UK universities ‘systematically underpaying staff for years’

You cannot have a common pay scale for the whole country. Local pay must be higher in expensive parts of the country. The only reason that there is not a chronic staff shortage is that highly-skilled non-UK nationals can successfully apply. I cannot remember the last time that a shortlist contained a home applicant. The whole situation is unsustainable.

I am glad that the elephant in the room is being addressed about underpayment to staff, and yes the reason why there is no chronic shortage of staff. Sad but true.

It's a shame that VCs only care about academics' pay once they see their institutions sliding down the international league tables. Too late I'm afraid.....

Pay isn’t the only major problem in HE. Staff are cruelly exploited, working excessively long hours just to get through untenable workloads. Uncontrolled demands are causing acute and chronic ill health, 1000s are working on casualised and precarious contracts and the equalities pay gaps are increasing. Pensions are under attack and UUK are complicit. As are UCEA. Put all that together and we have such high levels of anger that a nation wide strike has been called. Strike and other other industrial action will continue until the employers, UCEA, and UUK take responsibility for the chaos they have created. UCEA and UUK are acting as if they, collectively, have not caused the situation HEIs desperately want to avoid (strikes and industrial unrest) with both claiming unaffordability. Well that won’t wash.