Cash in on scarcity 1

We should welcome the coming collapse of national pay bargaining - and do everything possible to speed its demise ("AUT fights plan to link staff pay to job ratings", THES , April 19).

In the absence of a credible resort to industrial action, national pay schemes destroy the ability of junior staff to improve their pay.

in case the Association of University Teachers has not noticed, other countries are keen to lure our best lecturers away by promising to reward them properly for their talent.

Good lecturers are in increasingly short supply. If the AUT was really interested in its members' interests, rather than in preserving its own role, it would encourage academics to capitalise on their scarcity value.

Steve McGuire
Lecturer in international business
University of Bath