Universities on strike warning as UCU announces pay and pension ballots
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Universities will be hit with industrial action later this year if they do not make a decent pay offer to staff and secure pensions for members of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the University and College Union (UCU) warned today (Friday).
Earlier this month the union wrote to 69 institutions warning that if they fail to defend USS pensions then the union would prepare for an industrial action ballot in September. The union’s higher education committee (HEC) met today and set out a timetable for that ballot on USS pensions and also for a pay ballot to run at the same time.
The ballots will run from Monday 9 September to Wednesday 30 October and the union’s HEC will meet to consider the results on Friday 1 November. The ballots will be disaggregated so each institution will be polled separately. Last year, university campuses were brought to a standstill by unprecedented levels of strike action.
The union said universities had done nothing to address the declining value of its members’ pay, which has fallen in real-terms by 21% in the last decade. UCU members in around 140 universities will be balloted over pay. Those institutions include the 69 where members will also being balloted USS pensions.
The USS pension scheme has been hit by a series of high-profile scandals in recent weeks after a former trustee spoke out saying her efforts to establish the level of the scheme’s deficit had been obstructed. That claim is now being looked at by the Pensions Regulator. Instead of dealing with the claims, USS has launched a probe into the whistleblower.
The universities’ representatives, Universities UK (UUK), has said it is confident that the USS trustee board is “conducting business in line with its fiduciary responsibilities” and that expressing no confidence in the USS board or executive “would be an irresponsible move”.
Despite the inaction from both USS and UUK, the chair of the work and pensions select committee Frank Field has written to the chief executive of the Pensions Regulator asking a series of questions about the whistleblower’s complaint.
UCU head of higher education Paul Bridge said: ‘Pay has been held down for too long and USS members are running out of patience. Every day seems to bring some new damning revelation about USS. Their response has been wholly inadequate, as has that of Universities UK. If universities are not prepared to work with us on pay and pensions, then they will face serious disruption later this year.’
* List of institutions UCU wrote to over USS:
- University of Aberdeen
- Aberystwyth University
- Aston University
- Bangor University
- University of Bath
- Queen’s University of Belfast
- Birkbeck, University of London
- University of Birmingham
- University of Bradford
- University of Bristol
- Brunel University, London
- University of Cambridge
- Cardiff University
- City, University of London
- Courtauld Institute of Art
- Cranfield University
- University of Dundee
- University of Durham
- University of East Anglia
- University of Edinburgh
- University of Essex
- University of Exeter
- University of Glasgow
- Goldsmiths University, London
- Heriot-Watt University
- University of Hull
- Imperial College
- Institute of Development Studies
- University of Keele
- University of Kent
- King’s College London
- University of Lancaster
- University of Leeds
- University of Leicester
- Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
- University of Liverpool
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
- London School of Economics and Political Science
- Loughborough University
- University of Manchester
- Newcastle University
- University of Nottingham
- Open University
- University of Oxford
- Queen Mary University of London
- University of Reading
- Royal Holloway, University of London
- Royal Veterinary College
- Ruskin College
- School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
- University of Salford
- Scottish Association for Marine Science
- University of London (Institutes and activities)
- University of Sheffield
- University of Southampton
- University of St Andrews
- St George’s University of London
- University of Stirling
- University of Strathclyde
- University of Surrey
- University of Sussex
- Swansea University
- University of Wales Trinity St David’s
- University of Ulster
- University of Suffolk
- The School of Pharmacy and IOE, University College London
- University of Wales
- University of Warwick
- University of York
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