Higher Education pay has stagnated for more than 10 years. Leaving our members in Universities nearly 20% worse off than if pay had kept up with inflation. Poverty pay rises need to end. Our members deserve better. We need to urgently see real pay increases for University staff with an absolute minimum pay rate of £10 per hour and the Foundation Living Wage for staff and contractors.
Too many staff are seeing their pay packets become more and more stretched. This can only get worse as the cost of living crisis grows.
Employers should be ashamed of the growing inequality seen in the Gender, Ethnicity and Disability pay gaps. Equal pay for equal work should mean just that. but as employers have begun reporting these pay gaps they have not reduced but increased.
We need to see real action taken by every university to ensure that staff are not disadvantaged because of their race, gender or disability status.
While pay has shrunk our members workloads are ever increasing, University staff have seen their colleagues leave and not be replaced while additional responsibilities are constantly loaded onto those who remain. Stress at work is endemic in Universities in 2022.
Again, it falls on University staff to do more but get less. Then though the Covid crisis our members worked tirelessly to keep Universities running. Under incredible pressure to adapt to ever changing demands, as always, our members have delivered.
Porters, cleaners and catering staff, Technicians, Security guards, Librarians, student wellbeing officers. Our members in finance, learning and teaching roles, timetables and school administration. All of them have ensured universities can run, students can learn and research can continue. But they get no recognition. Our members should not pay the price for the pandemic.
Many of our members work well over the hours they are contracted to, often with no recognition of their efforts. The disparity in contracts offered across Higher Education compounds this with no consistency in hours across institutions.
UNISON support the call for a standard 35 hour week across all institutions and for secure employment contracts for staff across Universities – ending casualisation and zero hours contracts so that University staff can feel secure in knowing what they will be paid and that their contracts are permanent.
UNISON want to see outsourced staff across our universities brought back in house on decent pay and terms and conditions and with the security of decent pensions when they retire. Too many workers at Universities are earning the minimum wage and have completely inadequate pensions due to working for private contractors.
UNISON members at Durham and Newcastle are also affected by the attacks in USS pensions. Once again our members are being told to pay more and get less.
Worse they are seeing the threat to end a guaranteed income in retirement with the proposal of a defined benefit cap. Our members have worked for these pensions, this is their pay, they deserve dignity in retirement.
Union action and union negotiation can and does make a difference. We must not lose sight of what we can achieve together.
Our work as trade unions, locally and nationally brings real improvements for our members. From protecting and improving terms and conditions, winning the Foundation Living Wage and protecting the health and safety of our members, everyday union members see the difference we make.
As trade unions in Higher Education we face the same fight, for pay, job security and decent pensions.
If you are not in a union join one today, if your colleague is not in a union, tell them to join one today. Unions are the only way to stand up to attacks on our Terms and Conditions.
Danielle Jeffries