Striking staff defiant as v-cs close ranks on pay and pensions

Further strikes against “vicious” pension cuts and a below-inflation pay deal will face more unified opposition from UK university leadership than in previous disputes despite warnings that staff resistance remains strong, sector figures predicted.

Staff at 68 universities will walk out for five days later this month over plans to cut pensions provided by the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and the failure to improve on this year’s pay offer – which includes a 1.5 per cent minimum rise.

It follows 10 days of strike action that failed to persuade vice-chancellors to reopen this year’s pay negotiations or the USS reform process, which concluded last month in favour of proposed cuts.

A reballot of 149 higher education institutions for another round of industrial action starting in May will open on 16 March, with the University and College Union threatening to launch a marking boycott coinciding with end-of-year assessments.

“The thirst for the ‘four fights’ is still there,” insisted Emma Rees, a professor of English literature and gender studies at the University of Chester who was elected to the UCU’s national executive this month, referring to the union’s push for improvements in working conditions alongside a better pay offer. At a local level, “coming off the back of last year’s brutal and strategically flawed redundancy process, the employers’ intransigence has revivified my own university’s UCU branch in quite remarkable ways”, explained Professor Rees, who added that, at a national level, “heavy-handed, top-down decision-making by senior managers on obscenely high salaries of their own had alienated staff”.

Further action was necessary to oppose “wanton, unnecessary cuts that could cripple higher education”, said Ewan McGaughey, president of King’s College London’s UCU branch. “I personally do not understand why vice-chancellors and principals are so intent on immiserating their colleagues,” he said.

The law lecturer is leading a crowdfunded High Court legal challenge against USS cuts – which has raised £135,000 and won a preliminary hearing this month – that he believes could halt the pending cuts in April. “Legal action can stop the cuts going ahead immediately, but collective action including strikes is vital for publicity and, ultimately, to raise the economic cost to employers of cutting everyone’s pensions when there’s a multibillion pension surplus,” Dr McGaughey explained.

However, recent political events may make it far harder for industrial action to change the minds of university leaders, warned Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute. Last month, the government announced that annual tuition fees would be frozen at £9,250 until at least autumn 2025 – when they will be worth about £6,500 in 2012 prices because of inflation – while the Ukraine conflict’s impact on energy prices is likely to fuel inflationary pressures.

“The number one concern among many senior managers now – despite recent surpluses – is the declining unit of resource for teaching home students, caused by the fixed fee cap and high inflation,” said Mr Hillman. “The prospect of having to spend an even bigger proportion of the future wage bill on pension contributions just looks unsustainable.”

John Ralfe, an independent pensions expert, said that the chances of UUK or the USS reopening the disputed valuation process were “almost nil”, and that legal challenges were likely to fail. “This is a done deal,” he said.

Strike action may be focused on influencing UUK’s actions at the next valuation in 2023, he believed. “The 2022 changes are only a staging post – we shouldn’t forget the original 2017 plan was to move entirely from defined benefit to defined contribution, and this is likely to be on the table again next year,” he said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com