Students need Universities UK (UUK) and the Universities & Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) to return to negotiations on the 2023-24 pay award, offer a higher pay award and move towards a compromise with the UCU and other trade unions to settle the current dispute and end the current industrial action which is severely impacting students’ education.  

The University and College Union (UCU), the trade union representing academic and support staff in UK universities, has announced industrial action over pay, working conditions, and the future of their pension scheme. The strike dates in February and March are the most recent example of industrial action related to this dispute which has been ongoing for five years.  

The industrial action called by the higher education trade unions directly impacts the experience of students; previous strikes have led to lost learning and delayed teaching, and the current round of industrial action will see 7 weeks of disruption. Students urgently need this dispute to be resolved and students and their representative bodies are concerned that the latest pay offer from UCEA is much too low to end the dispute and move towards a compromise with UCU.

As the recognised representative channel for UCL students, we held an all-student vote in November 2022 on whether Students’ Union UCL should support the planned UCU industrial action and students voted overwhelmingly in support. We found that support for strike action had increased since our previous referendum on supporting strike action in January 2022, showing that students support university staff in their demands for fair pay and understand that academic staff working conditions directly contribute to their learning conditions.  

Over the past few years, the pay of staff in universities has not risen as quickly as it has in some other parts of the economy. Last year the national pay rise for university staff was 3% for most staff, with many also receiving additional pay rises of around 3%, meaning a total rise in the region of 6%, whilst inflation has been running close to 12%.  

Over the past twenty years there has also been an increase in academic workload as student numbers and expectations have increased. Across the sector, there are also pay disparities, where women, BME and disabled staff are on average paid less than those who are male, white and non-disabled.

As well as taking action on pay, universities should also review the reverse changes in the pension scheme made in 2021 by reducing staff pension contributions and increasing the amount that staff will receive in pension payments, to ensure all staff receive fair pensions in retirement.

Postgraduate research students who are teaching assistants can be both members of the Students’ Union and members of the UCU, meaning that they could be striking and as their representative body we support them and encourage employers to take meaningful steps to increase their pay offer.

Together with four other trade unions, UCU is asking for an increase in pay for all staff of at least inflation + 2% or 12% (whichever is higher) as well as other changes like working hours being set to 35 per week, ending precarious employment practices by universities, and action to close gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps.  

After three meetings with the trade unions across December 2022 and January 2023, the UCEA set their latest pay offer, which proposes pay uplift between 5-8%, on 25 January 2023 and said that “higher education institutions … have immense sympathy for staff facing cost of living pressures” and they “recognise that the effect of high inflation falls disproportionately on the lower paid”.  In a joint statement, the trade unions have said that this pay offer will do “little to protect staff in the cost-of-living crisis” and is a “real-terms pay cut which follows a decade of below inflation pay increases”. It is clear that the final pay offer does not address any of the demands from the trade unions, there is no consideration to the further asks (i.e. working conditions, pensions and pay gaps) and the proposed pay uplift is not enough. People working in higher education deserve more than just sympathy from their employers; their working conditions are our members’ learning conditions.

Negotiations on pay usually takes place between March and May, however the negotiation on the 2023-24 pay award was brought forward. This means that there is still time to return to negotiations, offer a higher pay award and move towards a compromise with the trade unions to settle the current dispute.  

Please sign this petition if you agree that universities must make a higher pay offer and continue negotiations with the trade unions to reach a compromise that will settle the current dispute and cease industrial action.