Email to staff and PGRs 22 March 2023

Update on national negotiations and industrial action: 22 March

Dear colleagues and postgraduate researchers,

An update following last week’s progress in national negotiations on the current industrial disputes.

A national framework for progress

Last week terms of reference were finalised between UCEA and UCU for negotiations on review of the pay spine, and also on new standards and principles on the pay-related issues (the other three ‘fights’) of workload, contract types and pay gaps. It was agreed that all parties would then consult on these proposals through their internal procedures.

• On Friday, following a rapid consultation of employers, UCEA endorsed the terms of reference. In the course of that consultation, I volunteered to sit on any group established to look at contract types, with a view to presenting the good practice negotiated locally at York as a model for emulation elsewhere.
  
  
• UCU consulted via a Branch Delegate Meeting (BDM) and an informal online e-ballot. By a narrow majority, the BDM endorsed the proposal to have a formal membership vote on the terms of reference as the basis for further talks, while continuing the strike action scheduled for this week. 
  
  I understand that the e-ballot of members, which had a turnout of over 50 percent, returned a 67% majority in favour of a motion which combined a move to a formal membership vote on the terms of reference, and calling off this week’s strike action.
  
  These responses formed a backdrop to the UCU’s Higher Education Committee (HEC) last Friday. The HEC voted not to put the terms of reference formally to UCU members and to proceed with this week’s three days of strike action. 

It is, at the time of writing, unclear where this leaves the negotiations. 

However I will reiterate that, after these years of dispute, we should do all we can to take the opportunity created through the complex negotiations that led to last week’s proposals (see my summary from last week). This opportunity, balanced carefully across pay, pay-related conditions and pensions, provides a basis for the sector - employers and unions - to work together and move ahead in cooperation to tackle the long-standing challenges of undergraduate funding and pensions regulation. 

I am concerned that the longer we take to build that cooperation, the more we weaken our credibility with the Government and the Pensions Regulator, and the more difficult it will be to tackle those challenges.

Best wishes

Charlie

Vice-Chancellor and President