How should we respond to the pay offer?
Reports from June and July HECs.
Dear subscribers,
UCU Commons NEC members have published a report of the last two HEC meetings: the Special HEC held on 10th June, and the calendared one held on 5th July. In these meetings, the committee discussed how to respond to UCEA’s latest pay offer. These issues can be confusing, so we’ve tried to make things as clear as possible in our report. Here is a very broad-brush-strokes summary:
Where are things as of now? In the HEC on 5th July, HEC members voted overwhelmingly to begin the dispute resolution procedures as set out in JNCHES. Given these are now in train, it seems most sensible to wait for the outcome of this process before we decide whether and how to escalate. It is also worth bearing in mind that UCU is one of five unions involved in these negotiations, and the others may have different timelines, approaches and priorities.
Our collective view is that while the UCEA pay offer isn’t good at all, we need to use the time we have for meaningful and widespread engagement with members about what our next steps should be. We need to be mindful that many branches are fighting local redundancies, and so many not have the capacity to undertake industrial action over this pay offer. We also think it’s important that we keep in sight the other three elements of the JNCHES claim (casualisation, workload and inequalities). Finally, the crisis engulfing the Higher Education sector needs our sustained focus and attention.
The report is available to read in full here. We welcome all comradely and constructive discussion on our social media pages: X and Bluesky.
In solidarity,
UCU Commons