London Weighting Claim

Following our successful joint union meeting with UCU on Wednesday 2nd July, we revised our London Weighting claim and submitted it on Thursday 3rd July to the Vice Chancellor on behalf of our members.

The key elements of the claim are:

• London Weighting at the University of London has been frozen at £2,134 since 1992 and is the lowest of the London higher education institutes.
• If this figure were to have been uprated solely by the annual average RPI figure over this period it would be £3,968.
• Meanwhile living costs in London, including rent and travel costs, have increased significantly and remain significantly higher than the rest of the UK.
• London Metropolitan University’s London Weighting is £4,437, University of East London’s London Weighting is £3,360, British Gas’s London Weighting is £5,461, and the Royal Mail’s London Weighting is £4,654.

We have asked for:

• An immediate uplift in London Weighting to £4000 for the current pay year 2013/2014.

• An agreed method of annually uprating the London Weighting supplement. As a minimum this should increase by the higher figure of either the nationally agreed annual percentage pay rise or the annual average RPI figure (as calculated from August to July of the preceding year). The uprated amount would be payable from 1 August annually.

We have asked for a considered response to this claim by 31st July 2014. Once the University have responded with an offer, we will contact members to ask how they would like us to proceed.

After talking to members at the meeting, we believe that this is an issue that concerns everyone; it affects morale and retention levels and staff at the university struggle to work in London due to increasing costs. We need your support to convince the University of London that our London Weighting needs to be increased immediately.