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UCL UCU information points on the pausing of strike action
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UCL UCU information points on the pausing of strike action

19 Feb 2023

What is in the agreement announced on Friday evening?

The agreement between the General Secretary and the employers is available here [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucu/sites/ucu/files/tradeunionucea-joint-statement-.pdf ]’ so that all members can judge how much progress it represents.

We would note the following about the GS’s agreement with the employers:

  1. There is no agreement on pay (other than removing the lowest scale point (point 3, which does not exist at UCL), and a commitment to review the pay spine in the future.
  2. The employers have not improved their pay offer, and the real-terms pay cut of 15% over two years that they wish to impose remains in place. This will be a crushing blow for many members, especially our lowest-paid colleagues.
  3. The issues of workload, “contract types”, and pay gaps are addressed only in terms of agreements to discuss them in future talks (which was the employers’ position prior to going into the negotiating round, so has not changed).
  4. On casualisation, and on zero hour contracts, UCEA (the employers’ organisation) says it ‘would expect’ certain types of contract to be typical, but the “contractual arrangements offered to employees will be for individual institutions to determine”. UCL has agreed not to use zero hours contracts, but they remain widespread in our sector. UCL calls contracts with end dates subject to funding “open-ended”, and denies that they are fixed-term, but clearly such contracts do not operate as permanent, and people on them do not experience them as such.
  5. The talks that are planned to happen now - and for which we have been asked to pause our strike - are not to reach concrete outcomes for these points, but rather to “agree more detailed terms of reference and timescales for these substantive negotiations”.
  6. A separate announcement was made by Universities UK (UUK) on discussions on the USS pensions. This seems, on the surface, promising, as it talks about prioritising restoring member benefits that were cut and reducing member contribution costs. The scheme is in a substantial surplus and this should be possible. However, this statement is also subject to considerable caveats, such as that these changes have to be shown to be sustainable in the long term, which the employers have consistently used as an argument for refusing to restore our benefits or halt further cuts).

Democratic decision-making in the UCU - sidelined

  1. The Higher Education Committee (HEC) of the UCU is the body charged with making decisions relating to our industrial dispute and strike action, but it did not meet to agree this pause to the strike.
  2. Strike dates should be agreed formally by the HE officers (Immediate Past-President, Chair of HEC, and the two Vice Chairs of the HEC), but they have not met or been collectively consulted in this case either.
  3. The HE officers or the full HEC have the constitutional right to stop a strike, but neither group has had an opportunity to discuss, let alone decide, on this matter.
  4. The HEC will be meeting this Friday at Carlow Street to discuss these actions.

UCL UCU Executive Committee

www.ucl.ac.uk/ucu

@ucl_ucu