USS Information and Resources

Fundamentally this dispute is about the creation of a two-tier pension scheme, with fears that this will inevitably lead to a worse scheme for all.

New entrants are now on a career average scheme, as opposed to existing final salary scheme. UCU are not opposed on principle to career average pensions, but these proposals are highly detrimental to new entrants and create a big tier in the scheme. We think this gap is to enable employers to create a buffer that will allow them to reduce their own contributions in the future.

There is a major risk that if the big tier is allowed to remain, the employers will return in a few years to move those in the final salary onto the lower tier. Every single pension scheme that has introduced a tier for new entrants has stopped the original scheme within a few years.

We have offered to resolve the dispute with a set of our own counter-proposals that would narrow the gap between existing members and new entrants, reducing the risk of a future attack on final salary members. The employers refused to consider this, relying on the USS board’s threat of legal action against our representatives and the chair’s casting vote to force their own proposals through the USS Joint Negotiating Committee.

So it’s not just about worse pensions for new staff, or fears for the future of our scheme, but the whole bullying approach to UCU representatives which has serious implications for future national negotiations.

What action is happening now?

• to work no more than their contracted hours where those hours are expressly stated, and in any event not to exceed the maximum number of hours per week stipulated in the Working Time Regulations
• to perform no additional voluntary duties, such as out of hours cover, or covering for colleagues (unless such cover is contractually required)
• to undertake no duties in breach of health and safety policies or other significant employer’s policies
• to set and mark no work beyond that work which they are contractually obliged to set and/or mark
• to attend no meetings where such attendance is voluntary on the part of the member

What next?

Hope is that this action will bring the employers to the negotiating table.

If it does not, the union will halt the working to contract action in order to organise rolling strike action within each institution with different groups of staff taking turns to take action in order to cause maximum disruption.

If that in turn does not produce a breakthrough in the dispute, the union will consider more serious action short of a strike, including a boycott of the Research Excellence Framework, other internal administrative processes, and of student assessment.

This process of staged escalation gives the employers the maximum opportunity to resume constructive discussions on USS, while initially minimising disruption to students and staff.