Examination of Witnesses (Questions 51-59)
MS SALLY
HUNT, DR
STEVE WHARTON,
MR ROGER
KLINE AND
MR ANDY
PIKE
17 MAY 2006
Q51 Chairman: I welcome Sally Hunt, Steve
Wharton, Roger Kline and Andy Pike. Thank you very much again
for fitting in this session at very short notice, we much appreciate
it. Our last session was rather truncated in time. You heard the
general remarks I made about not wanting to supplant ACAS, we
just thought it would be a useful session to have both of you
in to clarify some of the questions which are sometimes distorted
in the press, whether intentionally or not, I do not know, but
to hear it from the horses' mouths. That is what this is about.
Could I ask Sally Hunt and Roger Kline, where are we in this dispute,
in your opinion?
Ms Hunt: I would like to start
by thanking the Committee for giving us this opportunity because
this has been one of those slow-burning disputes that no one has
really understood in terms of its seriousness. So we got to this
point without people realising I think it was something which
was coming our way with bells on and has been for a number of
months. We are at a point now where the employers met us for the
very first time to negotiate on 8 May, a week last Monday. I think
it is important to start from there, because that was the very
first time we had the opportunity to negotiate or reflect on the
claim. At that point, not only ourselves but also EIS-ULA, who
are not here, rejected that claim because it did not come anywhere
close to the aspirations of the members we represent who are academic
and related staff throughout the UK. We are in a situation now
I think which the employers have known was a possibility but could
have avoided, the possibility that many graduates who are undertaking
post-graduate work, international students undertaking post-graduate
work, under-graduates looking for their degree, are not likely
to qualify. It is that serious. It is not something that is going
to happen next week or the week after. As you yourself have pointed
out, the level of distress and concern is immediate, and that
is because students are now in a situation where they are unable
to ask universities with any certainty as to whether they can
undertake their exams or expect to get marks. We wrote to the
employers last week again seeking a further meeting with them,
from AUT's perspective that was following a full delegate conference
where we were instructed to do so. We have had no response to
date and without that response it is very difficult for us to
see how we can find a negotiated solution because it does take
two sides and still, even at this point, we have not had a response.
Q52 Chairman: The Committee had information
there had been a response. You are absolutely sure there has not
been a response?
Ms Hunt: To my knowledge, and
I think I might know, I wrote to the independent chair—for
those of you who are not familiar, the independent chair is the
formal independent person who chairs the negotiating machinery
and you write to that person asking her to convene talks—and
to date I have been told she is taking soundings but has had no
formal response to tell us whether the employers are due to meet
with us or not.
Q53 Chairman: Thank you. Roger Kline?
Mr Kline: The reason we put our
claim in much earlier this year was precisely to avoid the situation
we now find ourselves in. This is not a dispute which has been
driven by trade union bureaucrats like myself, it is one driven
by members. As a measure of that, on the record, I have not had
a single email or letter asking me to put the current claim out
to ballot, and let me tell you I get lots of emails. The thing
which is really driving our members is that this year there is
significantly more money in the system—we can argue about
how much—and yet last year the employers indicated they
were prepared to offer us 3.5%, last year we got 3%, and members
cannot understand why, whatever the quotes and whatever the figures
there is not substantially more money, given everybody—the
Vice Chancellors, Tony Blair, the Bett Report (you know the figures
better than I do) have all said there is an issue around comparability.
So our members cannot understand why. As you yourself alluded
to, the final rubbing-it-in was the Vice Chancellors awarding
themselves 25%, which our members regard as somewhat inflammatory.
Q54 Chairman: They did come back
with a reasonable response to that.
Mr Kline: The figure they quoted
assumes all our members got increments. Most of our members are
at the top of their scales for precisely the reasons that your
previous hearing said, because people have moved to the top of
the scale, most members got the simple basic pay increase and
they will get 0.03% if they are a senior lecturer from the Framework
Agreement, so the overwhelming majority of our members have had
less than 10% during that period.
Q55 Mr Carswell: Why will you not
put the recent offer from the employers to your members? You say
you do not have many emails in your in-box, well I am an MP because
of how people vote not because of the contents of my email box.
Why do you not put it to your members and be democratic about
it?
Mr Kline: For the very simple
reason we have an offer which we are extremely confident would
be rejected. We have a very clear mandate from a very representative
conference. We have another conference next week, as has been
mentioned, and we will ask them again there. We are extremely
confident that the offer will be rejected. If we were to put out
to postal ballot the current offer, which we think is almost certain
to be rejected, it would delay for three weeks at a critical point
any settlement to the dispute. We could not expect a further offer
during that period. From our point of view, we will put out an
offer as soon as we have one which we feel there is some reasonable
prospect of success on. We have no mandate whatsoever. This is
not these four people here driving this issue, there is no mandate
whatsoever to put such an offer out, it would delay a settlement
of the dispute.
Mr Wharton: From the outset of
this dispute, the AUT, as indeed Natfhe, has been in regular contact
with its members. We send regular email briefings every week telling
our members exactly what the situation is, exactly what the game
plan is. Unlike the UCEA, which we understand from our direct
contact with the Vice Chancellors, has not formally consulted
with its members on the situation since February of this year,
we have been in regular contact with our members, and AUT's own
conference which was held last week has been absolutely clear
that the offer is unacceptable. In addition, prior to that meeting
we had been holding regular briefings for our local association
presidents who, before they come, take soundings from the members,
so we have a very clear exchange with our members and a very clear
mandate that the current offer is unacceptable.
Q56 Mr Carswell: I was going to ask
my final question, which was that the original offer was 6% over
two years, so does the revised offer not constitute a success
for the unions, but clearly you do not think it does.
Ms Hunt: I think it is worth saying
something on that though because there has been a lot of commentary
attached to the offer. We told the truth in October when we put
the claim to the employers, that we were looking for a significant
award which would address the long-term pay gap that has grown
for academic and related staff. The offer they put on the table
for our members over a three year period we think comes in at
just under 11% in terms of real increase. That does not come close
to addressing the catch-up element. There are lots of ways you
can interpret this and I accept you will get a million and one
versions, but I think the key thing you have to focus on is that
academic staff very rarely agree on anything at all and academic
staff have been express right the way through with us as their
unions that what they want is an offer that they believe matches
all of the commitments they were given in terms of the funding
regime which was coming in. What is distressing for both us and
for them is that having, we think, taken the sensible approach
which was to start that dialogue at the point when universities
were planning their funding, were looking at where they would
place their priorities, we thought we were in a position where
we could have had a dialogue. It is true to say that right the
way through we said, "If X does not happen, Y will be a consequence",
because that is industrial relations, but we did it absolutely
in the open. At each and every stage our members have overwhelmingly
endorsed the approach. We are at a situation now where they are
very clearly telling us that they want us to carry on negotiating,
that we are not at the end of the road yet in their terms, but
they expect the employers to treat them with some dignity and
respect. As you have pointed out earlier, what they are getting
is rather than trying to find a solution they are having their
pay docked, so the situation is getting worse, not better.
Q57 Stephen Williams: Can I ask you
some of the benchmarking questions I asked the previous witnesses?
Both unions have supplied us with quite a few tables which have
different base years and end years and they look very convincing
and make your case. For instance, one from 1981 to 2001 shows
on average non-manual earnings have increased by 57.6%, whereas
academic pay on average was 6.5% between the two university sectors.
Yet, in the previous session the employers said to us that since
2001, ie after all your tables, academic pay has gone up by 20%,
which was the figure I scribbled down, between 2001 and 2005.
So in the last four years, has there not been a significant increase
in pay and a narrowing of that differential which your tables
show?
Mr Pike: The figure mentioned
by UCEA of just over 20% brings into the equation increments,
bonus payments, many other factors other than the basic pay increase.
If you look at the basic pay increase alone, which for both unions
is the key issue because the majority of experienced staff are
at the top of their pay scale, all they receive are the basic
percentage pay awards for each year. In the period in question
for which you quote 20.3%, the basic pay award was I think around
13% or 14% and the extra head room is created by increments and
other issues which do not really affect our members at all. You
also have heard mention of the Pay Framework Agreement and the
benefits that would bring, that if we just waited for the Framework
Agreement another 3% or 5% would come the way of our members.
Institutions have already been funded for that Agreement through
the rewarding and developing staff initiative within England which
by this coming August will have delivered close to £1 billion
in extra funding specifically for pay modernisation. So we are
sceptical about the pay increases by UCEA, both past and future.
What we know is that our members looked at their salaries, compared
themselves to friends, neighbours, colleagues and other benchmarks
and voted for industrial action. The current offer put forward
by UCEA in cash terms is 3 and a half % a year and it is not close
enough to persuade us to look favourably at it; not close enough
by a long shot.
Mr Wharton: The figures which
are quoted by UCEA are derived from ONS statistics using the Government's
annual survey of hours and earnings or ASHE. That is a sample
based survey using data which actually excludes the research staff
which AUT also represent, as do colleagues in Natfhe, and for
the record it might be interesting to note that a starting salary
in post-92 for a research person is around £13,000 and in
the pre-92 it is £20,000, so the figures are significantly
lower and it is partly because of the way in which the statistics
are drawn. Using the data from the Higher Education Statistics
Agency, which after all one would imagine is the one best placed,
it does show there is a difference between the figures which are
quoted by UCEA and the figures which are quoted by the unions.
UCEA's are, as one might expect, pitched higher than those which
we have drawn using the statistics supplied by the institutions
themselves to the Agency.
Q58 Stephen Williams: The statistics
we have been given show an average academic will be on roughly
£40,600, which to most people out there would seem to be
good money.
Mr Wharton: It would be, if it
were true. In fact in April 2004, using UCEA's statistics, the
average gross annual pay of a full-time higher education teaching
professional was £38,319. Using HESA's data for the same
period it was actually £35,773. So again there is a difference.
When you consider we are talking about people who have had seven,
eight, nine, 10 years in training, I would argue that those kinds
of averages are not particularly good. I am now a senior lecturer,
or the equivalent of a principal lecturer in a post-92 institution,
when I am not on sabbatical serving as the president of the AUT
I work at the University of Bath and it has taken me 16 years
to be able to afford a flat in the city in which I work. I think
there is a serious issue there of how professionals are expected
to be able to earn their livings and afford to live in the places
in which they work.
Q59 Stephen Williams: Chairman, can
I preface this by saying that I represent a constituency with
the highest number of PhDs and academics in the country and this
is a devil's advocate question. Someone mentioned comparisons
with friends and neighbours, the average salary of £40,000,
£35,000, whatever it is, when you put in the final salary
pension schemes and the quite long holiday periods as well, or
non-contact time with the students during the vacation, might
not a lot of people out there think that actually you are on to
a good deal?
Mr Wharton: I think we need to
scotch this Inspector Morse-like legend about what happens in
higher education. Academics work very long hours. Just to give
you an example, during the strike we had on 7 March I was looking
at the BBC discussion board and one of the emails which came in
from somebody was saying, "I share a drive with a university
lecturer and normally their car comes in after mine and goes out
before mine in the morning. Because they were on strike today
I had to get them to move the car." The person was not bearing
in mind the fact that actually meant the professional he was talking
about left for work earlier than he did and came home later than
he did. There is a tremendously dedicated workforce in higher
education, and it is that dedicated workforce which is sick and
tired of the misrepresentations over our salaries which have been
done from the employers' side, and that is why we have taken part
in this industrial action. During our council somebody stood up
from the floor and said apropos the pay deduction, "If employers
think I am going to be more worried about having my salary docked
than I am already about the fact I have been placed by the employers
in a position where I am potentially hurting students, they are
misunderstanding what we do. They are insulting us and insulting
our professionalism."
Mr Kline: We regularly get stories
of people being told, "If you want to get a mortgage, get
a different job." One of the pieces of information which
was left out of the employers' response was any reference to the
very large number of members who work as hourly paid lecturers
on fixed term contracts, who are unable to get mortgages, who
do not have access to many of the fringe benefits such as sick
pay and leave, whose pay is radically less per hour for the work
they do compared to their colleagues. There are more casual workers
working as academics in higher education in Britain proportionately
probably than in the building industry. The Chairman may know
a little bit about this. It is a real problem and it has consequences
for students, not just for staff. If I could just add two other
things: consistently, surveys on stress show that higher education
is one of the worst areas amongst academics. Workload has more
than doubled in the last 30 years. The hours worked by academics
have become very considerable. The picture of academics when I
went to university some years ago is rather different, dare I
say, from the one today. They are an extremely over-worked, underpaid
workforce. That is why we are here today.
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