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The first day of New JNCHES negotiations sets the mood for pay, conditions, and industrial relations this year
Last Thursday, Jo Grady’s update letter noted work on a joint 2024-25 union pay claim, submitted ahead of the first New JNCHES meeting of the season on Monday 25 March.
We now have sight of that pay claim, with the first set of New JNCHES publications on UCEA’s site. Some 140 employers are participating – this is down from 144 last year, with the missing four being:
In essence, the top level asks are the same as in the 2023-24 pay round – RPI plus 2 per cent on all pay points with equivalent rises to weighting, and joint work on workload, contracts, pay spine reform and inequalities. With inflation now lower than last year (currently 4.5 per cent) and projected to fall further by the time an award is made (1.6 per cent according to the Office for Budgetary Responsibility projections, this looks at first glance like an easier path to agreement.
The Employers’ Statement details why it might not be – the additional financial pressures placed on providers from changes to Teachers’ Pension Scheme contributions, falling international student numbers, and frozen home tuition fees, all preclude significant movement on pay. If inflation moves as hoped, the basic claim may be achievable, but it depends on a lot of other moving parts.
What is missing from both the pay claim and the statement is reference to the independent review of provider finances. We faced industrial action last year because of what could politely be called a difference of opinion about how much money universities actually have – impolitely the bizarrely stubborn UCU view that you can tot up all the “reserves” figures from HESA Finance data and negotiate based on a sector wide position of “vast wealth”. The idea of the independent review was to put the negotiation on a level playing field and at least start in reality – it was agreed to but appears not to have been taken forward.
There looks to be an employer willingness to work on the pay-related issues, as last year – so a lot will depend on whether terms of reference can be agreed. A previous draft was rejected by union members last year and has been revised.
There are other union requests, the most important being that the full pay headline claim is RPI plus 2 per cent or a flat rate of at least £2,500, whichever is greater – plus a commitment to restore “lost pay” (though this is not defined other than in an introductory suggestion that members have lost “up to 30 per cent” of the value of their pay over the past decade.
On the cash alternative, for a likely RPI of 1.6 (plus the 2 per cent) every spine point would see a pay increase of under £2,500. To get to the magic figure we are looking at a 7 per cent pay rise at the national median salary level.
This is coupled with a new minimum pay rate of £15 an hour, and the deletion of spine points below the Foundation Living Wage (currently £12 for most of the UK – and £13.15 in London). The latter clause would knock out every spine point up to point 12, the former would mean points below 22 would be out of bounds. That is a big ask – and although there are comparatively few academic staff below grade 20 (and almost none below grade 10) these points are well used for other staff.
Last year, employers agreed to cease the use of spine point three – and larger rises in pay were awarded to staff below spine point 25. Employers are more likely to move on low pay and on non-pay elements, and if the baseline rise turns out to be 3.6 per cent that feels at least possible. But the wilder elements of this claim feel very unlikely indeed – with a weakened and depleted union unlikely to force the issue too far.