Minimum service levels ‘won’t protect students from strikes’

Yes, a few Us publicly announced a £500 payment for degree result delays; others have probably made payments on the quiet. If consumer protection was working properly such payments would have been automatic as enforced by the OfS/CMA - and anyway as urged by the UUK as the industry trade body.

Raj Jethwa's suggestion that UCU members would do better by pursuing "less disruptive tactics such as boycotting research activities or academic conferences" is instructive. He wants UCU members to take action that primarily impacts who? The members themselves! He wants trade unions to take action that causes the least possible inconvenience to university managements and will be barely noticed by UCEA, the media and general public. I can't see UCU jumping at that idea for strengthening its future industrial strategy. UCEA and UUK have become more and more intransigent over the past dozen years despite the huge injection of funding from tuition fees (spent on buildings, senior management salaries etc rather than frontline staff). No wonder industrial relations in HE have deteriorated so much when this is the openly stated view of the leader of UCEA.

Having heard today about the complex process of getting salary increments I despair at the state of academia. In some universities, a rigid promotion framework has left many academics stuck in the same salary bands for 5 years + (despite a steep increase in the cost of living) with no chance of promotion. They have to jump through many hoops to get promoted. Meanwhile, the other half get huge salary increases and bonuses (an unheard of term in academia). Where is the justice?