Another ballot for industrial action
David Kernohan is Deputy Editor of Wonkhe
Tags
It is not, on the face of it, surprising that the University and College Union has ended the 2025-26 New JNCHES pay negotiation process by announcing a formal ballot on industrial action.
It is what generally tends to happen at the end of New JNCHES. It is why long delayed joint work on reviewing the pay spine, on types of contracts, on equality pay gaps, and on workload has – in practice – taken forward by employers alone.
There’s no constraints on the pay uplift unions can ask for other than the pragmatism of certain parts of their decision-making processes: the 2025-26 round “ask” of 3.5 per cent was originally going to be 8 per cent. Offers made by employers are constrained by the financial reality of what the financially weakest providers are able to pay, but are – even so – generally on the optimistic side. A deferral mechanism, once a rarely used last resort, is now commonplace, meaning impressive-sounding awards happen (uncompensated) many months after the start of the year in question.
Previous rounds of industrial action on pay have had mixed success. Since 2020 UCU has balloted members, or threatened to ballot members, every year.
- In 2021-22, multiple waves of strike action kicked off early in the negotiation process and continued throughout. Employers ended up implementing the May 2021 pay offer (at least 1.4 per cent, with more for lower paid staff) without reaching an agreement with unions.
- In 2022-23 strikes and other industrial action continued before and during negotiations. Employers implemented the May 2022 final offer (3 per cent for staff above spine point 20), without reaching agreement with unions.
- In 2023-24 a planned “review of sector finances” didn’t happen because unions didn’t prioritise it. Employers delivered an 5-8 per cent uplift (an improvement on the earlier offer) despite a failure to agree with unions and continued industrial action (including a marking and assessment boycott).
- In 2024-25 strike action continued, with employers delivering a pay award including a pay uplift between 2.5 and 5.7 per cent without unions reaching agreement.
Because employers understandably do not want to carry out joint work with people who are formally in dispute with them, each of these industrial actions has resulted in a delay in important work on pay-related terms and conditions.
This year, for the 2025-26 cycle, UCU and other unions will again ballot for industrial action having rejected the employers’ “final offer” of 1.4 per cent. As has become common, this will be a national aggregated ballot – with at least 50 per cent turnout required to unlock a UK wide strike at all 138 New JNCHES members.
There has been pushback within the union – with some factions arguing that a turnout of 32 per cent (and just 61 per cent of those responding indicating a willingness to take action) did not suggest a widespread appetite for action on pay. Indeed, many branches are currently in dispute over job losses and restructuring plans, and may prefer to focus on the immediate threat.
There does not appear to be anyone seriously arguing that the union ask (3.5 per cent or £2,500, whichever is higher) is affordable by employers. The financial problems faced by the sector are well-documented, and although there may be a small number of providers that could afford an enhanced pay settlement there are many more that cannot. Some are seeking to defer payment of even the modest increase on the table on the grounds of affordability.
It is true that 1.4 per cent is a real-terms pay cut (though annual increments and pay-scale progression will mean that a number of staff members will not experience it as such). It comes alongside an inflationary increase in tuition fees in England for the academic year in question (the first since 2017), though the majority of this additional income will be used to pay increased employer national insurance contributions.
The decision to seek a formal ballot (which will cost the union in the region of £250,000) was taken by the UCU Higher Education Committee (HEC) on 1 September. Employers have, of course, already begun to implement the “final offer” first published in May 2025 – with those employers able to afford to do so without deferral paying the 1.4 per cent increase from August 2025.
The next New JNCHES negotiations, for the 2026-27 pay round, will begin early in 2026.
Please if any UCU members are reading this – *please* can you not return your ballots. I understand the frustration at current IR law but a vote for “no” could facilitate a “yes” for a totally unwinnable dispute that will see you losing hundreds, if not thousands, for absolutely nothing.
Also please for the love of god vote out UCU left and their deniable hangers on from HEC, who seem to live in an absolute fantasyland.
I’ve just seen a claim from someone who is pro IA that the HEC voted in favour of this as action on job losses AND pay…? But you can’t do aggregated action on the former by law. So this is a ballot on a dispute where half of it is not actually in the terms of the dispute. I can see negotiations on that going well. Or maybe this is the prelude to indefinite action til the govt invests in HE, or something…? This all seems likely to work really well. Kudos to UCU left and their supportive non members… Read more »
I don’t see any hope in potential IA this year for improving the offer. However, any analysis of HE pay must include the substantial real-terms pay cuts imposed on HE staff over the past decade, as well as the complete absence of any indication that this will even begin to be tackled – unlike in most other sectors. It would not be difficult for Jethwa and co to at least acknowledge the issue. Disappointingly, it also seems beyond WonkHE to discuss it too
Couldn’t agree more. Where is the vision from the employers to agree a plan to improve working conditions and pay over the medium- and long-term? Much of the content here seems to be addressed to the student experience (Jim’s work) or the university leadership/ regulators etc, but rarely seems to acknowledge how grim working in HE has become for academics and also professional staff over the last decade. That’s not just about pay, but that is part of it also.
For them to build such a vision they’d first have to admit how terrible things are and start challenging the government over it, instead of hiding how bad it’s gotten and saying vague things about financial pressures etc. I don’t agree with the UCU’s approach because I think we need to be putting the pressure on government to fix it, rather than imagining that eventually, if we just strike enough, VCs will speak up on our behalf.
This has only very recently been the UCU line anyway – until this calendar year they’ve been irresponsibly insisting the sector is “awash with cash”…
This sort of industrial action is simply not productive.
It would be far better for UCU to develop a plan for pay restoration, with the employers, which would run over a substantive period (e.g., 10+ years).
It could be sufficiently nuanced to flex with the circumstances (i.e., less progress during difficult times, more progress when the financial circumstances allow for it).
Some form of inflation lock going forward would also be a good idea (again, within limits).
Where is the long term strategic thinking?
I would love to see a long term, jointly developed plan to address pay.
While UCU must bear joint responsibility – an utterly confused union, too often distracted from its core business – the fundamental question is where is the indication that employers even acknowledge the issue, let alone want to address it? All we have heard, over multiple years, are patronising claims that sub-inflationary offers are “fair” and suggestions that staff should “learn from experience.” Without a substantial shift in attitude, it is hard to see anything other than a perpetual cycle of IA and ballots.
Agreed. But the time for serious discussions of this kind was in 2020 (and to a lesser extent in 2022 and 2023), when the union had a fairly big mandate for action, and substantial buy-in from members, giving them a relatively strong negotiating position, at least in theory. Institutions at that time also had a fairly solid financial position, for the most part. Unfortunately in 2020, the UCU negotiators were – and this will sound rude but it’s true – only interested in keeping action going, to the extent that even with Covid hitting and no negotiations taking place they… Read more »
The chances of us turning a 32% e-ballot turnout into a >50% actual ballot turnout are essentially zero. We’re about to waste £250K on a ballot we cannot win.
But the vocal and committed members wanted it! (citation needed for whether the cost of the ballot process was made clear to them) – so it had to happen or else that all-important Union Democracy (decided on by an exec committee voted in on tiny turnouts) would be undermined!