2009 pay and associated items
I reported to you in my last Circular 7th October 2009 that Unite had entered into discussions with UCEA via ACAS following our members rejection of the offer on 0.5% on pay and the refusal by UCEA to enter into a national agreement on job security and redundancy avoidance.
I also reported that Unison appeared to be willing to accept the offer but remained deeply disturbed by the low offer and warned that they would not accept a repeat in next years pay round.
Since then others unions have reported back their positions. EIS one of the Scottish education unions has written to UCEA and rejected the offer. So has UCU, again rejecting the offer and seeking a firm commitment by UCEA on job security and redundancy avoidance within the sector. The last union to report back was GMB who have also rejected the employers offer.
The latest letter sent today is from all unions to UCEA seeking a reopening of the New JNCHES negotiations. This has been timed to arrive for the UCEA Board meeting taking place today, 15th October.
Unite has continued with a series of meeting with UCEA under ACAS auspices. The content of these discussions were reported in my last Circular. For the time being the discussions are paused awaiting other developments reported above. The ACAS discussions may be reopened but other attempts are being made to reopen New JNCHES and Unite will be a party to those talks if they materialise.
In a way I can appreciate UCEA's dilemma. Their university subscribers refuse to give them any leeway on negotiations. The subscribers appear to be acting like Ostriches with their heads firmly stuck in the sand hoping the legitimate issues the trade unions are raising on pay, especially for the low paid in the sector and job security will simply go away. They will not.
Until UCEA have the power to negotiate then the employers will be faced with a rising level of dissatisfaction and discontent from ordinary members. It does mean at the moment UCEA have little to offer and there is a danger to national negotiations if UCEA do not have the ability to negotiate. On the other hand the employers won’t want full blown negotiations locally because as institutions will find the pressure from trade unions can be more concentrated and intense.
Unite continues to receive announcements from universities on proposed job losses, yet the same universities refuse to agree a process for redundancy avoidance before we even get to an announcement on job losses. In other sectors deals have been done in exchange for settlements on low pay that also limit redundancies. In higher education the employer wants the "penny and the bun"; to offer the lowest increase in the public sector this year but also to retain the ability to apply compulsory job losses and not even sign up to a modest agreement on redundancy avoidance.
The joint trade unions are now waiting to see if UCEA are prepared to engage in further dialogue. If not I will be seeking a clear mandate from members on where they wish to go next and it will be debated at the new Unite national education industry committee (NIEC) meeting being held next week.
I will keep you advised after next weeks meeting.
Yours sincerely
Mike Robinson
National Officer
Higher Education
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
unison vote to accept pay
Unison have now announced the result of their consultation ballot. The text of their note to members is a s follows
UNISON 6th October 2009
"Overwhelming vote to accept the 2009/10 pay offer
The pay consultation results for this year reveal that 81.5% of members voted in favour of accepting the offer.
Accompanying feedback suggested that whilst members saw the offer as very poor, they took into account recent pay awards and were mainly focussed on protection of their jobs. Nonetheless there appears to be a significant feeling that whilst members are prepared to put up with a low offer this year, that should the national employers seek to make a similar offer next year there would be a different reaction.
UNISON’s national Higher Education Service Group Executive (HESGE) met on the 2nd October to discuss the results of the consultation and decided that the clear result meant that the offer should be accepted and to inform the employers accordingly. The HESGE also noted that whilst UNISON members have indicated that they are ready to settle that other unions are still involved in their internal consultations and we will aim to work together and avoid potential divisions over the coming period.
The HESGE made it clear during the consultation that they will continue to press for a national intervention around job cuts and did not see the issue solely linked to the pay offer. As noted in HE/30/09 we continue to discuss a potential letter from the employers to their members that would outline our concerns.
Finally noting the feeling of members the HESGE has begun to plan a campaign for next years pay round. We will be seeking to work closely with the other unions under the “5 unions 1 demand Defend Higher Education” banner.
Unite negotiators have had two dispute level meetings with UCEA on the 20th August and 18th September. Aside from putting each others point of view nothing else of substance came out of the meetings except UCEA's claim that they have been given clear instructions from subscribing universities that they cannot move on either pay or an agreement on redundancy avoidance.
This means that as far as the disputes procedure is concerned Unite has exhausted all internal level discussions. There is an external level to ACAS.
UCEA Chief Executive Jocelyn Prudence wrote to me to formally offer talks at ACAS to try and resolve the disputed items. The matter was put to a special action committee formed from some members from the old T&G and Amicus national committees. That action committee meeting was held on the 24th September. The meeting agreed that the Unite negotiators should attend ACAS for further talks.
The meeting was held with ACAS facilitation on 5th October. Due to a number of absences from the Unite side some deputising was necessary. Tony Aldridge from University of Swansea, John Hannigan from Strathclyde, Sandra Robinson from University of Liverpool and myself attended on behalf of Unite. Michael McNeill from UCU attended as observer as did Jon Richards from Unison. The meeting was hosted by John Woods for ACAS and UCEA was represented by Chief Executive Jocelyn Prudence, Deputy Chief Executive Helen Fairfoul and Head of Employee Relations & Reward Damian Docherty.
The pay issues were set aside for the present to see if other areas could be progressed. Unite concentrated on trying to get UCEA to move on the redundancy avoidance agreement but because of the limitations on UCEA's remit it was clear there was little negotiating room. A possible avenue for potential progress could be through a New JNCHES working group on financial sustainability of HEIs, including looking at workforce planning, with partnership work proposed on increasing understanding of technical aspects of HEI finance. Discussions are continuing on this.
I will advise on any progression on these items in a later Circular.
Finally UCU are due to announce the results of its consultation process on 9th October. I will advise you about this when I hear what UCU is announcing to members in due course.
I know that behind the scenes everyone has been working hard ensuring our membership records are correct. Thank you for undertaking this task, it is appreciated.
Yours sincerely
Mike Robinson
National Officer
Higher Education
UNISON 6th October 2009
"Overwhelming vote to accept the 2009/10 pay offer
The pay consultation results for this year reveal that 81.5% of members voted in favour of accepting the offer.
Accompanying feedback suggested that whilst members saw the offer as very poor, they took into account recent pay awards and were mainly focussed on protection of their jobs. Nonetheless there appears to be a significant feeling that whilst members are prepared to put up with a low offer this year, that should the national employers seek to make a similar offer next year there would be a different reaction.
UNISON’s national Higher Education Service Group Executive (HESGE) met on the 2nd October to discuss the results of the consultation and decided that the clear result meant that the offer should be accepted and to inform the employers accordingly. The HESGE also noted that whilst UNISON members have indicated that they are ready to settle that other unions are still involved in their internal consultations and we will aim to work together and avoid potential divisions over the coming period.
The HESGE made it clear during the consultation that they will continue to press for a national intervention around job cuts and did not see the issue solely linked to the pay offer. As noted in HE/30/09 we continue to discuss a potential letter from the employers to their members that would outline our concerns.
Finally noting the feeling of members the HESGE has begun to plan a campaign for next years pay round. We will be seeking to work closely with the other unions under the “5 unions 1 demand Defend Higher Education” banner.
Unite negotiators have had two dispute level meetings with UCEA on the 20th August and 18th September. Aside from putting each others point of view nothing else of substance came out of the meetings except UCEA's claim that they have been given clear instructions from subscribing universities that they cannot move on either pay or an agreement on redundancy avoidance.
This means that as far as the disputes procedure is concerned Unite has exhausted all internal level discussions. There is an external level to ACAS.
UCEA Chief Executive Jocelyn Prudence wrote to me to formally offer talks at ACAS to try and resolve the disputed items. The matter was put to a special action committee formed from some members from the old T&G and Amicus national committees. That action committee meeting was held on the 24th September. The meeting agreed that the Unite negotiators should attend ACAS for further talks.
The meeting was held with ACAS facilitation on 5th October. Due to a number of absences from the Unite side some deputising was necessary. Tony Aldridge from University of Swansea, John Hannigan from Strathclyde, Sandra Robinson from University of Liverpool and myself attended on behalf of Unite. Michael McNeill from UCU attended as observer as did Jon Richards from Unison. The meeting was hosted by John Woods for ACAS and UCEA was represented by Chief Executive Jocelyn Prudence, Deputy Chief Executive Helen Fairfoul and Head of Employee Relations & Reward Damian Docherty.
The pay issues were set aside for the present to see if other areas could be progressed. Unite concentrated on trying to get UCEA to move on the redundancy avoidance agreement but because of the limitations on UCEA's remit it was clear there was little negotiating room. A possible avenue for potential progress could be through a New JNCHES working group on financial sustainability of HEIs, including looking at workforce planning, with partnership work proposed on increasing understanding of technical aspects of HEI finance. Discussions are continuing on this.
I will advise on any progression on these items in a later Circular.
Finally UCU are due to announce the results of its consultation process on 9th October. I will advise you about this when I hear what UCU is announcing to members in due course.
I know that behind the scenes everyone has been working hard ensuring our membership records are correct. Thank you for undertaking this task, it is appreciated.
Yours sincerely
Mike Robinson
National Officer
Higher Education
Pay Latest
Re JNCHES Pay and other items
Following on from my last Circular on JNCHES negotiations in July which you will recall reported that over 83% of Unite members in Universities who had responded rejected the 0.5% pay offer and the refusal by UCEA to sign up to a redundancy avoidance and job security agreement I wrote to Jocelyn Prudence Chief Executive of UCEA to record the Unite rejection and the fact that Unite is in dispute on the pay and the refusal to sign up to redundancy avoidance/job security issue.
Under the JNCHES procedures parties in dispute should have at least two meeting to seek to resolve outstanding matters. To this end both Unite and UCEA agreed the 20th August and 18th September dates to address the matters in dispute.
At the 18th August meeting Unite outlined the reasons why a 0.5% offer was not attractive or acceptable to Unite members. Various inflation indices were expected to rise and Unite members particularly those on low pay had suffered considerable increases in food and fuel costs due to inflationary pressures. Unite was also concerned about a further increase in inflation over the period 2009/2010 to which the 0.5% offer was intended to cover as well as explaining that many financial sources were anticipating a worsening of the inflation indexes over 2009-2010.
Unite presented various potential ways forward on the current impasse. These included the possibility of re-opening pay discussion later in the salary cycle if inflation did indeed worsen. It was also tentatively raised the possibility of special recognition for low paid staff to avoid on cost issues for the employer of a one off or re-jigged payment that would go some way towards the higher food and fuel inflationary pressures.
Unite was also concerned that UCEA seemed to have no mandate to enter into agreement with the JNCHES unions on a redundancy avoidance or job security agreement despite the fact UCEA had introduced the subject into negotiations.
UCEA responded to these points but also agreed to take the issues away to consider them in more detail. There was also a Universities UK meeting on the 8th September in Edinburgh where the UCEA response would be raised and perhaps fine tuned.
At the return meeting on the 18th September UCEA disappointingly were unable to improve their abysmally low 0.5% offer, nor to offer any agreement on a redundancy avoidance/job security agreement. It appears that once again UCEA negotiators do not have the ability to move away from their subscribers limited mandate or to agree a national process.
At the meeting Unite negotiators time and time again returned to the effects of applying such a low rate of 0.5% on low paid salaries and of those higher education institutions who rather than seek to avoid job losses seemed to relish pushing ahead with redundancies as a means of resolving financial pressures. Unite also reminded UCEA that at some HEI's there were remuneration increases beyond 0.5% but not for those in the low paid groups.
The meeting broke up with Unite negotiators advising they were still in dispute and would take the response back to a special meeting of Unite meeting on the 24th September.
On the 21st September Jocelyn Prudence for UCEA wrote to me asking would Unite be willing to attend an ACAS brokered meeting to explore ways out of the latest impasse.
At the Unite special reps meeting held on 24th September with selected reps from the old HENIC and T&G committee present it was agreed to accept the offer of a meeting at ACAS. It was further agreed to ask to extend the meeting to observers from other unions as had previously happened in other disputes.
This meeting is due to take place on the 5th October at ACAS meetings London with a delegation of Unite representatives and myself as National Officer with UCEA and observers from the other unions UCU, Unison. EIS are not able to attend and I think we are still waiting for GMB to respond to the invitation.
I will issue a further circular after the 5th October to advise what took place.
For your information other unions are now completing their consultation processes and I think by the 9th October when the last result is expected we will have an understanding where other unions wish to go on the matter.
I would like to thank everyone for all the work that has gone in to getting our membership lists ready for any possible ballot. Keep them updated and be prepared to respond to any ballot call.
The new Unite National Education Industrial Committee will be meeting shortly and will be making important decisions about where Unite goes in relation to any dispute. The new Committee will also have the opportunity of electing new JNCHES negotiators from Unite. As soon as the date for this committee has been agreed I will let everyone know.
Finally the new National Education Sector Conference will be held on 26th November in Brighton to consider motions from Regional Committees. I am sure the pay and related redundancy issues will be at the fore of the Conference discussions.
Yours sincerely
Mike Robinson
National Officer
Higher Education
Following on from my last Circular on JNCHES negotiations in July which you will recall reported that over 83% of Unite members in Universities who had responded rejected the 0.5% pay offer and the refusal by UCEA to sign up to a redundancy avoidance and job security agreement I wrote to Jocelyn Prudence Chief Executive of UCEA to record the Unite rejection and the fact that Unite is in dispute on the pay and the refusal to sign up to redundancy avoidance/job security issue.
Under the JNCHES procedures parties in dispute should have at least two meeting to seek to resolve outstanding matters. To this end both Unite and UCEA agreed the 20th August and 18th September dates to address the matters in dispute.
At the 18th August meeting Unite outlined the reasons why a 0.5% offer was not attractive or acceptable to Unite members. Various inflation indices were expected to rise and Unite members particularly those on low pay had suffered considerable increases in food and fuel costs due to inflationary pressures. Unite was also concerned about a further increase in inflation over the period 2009/2010 to which the 0.5% offer was intended to cover as well as explaining that many financial sources were anticipating a worsening of the inflation indexes over 2009-2010.
Unite presented various potential ways forward on the current impasse. These included the possibility of re-opening pay discussion later in the salary cycle if inflation did indeed worsen. It was also tentatively raised the possibility of special recognition for low paid staff to avoid on cost issues for the employer of a one off or re-jigged payment that would go some way towards the higher food and fuel inflationary pressures.
Unite was also concerned that UCEA seemed to have no mandate to enter into agreement with the JNCHES unions on a redundancy avoidance or job security agreement despite the fact UCEA had introduced the subject into negotiations.
UCEA responded to these points but also agreed to take the issues away to consider them in more detail. There was also a Universities UK meeting on the 8th September in Edinburgh where the UCEA response would be raised and perhaps fine tuned.
At the return meeting on the 18th September UCEA disappointingly were unable to improve their abysmally low 0.5% offer, nor to offer any agreement on a redundancy avoidance/job security agreement. It appears that once again UCEA negotiators do not have the ability to move away from their subscribers limited mandate or to agree a national process.
At the meeting Unite negotiators time and time again returned to the effects of applying such a low rate of 0.5% on low paid salaries and of those higher education institutions who rather than seek to avoid job losses seemed to relish pushing ahead with redundancies as a means of resolving financial pressures. Unite also reminded UCEA that at some HEI's there were remuneration increases beyond 0.5% but not for those in the low paid groups.
The meeting broke up with Unite negotiators advising they were still in dispute and would take the response back to a special meeting of Unite meeting on the 24th September.
On the 21st September Jocelyn Prudence for UCEA wrote to me asking would Unite be willing to attend an ACAS brokered meeting to explore ways out of the latest impasse.
At the Unite special reps meeting held on 24th September with selected reps from the old HENIC and T&G committee present it was agreed to accept the offer of a meeting at ACAS. It was further agreed to ask to extend the meeting to observers from other unions as had previously happened in other disputes.
This meeting is due to take place on the 5th October at ACAS meetings London with a delegation of Unite representatives and myself as National Officer with UCEA and observers from the other unions UCU, Unison. EIS are not able to attend and I think we are still waiting for GMB to respond to the invitation.
I will issue a further circular after the 5th October to advise what took place.
For your information other unions are now completing their consultation processes and I think by the 9th October when the last result is expected we will have an understanding where other unions wish to go on the matter.
I would like to thank everyone for all the work that has gone in to getting our membership lists ready for any possible ballot. Keep them updated and be prepared to respond to any ballot call.
The new Unite National Education Industrial Committee will be meeting shortly and will be making important decisions about where Unite goes in relation to any dispute. The new Committee will also have the opportunity of electing new JNCHES negotiators from Unite. As soon as the date for this committee has been agreed I will let everyone know.
Finally the new National Education Sector Conference will be held on 26th November in Brighton to consider motions from Regional Committees. I am sure the pay and related redundancy issues will be at the fore of the Conference discussions.
Yours sincerely
Mike Robinson
National Officer
Higher Education
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