UK unions reject universities’ final pay offer

Yet another miserable offer,,,,if you think things are bad they can only get worse....Time for a major clear out of excess bureaucracy and senior management teams and middle managers and quality control time wasters with zero the negative value added. The system can no longer afford to subsidise you !

The 'sector collective' model (where universities negotiate jointly via UCEA) doesn't work. It enables some of the richest universities in the world to negotiate based on the financial precarity of their poorest peers. The result: decades of shrinking salaries across UK academia where lecturers are often living paycheck to paycheck ... especially in London/Oxbridge. At Queen's Belfast, which was ejected from UCEA, local negotiations enabled a 5.5% deal for the upcoming year. It's time to adopt a more tailored model, with local negotiations or talks involving smaller groupings of comparable institutions. Time to move away from UCEA. Enough is enough!

The low offer was inevitable given the complete lack of leverage UCU have in negotiations. Employers have weathered years of strike action with little consequence, so the threat of yet more is hardly going to change things. It is such a shame that the UCU members ( who could be bothered) voted for more of the same when they had they opportunity to change leadership and with it strategy. I guess we are going to continually suffer the erosion in pay we have witnessed for many years whilst negotiaitions take place in this format.