University Pay 2010 Onwards

30 JULY 2010 Update

Universities increase offer from 0.25% to 0.4% with consolidation into the pay structure, a futher meeting is planned

UNISON to hold a consultattive ballot on the current 0.25% offer

Chancellor annouces 2 year pay freeze for all Public Sector staff with only those earning less than 21,000 to receive a £250 pay award

The five trade unions within higher education have accused higher education employers of refusing to engage in meaningful
national negotiations in response to the first-ever joint union claim.

Yesterday (Wednesday, 28 July), the employers made a final offer to the trade unions of a 0.4 per cent pay increase. With the retail
price index running at 5.0 per cent, the trade unions complained that the employers’ offer represented a real-terms pay cut for the
second year running. With fears that over 22,000 jobs are at risk, Unite branded the employers’ refusal to negotiate around job
security as unacceptable and Unite also complained that the employers had failed even to address many other aspects of the claim,
including measures to improve equality in the sector. No union accepted the employers’ offer and would be referring the matter back
to their constituent bodies.

Unite’s national officer for higher education, Mike Robinson, said: ”The employers refusal to negotiate around job security shows that
vice chancellors and senior professors are safe, but are not prepared to engage nationally on a sensible process for staff in the future.
"The average pay for a vice-chancellor is about £250,000 and last year’s pay rise for professors came in at 7.1 per cent."  "The 0.4 per
cent offer represents a miserly £1 a week increase before tax and national insurance to the lowest paid employees working in higher
education at a time when inflation is affecting low paid workers especially hard."
 
University vice chancellors, deans and senior professors who have already pocketed substantial increases are showing a BP-like
insensitivity from their Tuscan villas, whilst ordinary staff struggle to cope.
Unite predicts that the currant austerity measures could result in 22,000 jobs being lost in the higher education sector over the next few years.
This will seriously dent Britain’s position as a world leader in education and research.“