Industrial action suspended - message from the branch committee

On Tuesday 31 January there was a national UCU meeting to discuss the industrial action in defence of our pensions. In particular whether to agree to the employers request that we suspend the action while new negotiations take place. There was a lively discussion at the meeting with branches arguing for suspension, maintenance of the action or escalation. The final vote was to agree suspension of the action, but not termination. If the negotiations do not lead to significant improvements in the new career-average scheme then the action will recommence.

It is clear that the VCs have been persuaded to enter negotiations, despite saying previously that they would not do so, for two reasons. Firstly the work-to-contract and strike action that we and our UCU colleagues have been taking around the country, and secondly the gains made (again through industrial action) by our colleagues in other public sector pension schemes, especially in the Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS). The latter is important because staff in post-92 universities (the old polytechnics) are in TPS, so it is clearly a problem for the old universities to be offering an inferior pension scheme. Of particular importance is that in TPS the pension is gained at a rate of 1/57th of average salary per year worked, whereas for us in USS it is only 1/80th (or about 1/72nd including the lump sum on retirement).

So for now the work-to-contract is suspended and there will be no more strike days until the negotiations are concluded. Clearly we all hope that in the negotiations the Vice-Chancellors will see the need to make further concessions and reduce the detrimental changes to our pensions. If however the negotiations are fruitless, we must be prepared to restart the action and potentially to use more effective forms of action including both further strikes and boycotts.

Who is UCU?

UCU is the largest trade union and professional association for academics, lecturers, trainers, researchers and academic related staff working in HE and FE in the UK.  It was formed in 2006 from an amalgamation of NATFHE and the AUT.   It has almost 120000 members nationally.