Manual staff underpaid overstressed and ignored

MARIE Conlan takes home Pounds 68 a week from her cleaning job at the United Kingdom's biggest non-collegiate university.

The 30,000-student Manchester Metropolitan University pays Mrs Conlan Pounds 3.84 for each of the 19 hours she works.

Mrs Conlan, who is the sole wage earner in her household, said at Unison's higher education sector conference in Brighton on Monday: "Everyone is equal in the university except that some are more equal than others."

Sir Kenneth Green, MMU's vice chancellor, is roughly 35 times "more equal" than Mrs Conlan. Sir Kenneth was the highest paid university vice chancellor in 1995-96, earning Pounds 129,413. He retires in September.

The financial squeeze on universities has forced managers to seek ever greater efficiency gains. Mrs Conlan said that the number of cleaning staff at MMU had been cut. Mrs Conlan said: "I have seen things being eroded over the years. There's less pride and more stress in the job now," she said.

Alan Brown, a portering colleague at MMU, takes home Pounds 180-Pounds 190 a week but must work between 45 and 55 hours, at Pounds 4. an hour, to achieve this. He said: "The pay is a disgrace, not just at MMU but throughout higher education. It's not that I begrudge Sir Kenneth his pay because I assume it's the market rate. The point is we don't even get the market rate."

MMU is by no means exceptional in terms of the paltry amount it pays manual staff. Last week's report by Hay Management Consultants showed that manual and ancillary staff in new universities earned nearly 10 per cent less on average than their counterparts in the wider public and private sectors. Manual staff in the old universities earned 15 per cent less on average.

Unison is committed to the introduction of a national minimum wage of about Pounds 4.40, which amounts to Pounds 8,600 a year.