A UNISON working group will look into how further education members in England can best campaign against low pay after rejected the employers’ pay offer for the 2019-20 academic year.
The employer’s body, the Association of Colleges, recommended a pay increase of 1% or £250, whichever was greater, in November last year.
This was in response to a union claim for an extra £1 per hour for all pay grades, an extra five days annual leave and the living wage – as calculated by the Living Wage Foundation – as a minimum.
UNISON consulted members on the offer over January, and they rejected it.
The union’s national further education committee discussed the result of the consultation and next steps at its meeting yesterday.
Following wide-ranging discussions and detailed analysis of the issues, including turn-out, it was decided to set up a working group to look at “how staff in colleges will demonstrate their intense dissatisfaction with yet another poor pay recommendation that many colleges will not implement”.