UCL-UCU: EC recommends reject UCEA offer after victory in reballot

3 April 2023

Reballot results and guidance on the proposals for the Four Fights/pay and conditions consultation

Congratulations and thank you to you and all UCL UCU members who took part in the reballot on our two disputes! Many thanks also especially to those members who contributed to the GetTheVoteOut campaign/activities. We beat the turnout threshold with a bigger turnout than the last ballot! UCU members voted overwhelmingly (over 80%) in each ballot to give the union a mandate for industrial action (see the full results at the end of this email).

Consultative Ballots - vote 'REJECT' on Four Fights

Currently, two formal consultative ballots are taking place on the next steps in these disputes. You should receive details on how to vote in these soon. You will be asked whether you accept or reject the UCEA proposals on the Four Fights and whether you accept or “Note” the employers statements on USS (there is no employer offer on USS, so to “Note” is equivalent to requiring negotiators to push employers further).

The Higher Education Committee of the UCU nationally is the elected body democratically charged with leading our disputes, and has voted to recommend ‘REJECT’ in the pay and conditions (UCEA) ballot, and ‘Note’ in the USS pensions consultation.

Your UCL UCU Executive Committee have studied the proposals carefully and recommend that you vote “REJECT” in the Four Fights/pay and conditions consultation. It is ultimately your decision, but it would not be responsible of us to fail to warn members of the negative consequences of accepting the employer proposals which we think are decisive.

At present, the only commitment from employers in the Four Fights dispute is to discuss the core issues in the future. The employers have already stated that these discussions will be limited to stating goals, rather than setting binding commitments.

For example, the employers say they will consult their members on a recommendation to take action on “zero hours contracts”. However, they also say individual contractual arrangements are ultimately down to each employer. Note also that the bulk of UCU members on casualised contracts are not on zero hours contracts. They are on as-and-when or fixed-term contracts, or on contracts which are fixed-term in all but name (“end dates subject to funding”). On our other demands such as pay gaps and workloads, the commitment is simply to talk (a commitment employers have made before).

On the immediately pressing issue of pay, the employers have simply imposed a 15% real-terms pay cut on all of us. In the middle of a cost of living crisis this means sacrificing our living standards for the sake of vice chancellors' aspirations.

Not only are employers offering very little on the other three fights, their offer is conditional on our giving up our pay dispute for at least a year. We cannot recommend our members giving up a dispute over something so fundamental in exchange for so little.

Not only are these Four Fights (pay and conditions) proposals meagre pickings, they are as bad as an offer that we rejected in 2020. For this reason and as a matter of sound industrial strategy it makes no sense to accept the offer, especially when we have a decisive and powerful mandate from our reballot and notice served on the employers for a Marking and Assessment Boycott starting in April.

You may be interested in this petition, created and signed by casualised members in the sector, which highlights how accepting the employer proposals would abandon them and their claims.

USS Dispute

The UCL UCU EC is not making an explicit recommendation on the USS dispute at this stage. However, it is worth considering the different views on this issue.

Two of the three national negotiators have written a statement stating that they think there is nothing else on the USS pension to be won at this point.
At the same time the third negotiator, who did not agree with the statement, together with a UCU ex-negotiator, has produced a short blog together with another ex-negotiator: Have we ‘won’ on USS? This argues that we have not achieved what we can or need to.
The original joint UCU-UUK statement on this can be read here for reference: A joint statement on UUK and UCU collaboration toward USS benefit restoration

To repeat, the Higher Education Committee of UCU, the body democratically elected to determine strategy in our disputes, is recommending members vote ‘to NOTE’ in this consultative ballot on USS. This is to give negotiators more time to push further on USS.

UCL UCU Executive Committee

www.ucl.ac.uk/ucu

@ucl_ucu

Results of Re-ballot

Pay and Conditions dispute (UCEA)

Are you prepared to take industrial action consisting of strike action?

Yes: 85.65%
No: 14.35%

Are you prepared to take industrial action consisting of action short of strike action?

Yes: 89.92%
No: 10.08%

Turnout: 56.41%

USS pensions dispute