- Conference
- 2020 Higher Education Service Group Conference
- Date
- 16 September 2019
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
2019 marks ten years of the erosion in real terms, take home pay, the pay of the majority of Higher Education support staff. If pay had risen in line with the cost of living, then each pound that university support staff earn in 2019/20, would be worth twenty one pence more than it actually is. For example, if you currently earn £25,482 on pay point 21 then you would earn an extra £5,057 if your pay had kept up with inflation. Pay has fallen in real terms by over 15% in just ten years whilst university income has risen to £38.2 billion.
In the last financial year university investment in capital expenditure rose by 6.4% whilst wages rose by 2% for the majority of staff. The sector can afford a decent pay rise for all. University reserves are at an all time high of £49.22 billion having increased since 2009/10 by nearly 300%. It is clear from university accounts that investment in Higher Education staff has yet again been de-prioritised. UNISON is calling for this to change.
Over the past ten years university income has risen, nearly half of all Vice Chancellors now receive more than £300,000, and universities have erected new buildings. It is shocking that there are still only twenty foundation living wage accredited university employers. Many support staff, whom universities rely on, take home poverty wages. In-work poverty remains one of the most important challenges we face and UNISON is calling on HE employers to take up this challenge.
Having shown a commitment to invest in their estate, universities now need to invest in their greatest asset – their staff. UNISON members have had enough. They are not prepared to accept the low pay rises that have been handed out to them.
The HE sector continues to have the highest public sector gender pay gap, which in many universities has got worse over the past year, not better. There is an acknowledged and persistent ethnic pay gap that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
With only 36% of universities employing staff on a 35 hour per week contract as standard, the majority of HE employees work more than 35 hours per week. There is a national pay spine, but employees’ hourly rate varies from university to university depending on their contract. At the bottom end of the pay spine this means that whilst some employees on a 35 hour per week contract earn the Foundation Living Wage rate or above, others earn less than the foundation living wage rate.
Many universities are continuing to seek to outsource their support by transferring staff to private contractors or by creating subsidiary companies. UNISON believes that all university support staff should be employed on secure permanent contracts of employment and be direct employees of universities.
UNISON members are also not prepared to accept the imposition of pay offers. Genuine negotiations need both parties to work towards agreement and to do so in good faith without the threat of imposition hanging over them.
Conference calls on the Higher Education Service Group Executive to pursue joint union negotiations and to produce a joint claim that seeks to incorporate the following points:
1)Negotiate a consolidated pay award of retail price index (RPI) + 5%
2)Negotiate a minimum hourly rate of £10 an hour for all staff which includes those on a 37 hour week
3)Negotiate an RPI + 5% consolidated increase on London Weighting and all other allowances negotiated nationally. Work with branches to seek to negotiate a similar rise in all appropriate local allowances.
4)Negotiate a national agreement with the HE employers to oversee the introduction of a maximum 35 hour working week in all universities.
5)Establish a Scottish sub-committee of the New Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff (JNCHES) as set out under the New JNCHES Agreement. The main purpose of the sub-committee would be to deal with matters not currently being dealt with at the New JNCHES Committee.
6)Negotiate on joint employer and union action to eliminate the gender and ethnic pay gap, work with regions, branches and sister trade unions to achieve these ends. Seek to work with employers, aiming for transparency and full sharing of data at both a national and local level.
7)Campaign for all universities to become accredited Living Wage employers reminding them of the moral and business case of why they should apply for Living Wage accreditation and demand that they do so.
8)Negotiate for a national agreement to reduce precarious employment in Higher Education seeking, as far as possible, for staff to be employed on permanent contracts. Negotiate for a national agreement to bring outsourced workers in higher education to become direct employees of universities.
9)In the event that the joint pay claim is not met by the employers, seek to coordinate lawful industrial action in conjunction with fellow Higher Education trade unions, with a clear plan for escalating lawful industrial action to strengthen the campaign, in accordance with UNISON rules relating to industrial action.