Strike called over university’s ‘two-tier workforce’ plan

Academics at a UK university are set to strike over plans to employ new staff via a subsidiary company.

Union members behind the action at Staffordshire University – planned for 28 March – said the institution’s actions were “inherently unfair” and would result in staff doing the same job but on different terms.

Employees recruited after August 2021 have lost access to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) and are instead being offered Staffordshire’s own defined contribution scheme, which does not guarantee a set level of income in retirement.

Duncan Adam, the Staffordshire branch chair of the University and College Union (UCU), said he feared the university’s move would lead to a fragmented workforce and more changes in terms and conditions in future.

“It would be naive to think other institutions are not looking at this to see how it progresses,” he warned.

In a ballot on whether to back strike action, 70 per cent of UCU members voted yes while 80 per cent backed action short of a strike. Staff have warned that they may take further action unless the university drops its plans.

“You could have two people engaged as lecturers, say, and one of them, just because they were employed just before the cut off, has access to TPS and the other is on the university’s pension scheme,” Mr Adam added.

“There is an inherent unfairness there. As a union, we want a collective agreement covering all staff engaged by the university, that should go without saying.”

UCU fears the changes will make it harder for the university to recruit and retain staff and could also damage the working environment.

“No other university has removed access for staff to the national pension scheme. Colleagues doing exactly the same work should not be on different contracts,” the union’s regional official, Anne O’Sullivan, said.

“As well as facing strike action, unless the university abandons plans to create a two-tier work force, it will also struggle to attract and retain staff who will look to work elsewhere. This will lead to a devastating impact on student learning, threatening the university’s future.”

But the university said it has been employing staff in grades one to six via the subsidiary since 2018 and there had been no “tangible” examples of the workforce being fragmented during this time.

A spokesperson also defended the university’s pension scheme, stressing that it is “good quality” and contains “multiple tiers of escalating contributions from the employee and the employer, together with excellent ill-health provisions and death-in-service provisions”.

“We value our partnership working with both our unions, Unison and UCU. We are disappointed that strike action is being planned and will be ensuring that we do all we can to minimise the disruption for our students,” the spokesperson added.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com