Dangerously close
Is the UCEA pay offer of 3% and 5% as a two year pay deal enough after more than a decade where Higher Education sector pay has fallen behind inflation?
We have been told that the current UCEA pay offer is comparable to that being offered to other unions.
The UCEA offer that would apply to most UCU members is 3% for 22/23, followed by 5% for pay round 23/24.
Is close enough good enough?
Take a comparator union who are being offered instead 5% then 4%.
Firstly, that offer is 1% more over 2 years. It’s already better.
Secondly because the larger increment of 5% comes first (unlike the UCEA offer where it’s 3% then 5% later) after compounding the difference after the 2 years is more like +1.15%.
For every £1,000 a member in the comparator union earns, they now earn £1,092 whereas a UCU member earns £1,081.50. Close enough?
Now imagine a scenario where for the next 9 years the comparator union manages to secure the following pay uplifts 3%, 2%, 4%, 1.5%, 3%, 1.8%, 2%, 3.5%, and 2.9% (we are assuming inflation has dropped a bit and 5% represents a high water mark in pay deals for the next decade).
If UCU were to secure the identical pay uplifts for members, after compounding, for every £1,000 they were earning in 2022, the comparator union member now earns £1,379 to the UCU members £1,366. £13 more per £1000, or for two member who started on 40,000, a gap of £520 has opened up.
Still close enough?
Now the above scenario relies on UCU securing identical uplifts to their comparator union. Note: the above pay uplifts would be generous compared to UCEA of the last decade.
Imagine instead, UCU took the same close enough approach and decided for every 1% the comparator gets, they are prepared to accept 0.89%. It’s close enough.
So, instead of the comparators 3%, 2%, 4%, 1.5%, 3%, 1.8%, 2%, 3.5%, and 2.9%, UCU secure roughly 2.67%, 1.78%, 3.56%, 1.34%, 2.67%, 1.6%, 1.78%, 3.11%, 2.6%.
After a further 9 years of being close enough to the comparator union pay deals, the UCU member is earning £1,332 for every £1,000 they earned in against the comparators £1,379 a difference of £47 per 1,000. Not looking quite so close.
Two members who had both been earning 40,000 at the start one is on £53,280 the other on £55,160.
Now imagine that if we look back in the past, the comparator union, like most unions, members had suffered a bit of pay erosion but the pay erosion of UCU was higher. UCEA have taken every chance they could to offer below inflation pay, these are the pay offers 2012 to 2022: 1%, 1%, 2%, 1%, 1.1%, 1.7%, 2%, 1.8%, 0%, 1.5%.
Imagine two members one in the comparator union and one in UCU. Both had been earning the equivalent in 2012 money of a £790 per week gross, or £41,080 per year.
By the time we get to 2022 with inflation, that £790 p/w ought to have increased to £1,000 p/w to have the same buying power (based on Bank of England inflation calculator).
In 2022 both our union members are a bit less happy. Their £790 having increased to £899 p/w for the UCU member (based on actual UCEA pay awards 2012 to 2022), and £971 p/w for the comparator whose union got the same as UCU every year except that they managed to get above CPI pay rises in each of 2012 (5.7%) , 2014 (3.1%) and 2020 (2.1%).
Inflation begins to soar, both members have to tighten belts but the UCU belt is a couple of notches further in.
If we now take those different starting points into consideration, the current pay deal for the years 2022 to 2024, then we project forwards 9 years where UCU continue to take a pay deal that is close but not identical to their comparator, by 2033, you could see a scenario where the UCU member is paid £1,197 per week to their comparators £1,339 per week.
That’s £141 less every week.
Where once the two salaries were identical salaries a more than 10% gap has opened up.
Close enough though, close enough?
(PS: When you look at it this way, the current UCU pension benefits are 'broadly comparable' to what we had before.
No. It’s not ok.)
