

Owen Jones, who spoke at the branch AGM, has an interesting article about the future of trade unions at CLASS, the Centre for Labour and Social Studies.

He writes: But it is the change in the nature of the workforce that, above all, makes it far harder to organise. The new service sector jobs are cleaner, less back-breaking and exclude women less, although they tend to be concentrated in the lowest-paid and most insecure work. On the other hand, pay is often lower: sacked car workers at the Longbridge car factory who ended up in the service sector were on an average of 60% of the pay. Communities are not based around supermarkets and call centres, as they once were around steelworks, mines and docks.

...The explosion in unemployment and underemployment also pose a huge challenge. According to the TUC, if you include ‘economically inactive’ people not included in the official unemployment figures and those forced to do part-time jobs, there are over six million people looking for full-time work. Such a huge army of potential jobseekers strengthens the hands of bosses and saps the confidence of other workers, because they feel less confident about rocking the boat knowing there is no shortage of others willing to replace them.

Do read the whole piece.