This Years Pay Claim

Higher Education Professional, Technical, Administrative and Ancillary Staff Committee

Trade Union Side

Pay and Conditions Claim 2006

The Claim

The PTAAS unions are seeking:

· A minimum starting salary which equates to an hourly rate of at least £6.50 per hour.

· A substantial increase in all pay spine points

· A flat rate element.

· A national minimum rate of 25 days leave per annum.

· A maximum standard working week of 35 hours.

· Modernisation of the maternity leave, paternity leave, carer leave and adoption leave agreements to reflect best practice and ensure compliance with changes in statutory regulations.

· The removal of training rates and age related reductions for young people.

· The deletion of the bottom point on the pay spine.

We are also seeking a commitment from the employers that the basic principles underlying the framework agreement are upheld and not undermined. In particular the commitment to a pay and grading structure that will apply to all staff, will support equal pay for work of equal value and is consistent transparent and fair.

The PTAAS unions would also like to take this opportunity to repeat their belief that addressing the pay issues across the sector would be best served by single table bargaining and that any settlement reached should apply across all pay groups.

Pay

The PTAAAS unions have welcomed the recent improvements for the lowest paid in the sector in recent pay settlements. However, as the latest UCEA report ‘Recruitment and Retention of Staff in Higher Education 2005’ shows, there is still more improvements required. The report highlights the fact that the group of workers that higher education institutions have most difficulty in recruiting and retaining are low paid manual staff, particularly cleaning and catering staff. The key reason given by the majority of institutions for this difficulty is ‘comparative pay levels in the private sector’.

The problems are illustrated by some of the quotes from HR managers in the report. One is quoted as saying, ‘[We] couldn’t recruit cleaners at all, [it was] virtually impossible as they can get more in the private sector’. Another is quoted, ‘Catering is the main recruitment issue. It has always been difficult to recruit good general catering assistants and chefs.’

According to the recent IDS figures, in the last year, many deals in the public sector have featured a significant uplift to minimum entry salaries, of up to 12%. In most government departments the minimum salary is now above £12,000. In the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs it is £14,083 or £7.30 an hour.

Despite the headline rate of inflation remaining slightly below 3% many of the underlying costs of fundamental household expenditure have risen at above this rate. Average domestic energy bills have risen from £575 in January 2004 to over £800 by next March, Npower recently raised electricity prices for the second time in three months last week, while British Gas recently announced rises of 22% and Powergen more than 24%. Both water and council tax bills are likely to increase by over 5% in April and since 2003, the cost of petrol has risen by approximately a third.

The effect of these increases means that the real rate of inflation for many households is higher than the headline rate and has a disproportionate impact on the lowest paid.

The trade union side welcomed the commitment given by UCEA that the minimum salary in higher education would be at least £6 per hour by 2006. However we believe to deliver a living wage for the lowest paid staff and to provide for a competitive salary that the minimum rate should be at least £6.50 per hour and the current lowest point on the pay spine should be deleted.

The other key area of the workforce that institutions identified in the UCEA survey in recruiting and retaining staff was among senior support roles, particularly in HR, IT, senior technicians and skilled trades such as electricians. Again, the key reason given for this difficulty was uncompetitive salaries compared with the private sector.

The survey also reported that the retention of younger support staff was emerging as a significant problem in the sector and was getting worse. Over a quarter of institutions reported difficulties in retaining younger staff and 42% reported high turnover among this group.

Again uncompetitive salary levels were identified as a key problem in retaining young staff. Like manual workers, this group of workers are more likely to change jobs as a result of uncompetitive salary levels. It is in everyone’s interest that higher education institutions are able to recruit and train quality staff for the future; they will be unable to do so if they continue to offer low pay and poor conditions of service for the lowest paid.

Young people are likely to receive the lowest rates of pay. We are seeking the removal of training rates and age related reductions for young people in all sections of the workforce. We believe this is consistent with the principles of equal pay and the legislative reform coming into force banning age related discrimination from 2006.

Conditions of Service

The PTAAS unions submitted a detailed claim last year outlining the need to create a framework of minimum core conditions for the sector and modernising many of the outdated agreements that still exist. Following this claim an equalities working party was established to review many of the existing arrangements in the sector. To date a meeting this working group has yet to be convened. This, we believes reflects the importance (or lack of) that UCEA has placed on this issue.

We recognise that many institutions have reviewed their terms and conditions of service during negotiations on the implementation of the Framework Agreement, but we still believe that a core framework of conditions as recommended by the Bett Report is still the best way forward. A national framework will protect those staff with the worst conditions and remove some of the inconsistencies and inequalities that exist within the existing arrangements.

In the UCEA survey institutions identified being recognised as a fair employer with good conditions of service as a key factor in attracting high quality staff when they are unable to compete in terms of salary. Unless the issues of terms and conditions are addressed then universities will find themselves behind much of the public sector and lose this key recruitment tool.

The unions believe that terms and conditions of service should remain as negotiating issues within the ambit of JNCHES. We believe that the support staff claim on conditions of service needs to be revisited and given serious consideration by UCEA.

Commitment to Equality

The PTAAS unions are seeking a commitment from UCEA to try and ensure that all settlements under the terms of the Framework Agreement meet the principles of the agreement set out in Appendix A of the agreement. Unfortunately, the experience of the support staff unions is that many employers have failed to ensure that the principles of equality and fairness run through institutional implementation agreements.

We are most concerned that some settlements are using differential agreements for different groups of staff which both perpetuated existing inequalities and in some cases created new one. Regretfully some of these arrangements have arisen from some local interpretations of the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ between UCEA and the AUT that has created a climate of confusion and misinterpretation across the pre-1992 institutions.

At a time when employers are being faced with increasing litigation in the field of equal pay we believe that a renewed statement is required from UCEA, not just to protect institutions from legal jeopardy but to protect the spirit and integrity of the Framework Agreement. The statement should clearly outline the implications for equal pay along with clear guidance on some of the unacceptable pay and grading arrangements that are being introduced in the name of the Framework Agreement that have nothing to do with the spirit or the of terms of the agreement. The PTTAS unions are therefore seeking a joint statement with the employers covering these issues.

Conclusion

The introduction of top up fees in England has created a new funding stream for the sector and it is vital that a significant element of this funding goes towards addressing the historical underpayment of staff in the higher education sector. It was seven years ago that Sir Michael Bett recommended in his review of terms and conditions of employment in higher education that there should be a minimum wage of £11,000 per year in higher education. Whilst we welcome the fact that this milestone is finally going to be achieved this year, it is long overdue.

This year’s settlement needs to create the foundation of a way forward for the sector. We need substantial increases to all points on the salary spine, underpinned by increases for the lowest paid, a commitment from UCEA to address both terms and conditions of employment and commitment to the principles of the Framework Agreement.

The trade union side looks forward to a swift resolution of the claim.