UCU responds to the 2024-25 pay offer
David Kernohan is Deputy Editor of Wonkhe
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It will come as a shock to nobody, but New JNCHES is once again set to enter dispute resolution.
At Friday’s branch delegate meeting (BDM), we are told that “most branches considered the offer unsatisfactory”. But that isn’t quite the whole story.
In all, 190 branches expressed opinions on five questions related to the offer. A small majority (51 per cent) voted to reject the offer currently on the table if it became the final offer. And 83 per cent supported entering the dispute resolution process.
But then it gets interesting. The majority (55 per cent) did not actively support taking industrial action in pursuit of an improved offer (26 per cent were against, 29 per cent abstained). This is a big shift from last year, where we saw action pretty much from the start of the process.
The final two questions suggest that it is the pay (47 per cent would reject) rather than the pay-related elements (35 per cent) that will be the sticking point.
UCU also highlights “helpful qualitative feedback on other elements such as workload, casualisation, redundancies and the need to protect migrant workers in the sector” that came from the branches.
UCEA responds
This response, and a similar response from Unison’s sector group executive, has not impressed employers. The notable thing about this New JNCHES round has been the among of time (3 months) and the number of meetings that has taken place – the sense from UCEA is that every option has been explored and there is really not much more that is going to shift in time for an uplift to begin on 1 August.
Of the other campus unions, Unite and GMB are determining timetables for a vote with a neutral recommendation – EIS has yet to respond.
The percentage of branches indicating they would be willing to take strike action doesn’t bode well for reaching the 50% turnout threshold, if we were balloted. We’ve got no leverage (it gives me no pleasure to say) – but national UCU should be focusing on the wider destruction of the sector, which it has been astonishingly quiet about, bar a couple of tweets.
I assume the lack of voice on job losses is cos they’re still wedded to the Four Fights as their main campaigning issue(s), but it does demonstrate that the union structures are so completely inflexible (and frankly that the union HEC are totally inflexible too, even the Gradyite moderates) that you could have multiple universities fully go under and they’d still want to be on strike based on the sector being so “awash with cash” that all temp contracts should be made permanent along with a 20% payrise for all plus reduced workloads etc etc.
It’s encouraging though to see a shift at least in the sense that some branches have noticed that being in dispute on the issues other than pay is not especially helpful (especially on pay gaps which Universities are actually working quite hard on, but somehow it’s not enough, for Reasons).
What would a pragmatic resolution to casualisation be in 2025? There isn’t the cash to even *temporarily* fill vacancies based on colleagues leaving permanent jobs (whether by choice or enforced); scores of permanent people are being made redundant. That’s not to say permanent people are necessarily more important, but it *is* to say that the only solution to casualisation is going to be no more jobs at all..