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