Hi Carlo, as an ordinary UCU member I am concerned about process. In her email today (reproduced at ucu.org.uk/article/9424/L…) Sally Hunt says that all last week, 'working through ACAS' she pressed UUK on the issues of a joint expert panel and ...
meanwhile taking 'the current proposal to axe the guaranteed pension off the table'. She then says 'The proposal from UUK is their final response to that pressure from UCU'. This suggests (a) that there were informal contacts between Sally Hunt and other UCU leaders and UUK ...
and (b) as part of these contacts UUK communicated to Sally and her colleagues that the offer they sent on 23rd March was their 'final response', and (c) the UCU negotiating team were not part of this whole process. I can understand that in a situation like this there may be ....
a need for informal contacts between UCU and UUK leaders, but surely this should be a prelude to properly conducted negotiations in which a proposal that is satisfactory to to both parties is hammered out. Then the next stage is to send that proposal out for consultation with ...
members. Instead UCU seems to have short-circuited that process by sending out what has turned out to be a very vaguely worded offer from UUK directly to the membership for comment, forcing us all to spend the weekend going through the offer with a fine-tooth comb. ...
Although in some ways it is gratifying for the membership to find ourselves thrown into the driving seat in this way, it is not really a viable way of negotiating with employers. The machinery of negotiation has developed for a reason. Meanwhile last Friday (23 March) ...
UUK had released the text of its offer giving it a quite different interpretation. Their press releases says that 'UUK and UCU are proposing to jointly establish a panel of independent experts etc.', adding that this has been proposed 'under the auspices of Acas' ...
This suggests that the text is the result of Acas-mediated negotiations (see universitiesuk.ac.uk/news/Pages/Joi…). Not surprisingly members have been confused by all this. Many have misunderstood the UUK offer as if it was the outcome of negotiations that now had to be accepted ...
or rejected by the membership. Indeed even the Financial Times misunderstood it as such, reporting on 23 March that "UK universities and the union representing academics agreed on Friday on new proposals to try to settle a dispute" (ft.com/content/ff86fd…). As a result ...
many members thought at first that they were in effect being asked to give their verdict on a proposal that was the final outcome of negotiations between UCU and UUK rather than a starting point for them. For many of us only a tweet thread from UCL UCU on 24 March clarified ...
the situation (). All in all the process does not inspire confidence. May I suggest that whatever HEC decides on Wednesday it should decide that UCU must immediately go back into formal negotiation with UUK in order to hammer out a detailed and workable ...
agreed proposal, taking into account all the concerns raised by members over the last days, and that only once they have reached such a proposal should it be sent to members for discussion and eventual ballot.
With apologies for length!
cc. @etymologic @ucl_ucu @hershmarion
With apologies for length!
cc. @etymologic @ucl_ucu @hershmarion
Just to summarise my concern. There has been a lack of clarity by UCU about to what extent the UUK offer was a spontaneous response to UCU pressure (in ACAS-mediated talks) and to what extent it was the outcome of a negotiation process between UUK and UCU negotiators. 1/6
Both UUK and the FT presented it on 23 March as the outcome of a negotiation process. Meanwhile UCU has not been clear. A careful reading of the three UCU press releases so far posted on the offer (dated 23 March, 23 March, 26 March) suggests ambiguity. 2/6
Formally the press releases (and emails from Sally Hunt they quote) present the offer as a UUK response to UCU pressure, but several phrases in them intimate that it is the outcome of a UUK-UCU negotiation process. 3/6
In particular in the third press release SH says that she presented the offer to "the wider group of UCU negotiators" when it arrived on 23 March, which implies that up to that point a narrower group of UCU negotiators had been, well, negotiating with UUK over its content. 4/6
The problem is that presently UCU members are being asked to give feedback on the offer, when they are unclear about whether it this offer is the endpoint or the starting point of a UCU-UUK negotiating process.
Links to the three press releases follow. 5/6
Links to the three press releases follow. 5/6
(1) 'New offer sent to UCU members in USS pensions dispute' (bit.ly/2Gyy57y)
(2) 'Strong member action leads to new offer' (bit.ly/2DYE0xk)
(3) 'Latest UUK proposal: your questions answered' (bit.ly/2pKOKKJ) 6/6
(2) 'Strong member action leads to new offer' (bit.ly/2DYE0xk)
(3) 'Latest UUK proposal: your questions answered' (bit.ly/2pKOKKJ) 6/6
