Issue 146

UCU pay issue settled for two years

09th October 2006

The UCU dispute appears to be resolved as pay rise has been agreed over a period of three years, with the opportunity to dispute a pay rise in the third year.

Last term was dominated by the AUT dispute that gripped the nation and students in May and June last academic year. Students all over the country saw lectures and universities at a standstill after months of redrafts, votes and meetings to discuss the situation. But over the summer, due to the government's intervention and mediation, an agreement was approved and a pay rise of 13c will be phased in progressively over the next three years.

The TUC (Trades Union Congress) intervened when the national dispute reached critical point during the examination period last term. The Vice Chancellor commented "there was difficulty knowing what to do locally with the dispute being on a national scale". After the intervention, a better offer was announced, balloted and agreed. Howard Moss commented that "there was some discussion as to whether the vote should have gone ahead". Nevertheless 70c voted in favour of the agreement. Howard Moss stated "it has been shown during this conflict that lecture based teaching are paid lower than other forms".

According to Howard Moss, the conflict was brought about due to the government wanting to fund higher education inexpensively and also the teaching staff not being militant enough to stop this happening. The AUT Committee were relieved but also frustrated that more wasn't achieved. Despite the disagreement, the VC said that "the staff handled the situation very well with everyone trying to minimise the difficulty for students".

Both the VC and Howard Moss agreed that there will be no further action over the next two years. Although the AUT, now the UCU, have been offered within the agreement an opportunity to dispute the Pay Deal in the third year of the contract. The Pay Agreement states "for academic year 2009-10 and later, although in the event that the review were to provide evidence of HEI's ability further to improve the pay of staff for the 2008-09 year this would be included within these negotiations".

In lieu of the open third year of the contract, the AUT, rebrick and other academic institutions have merged to become the UCU with a majority of approximitely 130,000 members.

Emma Rogers