{"id":814,"date":"2018-11-08T19:51:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T19:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/?p=814"},"modified":"2018-11-22T20:12:19","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T20:12:19","slug":"union-silo-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/11\/08\/union-silo-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"UNION SILO BLUES"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year the five main UK Higher Education unions (including the three recognised at Lancaster University) haggle and bargain over pay rates for staff in the sector with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA, acronym fans!).<\/span><\/p>\n

This year the unions’ joint claim was for an increase of 7.5% or \u00a31500 (FTE) whichever is higher, and a minimum wage of \u00a310 per hour, plus demands around the gender pay gap and precarious contracts. Full details here: http:\/\/www.ucu.org.uk\/media\/9311\/UCUBANHE29\/pdf\/HE_Pay_claim_submitted.pdf<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

UCEA’s final offer was a pay increase of 2% or \u00a3425 (FTE), whichever is higher, alongside promises to tackle the gender pay gap and casualisation issues at a sector level. Full details here: https:\/\/www.ucea.ac.uk\/download.cfm\/docid\/CD07D3D7-EBCE-4027-9FB2DF4F48C39D6E<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, most of the unions rejected the UCEA offer, and both Unison and UCU decided to ballot their members about taking industrial action.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now. Given that there has to be co-ordination and communication at a national level to do this, and given that UCU have recently taken successful industrial action over pensions (that arguably only really affected the highest paid staff) and given that the gender pay gap at Lancaster University is the third worst in the country, and… well, you’d think that there would also be a level of joined-upness locally…<\/span><\/p>\n

Erm, well, no. UCU and Unison ballots went ahead at Lancaster University simultaneously, with the left hand not knowing what the… left hand was doing. Just think what a little joined up thinking and campaigning could have achieved.<\/span><\/p>\n

On a national level, despite a high turnout from UCU members, very few institutions met the 50% turnout legal requirement. Lancaster hit 44.9%, though among those members who did return their ballots, 69.7% supported strike action and 80.7% action short of a strike. In Unison, an ‘overwhelming majority’ of HE members voted to take strike action, but unfortunately that tricky 50% turnout threshold was once again not reached.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our subtext drones made discreet enquiries amongst professional services colleagues to see if we could get a comment from a Unison member, but everyone had their heads down. In the end we asked the branch contact for a few words:<\/span><\/p>\n

‘The Lancaster University Unison branch has been dormant for quite some time, and there’s currently just me and one other volunteer who are trying to get things up and running again. We didn’t have members’ contact details to try and organise any meetings around the pay offer. It would have been really good to know that UCU were also balloting, maybe hold some joint meetings, share information and campaign together about this.’<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, we just had to lob a brick out of the warehouse window to hit a UCU member who was prepared to comment:<\/span><\/p>\n

‘On this occasion it looks like Lancaster UCU missed an opportunity to collaborate with Unison. There are numerous issues on which we already do work together with our sister unions, and we will try to continue to stand up for all University staff by standing together with Unison and Unite.’<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the current state of affairs in the subtext warehouse (see subtext 181 editorial) we totally recommend being in a union, but please give your branch officers a prod to talk to the other ones!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year the five main UK Higher Education unions (including the three recognised at Lancaster University) haggle and bargain over pay rates for staff in the sector with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA, acronym fans!). This year the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[408,425,70,426],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-issue-182","tag-trade-unions","tag-ucu","tag-unison"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99sHo-d8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":526,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/04\/26\/never-mind-the-gap\/","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":0},"title":"NEVER MIND THE GAP","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"April 26 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Lancaster, the University of the Year 2018, has come near the top of yet another league table: the gender pay gap rankings, that is. According to its own recently published figures (http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/media\/lancaster-university\/content-assets\/documents\/edi\/GenderPayGapReport.pdf), Lancaster's gender pay gap of mean 27.7%, median 26.5%, against a sector average of mean 17.8% and median\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":713,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/09\/13\/watch-this-space-gender-pay-gap\/","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":1},"title":"WATCH THIS SPACE: GENDER PAY GAP","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"September 13 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"We reported, in issue 176, that according to a league table Lancaster has the third worst gender pay gap amongst UK universities. A flurry of committees, working groups, and consultations have been frantically set up in response, and we will cover the progress of the university's deliberations when subtext springs\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "history"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1193,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2020\/02\/19\/gender-stereotyping-masterclass\/","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":2},"title":"GENDER STEREOTYPING MASTERCLASS","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"February 19 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"'Our emails display our brand just like a letterhead or a business card,' noted a news item on 14 February, launching Lancaster's new email signature template files: https:\/\/portal.lancaster.ac.uk\/intranet\/news\/article\/introducing-the-new-university-email-signature Four templates are provided at: https:\/\/answers.lancaster.ac.uk\/display\/ISS\/Use+a+university+email+signature There's plenty of advice and guidance: email signatures need to be useful, lawful and, of course,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":804,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/11\/08\/withering-heights\/","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":3},"title":"WITHERING HEIGHTS","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"November 8 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"People in the Management School have been confused in recent weeks by signs visible around the fire doors outside Lecture Theatre 4 stating 'CAUTION: Men Working Overhead' - many staff on the top floor of LUMS are actually female! On closer inspection, it appears that the signs were put up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "news"","block_context":{"text":"news","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":513,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/04\/26\/lu-text-lost-and-found-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":4},"title":"LU TEXT LOST AND FOUND","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"April 26 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"LU Text isn't perfect, and in trying to provide a weekly roundup of Lancaster's mentions in the press, it is inevitably going to miss the odd story here and there. Hence, we produce LU Text Lost and Found with only the most collegial intentions at heart. First up, the Sale\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "lu text lost and found"","block_context":{"text":"lu text lost and found","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/lu-text-lost-and-found\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":703,"url":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/2018\/09\/13\/letter-of-the-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":814,"position":5},"title":"LETTER (OF THE YEAR)","author":"Johnny Unger","date":"September 13 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear subtext, The so-called Gender Pay Gap is, in fact, a Sex Pay Gap and the efforts that the university are suggesting around maternity and childcare are woefully inadequate, the latter mainly consisting of signposting things that are already available (though in the case of preschool childcare, pretty inadequate -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "letters"","block_context":{"text":"letters","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/category\/letters\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":815,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions\/815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/subtext\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}