Author: ucuuea2

USS – urgent message from UCU branch committee

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The UCU@UEA branch committee has written urgently to Vice-Chancellor David Richardson today. Our email is below.

 

We urge all members to sign the UCU national petition to save our pensions: https://t.co/UOvsTctBRR

 

In solidarity,

 

UCU@UEA branch committee

 

 

Dear David,

We are writing to request that you urge your representatives in Universities UK to revoke their unnecessary cuts to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) due to take place tomorrow Friday 1st April, in light of the recent USS Financial Monitoring Plan  (FMP), which shows that the scheme is financially healthy, and to instruct USS to implement UCU’s proposals as the most sensible short-term solution ahead of a new valuation.

Growth in the scheme’s assets from £66.5bn in March 2020 to £88.8bn at the end of February 2022, has outstripped growth in liabilities, meaning that the required deficit recovery contributions now stand at 0%.  The strong financial position of the scheme, as reflected in the new FMP, demonstrates that UEA and other USS institutions will be paying out huge sums of money to redress a deficit that does not exist. In UEA’s case this sum appears to stand at £7.3 million per year.

If the cuts to guaranteed retirement income in USS come into force and are not reversed, they will not only entrench deep inequalities in our sector but threaten its future.  For many of our members, a good pension was a saving grace in the face of erosion of pay and working conditions. Sadly, we were therefore unsurprised that UCU’s recent survey showed 60% of staff planning to leave the sector in the next five years over these pension cuts.

Neither you nor any other institution in USS should be wasting money on a non-existent deficit. By pushing for UCU’s proposals to be tabled and passed — as the best solution while the union and UUK work together to press for a sensible, moderately prudent valuation — you will be protecting the pensions of your staff, who are, after all, the single most important resource for a university.

Our members are already profoundly dejected by the attacks on pensions and pay, and as staff surveys continue to demonstrate, morale among UEA staff is at an all-time low. If UUK presses ahead with these cuts after they have been decisively shown to be completely unnecessary, it would be an unforgivable betrayal.

Please do everything in your power to urgently pressure UUK to change course.

Yours sincerely,

The UCU@UEA Branch Committee

New Branch Motion Passed at EGM

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The following motion was put to an Emergency General Meeting on the 20th January and was passed unanimously by those in attendance:

Motion 1: Face-to-Face Teaching, Online Learning and Covid-Safety on Campus

The local UCU Branch notes that:

  • The UCU National guidance and position is that all HE teaching provision, other than that which is Government mandated should be carried out remotely and online.
  • The recently identified variants of Covid-19 are more transmissible, and therefore do represent a more significant and imminent risk to staff & students engaging in in-person, face-to-face teaching.
  • The University as our employer has taken a reactive stance in responding to the latest evolutions of the pandemic. This has led to last minute decisions, which are insufficiently prepared and improperly communicated to all staff and students, with deleterious effects on staff physical and mental health as well as unmanageable workloads.

The local UCU Branch resolves:

  • To actively advocate for the University to adopt the UCU national position on face-to-face teaching or, failing that, to move as close to it as possible.
  • To actively advocate for the University to suspend all in-person, face-to-face teaching events until the start of the academic year 2021-2022 and replace them with appropriate online provisions, including adequate resources and pedagogical and technical support.
  • To actively advocate for ensuring that, where staff and students are required by Government policy to engage in face-to-face interactions, the University takes a proactive approach that goes beyond the current government minimal health and safety guidance to promote the highest standards of health and safety.

 

 

Open letter to David Richardson on strike pay deductions

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Dear Professor Richardson,

Staff involved in the current industrial action, as you know, take this action as a last resort and in the knowledge that collective action involves personal sacrifice, including financial hardship. UEA has not yet formally indicated when deductions from salaries will be imposed and this is causing unnecessary additional stress for many UCU members, particularly at this time of year.

Universities are able to choose how to implement the deduction of pay. UEA has already set a welcome precedent during the last industrial action over USS pensions, when the loss of salary was phased over three months. A growing number of universities have confirmed they will be spreading deductions over two or three months this time too, including the University of Cambridge, St Andrews University, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Durham, the University of Essex, Royal Holloway, the University of Sheffield and City UoL.

Single-month deductions would hit the lowest paid and most precarious members of staff the hardest. We see this as a form of indirect discrimination, particularly disadvantaging those with a protected characteristic, those with caring responsibilities and those on part-time and/or non-permanent contracts. Beginning the deductions in December also places unnecessary stress on administrative staff who have to deal with the issue, and contradicts the wellbeing initiatives the university has prioritised over the past years.

We call on the Executive Team to confirm as quickly as possible that salary deductions will be spread over three months. This is an important step in the process of rebuilding trust and more positive employee-employer relationships following the strike action, and a way of showing UEA to be one of the better employers in the sector. In the season of goodwill, this gesture would also be a timely and effective demonstration of commitment to staff wellbeing, which the University has made a priority with a promise to ‘Do different’.

Yours Sincerely,

The UEA UCU Committee

 

Our response to the VC’s most recent statement

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Dear Staff and Students,

 

The UCU@UEA committee wished to respond to the most recent message from our Vice-Chancellor.  In his correspondence this morning, Professor Richardson claimed that he was ‘in regular contact with the lead negotiator at Universities UK (UUK) emphasising the need for talks with UCU to resume, in order to avoid the damaging strikes scheduled to start next week’.  However, in the same message – sent to staff – he directed colleagues towards the open letter from UUK and UCEA.  This hostile letter reprints a number of half-truths, such as:

  • The claim that employers have made ‘huge efforts’ to negotiate which includes ‘abandoning previous proposals to reform [pension] benefits’ without mentioning that this only happened because colleagues took an unprecedented 14 days of unpaid strike action to force UUK to accept the Joint Expert Panel, which subsequently exposed ‘wide-ranging flaws’ in the methodology used to create the large deficit in the 2017 valuation and justified our action and our anger last year.
  • Claiming that their commitment to ‘paying 65p in every pound of increased cost’ was in order ‘to protect member benefits in full’ rather than the legally mandated backstop position that is reached whenever UCU and UUK cannot agree a fair distribution of contributions.  The failure of UUK to agree to shoulder increases in pension contributions – which UCU maintains is unnecessary – until the second report from the Joint Expert Panel is published is the reason that this backstop was automatically triggered.
  • UUK claim to have committed ‘to work jointly with UCU and USS to develop and deliver greater transparency, governance reforms and to agree shared valuation principles’, but they have failed to join UCU in calling for the reinstatement of whistleblower Prof Jane Hutton, who was sacked from the USS Board of Trustees when she raised concerns about the Board’s transparency and the approach it was taking to the valuation of our scheme.  They have also failed to join UCU in calling for the full publication of any evidence against Prof Hutton so she can be afforded the opportunity to defend herself against all charges.

 

We do not believe that an individual can both call for meaningful negotiation and accept the numerous flaws contained within this open letter.  We call on Prof Richardson to reject the open letter and join UCU and the Vice Chancellor of Essex University in calling for meaningful, positive discussions on how to manage the transition to a new and more transparent valuation process for the USS scheme.

 

There are also a number of factual errors or misstatements within the FAQs published for students.  For instance:

  • The fact that contributions are ‘less than they would otherwise have been under the original proposals’ is once again the result of hard lobbying and negotiation by UCU and not the generosity of UEA as an employer or UUK as the employer’s representative body.  UCU continues to believe that the original proposals were flawed and that a full implementation of the proposals laid out by the Joint Expert Panel would further reduce the contribution increases we and our employers are being asked to make.
  • The FAQs also claim that the University is ‘mindful of the need to maintain a good long-term relationship with UCU members at UEA’.  However, the Executive Team has consistently negotiated with UCU@UEA in bad faith during the run up to this action, promising certain positions within meetings and then circulating written guidance that directly contradicts those positions.  The UEA UCU branch has also had to rewrite elements of the employer’s own FAQs on the strike and challenge threats of disproportionate deductions from staff members who participate in lawful industrial action.  Indeed, these threats were so severe that the Branch overwhelmingly passed a motion on Monday that will call on UCU to introduce academic boycotts of all institutions that take disproportionate deductions from members participating in action short of strike (ASOS).
  • In section 11, the VC laments that we are striking after ‘there have been lengthy negotiations already’.  We lament this too.  Having been forced to take 14 days of unpaid strike action last year to prove that the attack on our pensions was the result of poor valuation calculations – since vindicated by the first report of the Joint Expert Panel – those of us who voted to suspend the action in 2018 are filled with more than just ‘very much regret’.  We would like to make it clear that no member of UCU wishes to lose more pay to refight the same battle.  We are tired of having to defend ourselves against unfair attacks on our deferred pay.  This is why UCU has called on UUK to meet with us in good faith to find a way to avert this action.  They have refused to do so.
  • Section 11 also states that the increase in our pension contributions is only ‘a small increase in cost to staff’.  The increases forced on members of the USS pension scheme this year means that they will, on average, lose more than £500 a year for no increase in retirement benefit.  £500 may be a small amount of money to the VC, whose total benefits package for the year is over £300,000 (p. 28), but it means a lot to our members.  Indeed, for those joining the scheme, this contribution increase means losing well over £15,000 during the lifetime of their scheme, rising to over £30,000 if the proposed increase in contribution levels to 11% happens in 2021.
  • Section 11 also asks that UCU call off the strike action and join UUK to ‘work towards governance reforms of USS and alternative options for future valuations’.  To do so, however, we would need to have faith that UUK intends to engage in meaningful and positive discussion.  Unfortunately, their behaviour over the past 18 months has not assured UCU members that this will be the case.  For instance, if UUK wished UCU to accept the offer, recently referred to in the Lasdun, to reduce employee contributions from 9.6% to 9.1% for two years, then why did they ask union members to forfeit their right to strike during the same period?  If we can trust UUK to handle the second JEP report (due to be published in late 2019/early 2020), then why would they ask us to remove the only tool that we have at our disposal to challenge their recent attacks on our pensions? The notion that we would halt strike action for a period of two years would have been unprecedented, essentially asking union members to disarm themselves as the Union prepares to enter negotiations on the long-term structure of the scheme.  To do so, we would need to have full faith in UUK.  We do not.  To present that offer without the context in which it was made is highly disingenuous and we wish to assure colleagues and students that UCU is willing to accept any proposal which we believe has the best interests of our members at heart.

 

It is clear to UCU that UUK wishes to undermine and belittle our concerns about the future of our own pension scheme.  We refute the notion that over £500 a year is a “small increase”.  We resent the implication that members are taking action – and losing pay – because we are unwilling to enter in to good faith negotiation with our employers.  Finally, we thoroughly reject the implication that we do not have the best interests of our students at heart.  We do not believe that students are a “unit of resource”. We do not agree that any 20-year plan at UEA can be achieved if it comes at the expense of the staff who make this University what it is. Let’s Do Different and encourage our VC to do the same.

 

With best wishes,

 

The UCU Committee.

Why are we striking?

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Dear student,

Have you heard?

Beginning Monday Nov. 25th, staff at nearly 60 universities in the UK will be going on an 8-day strike. UEA is one of those. The strike action is being taken by members of the Trade Union UCU (University and College Union).

Your lecturers, tutors and support staff DO NOT want to strike or to cause upset and worry to students. Striking always and only ever a last resort. Our working conditions are your learning conditions, so the things we are fighting for affect your future and the future of Higher education.

Why the strike?

First, let’s get the elephant out of the way. No, this is not a paid holiday.

All striking members will lose pay for every day they strike.

If the strike lasts all 8 days, striking employees would lose about 40% of their monthly income. The sacrifice and stakes for striking employees are high.

So why bear this hit?

 

The strike at UEA is about Pensions:

Sadly, this is a continuation from the 2018 strike. As one of the outcomes of the last strike, it was agreed between the Union and the Pension Scheme Provider that a Joint Expert Panel would be set up to determine a fair level of contribution from employers and employees. Both sets of negotiators agreed to abide by the evaluation of this panel. However, despite the conclusions from the Joint Expert Panel that the increases in payment that the pension scheme has imposed are unnecessary and unfair, they – along with support from university management teams – have decided to press ahead anyway. Despite attempts to resolve the issues since the last strike, we have lost faith in the leaders of our universities to put people before profit. We’ve lost faith in Universities UK (the organisation who represents all UK Universities) to engage in good-faith negotiation with our union UCU on the future of our pension scheme.

All UK employers are required, by law, to provide a workplace pension plan to their employees. This is a way to help people save a sufficient amount of retirement income. Without adequate savings, people are required to stay in employment longer and/or are likely to face financial hardship if and when they do retire. This situation may also have a detrimental effect on overall employment rates.

Pensions are not a freebie or an arbitrary perk. They are part of earned income. Pension savings are made up of direct contributions from employee pay as well as contributions from the employer as earned benefit.

All UK universities have a responsibility to ensure staff have a decent pension for when they retire. Our last strike action was to do with to the UUK’s attempt to restructure the pension scheme from a defined benefit to a defined contribution scheme. This means that our Employers want to end guaranteed pension income, so our final pensions would depend on how the stock market performs. That means huge uncertainty and a reduced retirement income for all.

Having now rolled back that proposition, the UUK has demanded that employees bear a substantial increase in contribution to keep defined benefits – despite an evaluation by a Joint Expert Panel that such an increase was unnecessary and unfair. This is especially true for younger and newer employees who stand to pay £40,000 more in contributions for £200,000 less in retirement. Higher contributions from employees also means that staff on insecure contracts and/or lower pay will be priced out of the pension scheme. We have to take action again now, to protect our pension scheme for all levels of staff now and in the future.

But why should students suffer?’

You shouldn’t!!

The ‘suffering’ argument relies on pitting the wellbeing of students against the wellbeing of staff – as if the two are in conflict. Employers continually appeal to, or question our sense of duty towards students while simultaneously eroding the conditions under which we can fulfil these duties. 

It also assumes that students have narrow interests – that they care only about classes and grades; that they don’t think about the world outside and beyond their role as students, or that they are uninterested in and unaffected by the wider social and political world. We know this isn’t true. If we allow unfair and unreasonable conduct by employers to go unchallenged, then this also affects your experience and rights as future workers too.

 

So what can you do as students before the strike?

There is another way. UUK can chose to change its position before our strike action takes place. Our VC feeds directly in to UUK. If you wish to support our action and avoid this strike, please email D.Richardson@uea.ac.uk and let him know that you support our cause and want pension justice for UEA employees. Our employment conditions are your learning conditions. Whatever happens in the upcoming weeks, we want you all to know that we have the long-term interests of this University at heart. People make UEA, not buildings. We understand the difficulties that universities are facing in the current climate, but we do not believe that students are a “unit of resource”. We do not agree that any 20-year plan at UEA can be achieved if it comes at the expense of the staff who make this University what it is. Let’s Do Different and encourage our VC to do the same.

What can you do if strike action does go ahead?

The most important thing students can do in the event of strike action is to send messages of solidarity to staff members who have chosen to take action. Staff on strike will not be reading their University emails, but messages of solidarity can be sent to ucu.office@uea.ac.uk, tweeted to @UEA_UCU, or passed on in person to those who attend the daily pickets. Choosing to go on strike is often an agonizing decision, and the support we received last year from students was invaluable in raising morale and keeping our minds focussed on the end goal – to improve learning conditions at UEA.

 

With our thanks and best wishes,

 

The UCU@UEA Committee