Contract Action Coordinating Committee staffed, A third wave of strike action over the employers' failure to negotiate over deteriorating pay & conditions began today. Officewide projects provided opportunities to expand staff members roles and advocate for higher compensation for them. For the first time in the two disputes the ballot will be aggregated, meaning that if UCU achieves an overall turnout of 50% or above and a majority YES vote, all universities across the UK will be hit by strike action. P2 / COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 101, UCPEA VICTORY AT In line with UCU represented staff, the pay award for Technical Services staff at Levels 4-7 has been implemented from 1 August 2022. A 1.5% increase over 2 years is in reality a steep real-terms pay cut, on top of over a decade of pay cuts. Multiple colleagues in graduate career coaching offered a counterintuitive suggestion: become comfortable with silence. We also intend to pursue talks about the 22-23 pay round. The outcome of last year's JNCHES negotiations led to the 'live' Four Fights dispute. The HE trade unions pressed UCEA to improve their opening offer of 1.1% on pay and in regards to the pay related and equality elements of the claim, for a meaningful offer that focuses on action and sector wide frameworks to address pay inequality, precarious employment and workloads. The joint unions will be looking at the implications of the offer in relation to both the claim and the structure of the pay uplift. We are also planning to produce a series of videos which capture the lives of members in higher education, and how they are affected by degraded pay, casualisation, equality failings and more. The call came as new analysis by the Office for Students shows that university finances are in good health. She negotiated with leadership to secure higher pay for our graphic designer and a leader among our student workers. UB, Niagara University top local list for highest professor pay on Although UCEA made UCU an initial pay offer for the upcoming 2023-24 pay round worth between 4% and 5% yesterday they made no further improvement on the 3% pay increased for 2022-23 over which the current action is taking place. There is real pressure on new JNCHES to deliver for and reward staff in 2021/22. Understand the needs and abilities of the employer. Branches will be kept informed of the outcome of the final meeting. When we did not agree to this, as we were unable to do so due to our own internal democratic processes, they then refused to move into negotiations without going back to consult their board about the amended process and mechanism that we told them we could sign up to. The key dates are as follows: Further details on ballot timetable and activities have been sent out to all branch officers; please contact your branch and volunteer to 'get the vote out' (GTVO). After adjusting for inflation, the sector has seen its total income rise by around 15% over the last six years. Pay in Scotland. But the union says this still amounts to a pay cut after accounting for inflation. Members of UCU have voted by 80.4% to reject the latest pay offer from employer body UCEA. UCU general secretary Jo Grady writes to members with the latest on our recent negotiations with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA). The joint union claim also included a demand for a UK-wide agreement on Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs). According to UH Administration, all 11-month faculty are tentatively scheduled to receive their 3.72% salary increase on their July 20, 2022 pay date while all 9-month faculty are scheduled to receive their 3.72% increase on their August 20, 2022 pay date. A full written offer is expected early next week. .positionleft.inlineimage, .positionright.inlineimage { max-width: 49% !important; margin-bottom: 1.5em !important; } .positionleft.inlineimage { margin-right: 0.5% !important; } .positionright.inlineimage { margin-left: 0.5% !important; } @media(max-width:600px) { .positionleft.inlineimage, .positionright.inlineimage { max-width: 100% !important; margin: 0 0 1em 0 !important; } #emergencybanner {margin-bottom: -1em !important;} }. My colleague Anna Renzetti, an assistant director in the career and professional development center at the University of Utah, shared a similar account. Of course, your elected negotiators could not accept such a demand and will continue to press for a meaningful offer from UCEA in our next negotiation meeting on 16 January. UCU members in higher education are rising up and saying enough is enough. [412kb]. UCEA also made some limited proposals in regards to the pay related and equality elements of the claim. It's too early to say whether UCEA will make an offer that represents a meaningful attempt to address these vitally important matters. Purdue CCO Earlier this week, UCU members working in UK higher education votedto reject pay & conditions proposals agreed with employers. On 22 December UCU confirmed that it was also in dispute and initiated the Dispute Resolution process. Caroline pointed me to a tweet from the journalist and author Stefanie OConnell Rodriguez, who wrote, Can we start saying ambition penalty instead of confidence gap when we talk about women and girls? The rejection of the pay and conditions proposals means a marking and assessment boycott will nowcommenceat145UK universities onThursday20 April,unless employers putan enhancedoffer on the table. She reported: 'The employers'position is that the 2022-23 negotiations over pay, during which we had a 3% pay increase imposed, have closed. And this is before the 2020-21 increase in student numbers of 4% are taken into account, never mind projected increases in student numbers this autumn. After months of negotiations, Yales unions ratify five-year contracts Advice for salary negotiations (opinion) Branches will be updated on the written offer as soon as possible. When we challenged employers to meet CPIH in August, they refused, saying that 'they did not have a mandate' to meet even their own preferred inflation rate. Inflation has been rising rapidly since the start of this year. UCU has also called for universities to scrap vanity projects and use their spare cash and to invest in staff after it was revealed the sector generated record income last year and are planning a 4.6bn splurge on 'vanity projects' as staff pay falls 25%. A former department chair at Syracuse University addressed the common fear of asking for too much money: I have never known a university to retract a job offer just because the candidate asks for too much. The national negotiating committee for higher education staff(New JNCHES) met yesterday for the first time this year, to negotiate on higher education pay for 2021/22. HE negotiations 2021-22. The employers' latest pay offer for 2021/22 is just 1.5% but inflation is at 4.5%. The pay negotiations for 2021-22 have now commenced with the first of three Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff meetings between trade UUP, state open talks for new contract: UUP web story, May 27, 2022. UCU general secretary Jo Grady said this report should cause every vice chancellor in the sector to hang their heads in shame. The University did not make it easy for people to sign up, but this is the most important thing you can do. The joint unions have indicated that the opening offer is insufficient and that more needs to be brought to the final JNCHES negotiation meeting on 6 May 2021. [295kb]. The higher education committee (HEC) considered the early developments with the claim, the key UCU policy and principles that should be in a joint union claim. As part of the ongoing disputes, all branches will also be reballoted soon in preparation for potential industrial action next term. Successful reballots will allow staff to continue taking action through this calendar year. The second of the two dispute resolution meetings ended last Friday. Those staff have got universities through the pandemic and are continuing to work harder than ever before under more difficult circumstances the employers need to recognise this.. Next steps in our national pay and conditions campaign will be made at the Higher Education Sector Conference on 9 September. I looked over all of our colleagues' records of publication, teaching, and service and made the case that two faculty of color were underpaid given their accomplishments. Give your manager plenty of time to discuss with you and then enter into the request process for you. Be ready for that conversation with your manager. 02 Apr 2021 Research & Ideas. Sometimes its strategic, she added, to just sit with it and give the other person the chance to take their time to answer, since the ball is in their court. For 2021-22, that rose to $78,908. With the dispute process now concluded preparations for an industrial actionballot in the autumn are now under way: University strike ballot a step closer as vice-chancellors refuse to improve pay offer. On this path, he advised, you can negotiate for mentorship and professional development resources -- for experiences that add value to your professional profile and open up desired career paths. The pay uplift for the 2021-22 academic year guarantees increases of at least 1.5%, with higher percentage uplifts made to the pay points below Spine Point 22, up to a UUP 2022 Contract Negotiations News. UCU general secretary Jo Grady tells members the employers' 1.5% pay offer is not god enough, and provides an update on what happens next. UCU has served notice to employers of a marking and assessment boycott (MAB) to begin on Thursday 20 April in our ongoing pay and conditions dispute. WebThe union ultimately negotiated a 2.25 percent annual raise from 2022 to 2024, and a 2.5 percent annual raise from 2025 to 2026. I spent a few minutes describing my attachment to it (during which time I think he was probably anticipating that I was about to turn down the position). These results are similar to where the pay gap stood in 2002, when Strike action at higher education institutions across the UK started today, with UCU's biggest ever picket lines, as members fight for improved pay & conditions. For UCU represented grades its worth 1.5%. The reballots come after a number of branches narrowly missed the Conservative's anti-trade union turnout threshold, in some cases by only one or two votes: it was announced today. The Office for National Statistics reported CPIH in June at 2.4%, CPI at 2.5% and RPI at 3.9%. Offers and Negotiation Its unfair and unrealistic to expect folks to overcome systemic problems solely through individual efforts. UCEA will provide written details of the offer and how it relates to each point on the pay spine next week. The higher education joint trade union claim 2021/22 has been agreed by the five HE trade unions; UNISON, Unite, EIS, GMB and UCU, and has been submitted to UCEA in advance of the first New JNCHES negotiating meeting on 31 March.