SOAS and SOAS UCU branch reach agreement and conclude no marking and assessment boycott
31 May 2022
Following discussions between SOAS and the SOAS UCU branch, SOAS is pleased to confirm that we have reached a mutually agreed position that the proposed marking and assessment boycott action will be withdrawn and will not take place at SOAS.
As you will see from our joint statement with the SOAS UCU branch, SOAS is committed to working with UCU on national policy decisions and bargaining when it's not within our gift to resolve them locally. We value this opportunity to demonstrate our collective commitment to addressing issues locally where possible and making sure our students and staff are at the very heart of every decision we make. We are thankful to all parties involved that helped reach this mutually agreed position.
UCU balloted its members for a mandate to call for further strike action and further Action Short of a Strike (ASOS) in relation to pensions, pay, equality, workload and casualisation and SOAS was among 40 universities nationally that reached the threshold to call this mandate. As part of this industrial action, a marking and assessment boycott over the summer was called nationally for those 40 universities.
Below is the joint statement with the SOAS UCU branch.
SOAS University of London and SOAS UCU Branch
Joint Statement on Pensions, Pay & Conditions
May 2022
In the context of ongoing national disputes on the USS pension scheme and on pay and conditions between UCU and the employers’ organisations UUK and UCEA respectively, both the university and the union branch endorse the following statement and agreed principles. We do so in shared recognition of the undesirability and untenable nature of the long-running nature of both disputes, and the structural issues that underpin them. In formulating this response, we draw on positions articulated in other university contexts, and elaborate on these through local sector-model reforms and agreed minimums of progress.
On USS pensions:
There should be an evidence-based, moderately prudent valuation as soon as possible. Any positive changes resulting from the next valuation of the scheme’s assets and liabilities should be used to improve member benefits and not to reduce employer or employee contribution rates from current levels. UUK and UCU should publicly lobby for a regulatory environment that supports a moderately prudent and evidence based valuation approach.
Employers should continue to provide enhanced covenant support through the future valuation process and recognise that this should apply to any benefit proposals agreed through the JNC by either UUK or UCU.
The retention of a defined benefit element of the pension scheme that is affordable for employers and members, sustainable and at a contribution rate that will not discourage employees from participating in the USS pension scheme, is a necessary requirement to settle this series of disputes.
Proposals for governance reform should be urgently developed and jointly enacted by UUK and UCU in advance of the next valuation to ensure that USS is more accountable, transparent and collaborative with the HE sector; these proposals should give serious consideration to the governance changes proposed by the Joint Expert Panel in 2019.
Sector-wide equality impact assessments for all protected characteristics to understand any direct or indirect discrimination from the cuts imposed on 1 April 2022 should be carried out and published as soon as possible. Any inequalities arising from these should be addressed under future valuations; any and all future proposals should be accompanied by sector-wide equality impact assessments.
There is an urgent need for the national parties involved in the USS pension negotiations to work toward building and restoring trust. This should be a significant priority.
On pay and conditions:
The nature of UK universities’ multi-employer sector-wide pay and conditions negotiations has resulted in cyclical disputes that, fundamentally and in the context of a heavily regulated sector, require the government’s recognition of the structural tensions their own policies have produced. We share a frustration at the lack of meaningful progress on these issues at the national level; we also recognise the acute distress felt by university employees — particularly those in the lower grades— in the face of rising inflation and over a decade of real-terms pay cuts.
SOAS university has committed to a programme of decasualisation: this has been enshrined in the 2021 Strategic Plan, which recognises that the institution’s percentage of casualised FTE labour stands above the sector average, and will achieve a reduction to or below the sector average by 2025. We share an understanding of the structural inequalities — particularly in gendered and racialised terms — that casualisation exacerbates, and share a commitment to eliminating these iniquities as an institutional and ethical imperative. We have a clear plan of action that has been informed by a number of stakeholders, including the recommendations of the SOAS Decasualisation Working Group. We also agree that there is more to be done and that we can work together on this in the future. SOAS University will also encourage UCEA to engage with these recommendations as a model on how to ensure fairness and ethical employment practices alongside budgetary and structural uncertainties. SOAS University makes this encouragement to UCEA with the recognition that ongoing casualistion in the sector as a whole will undermine any local attempts at decasualisation.
The university and union branch are similarly committed to eliminating gender, race and disability pay gaps. While we acknowledge that the gender pay gap at SOAS is substantially below the sector average — below 7% — the ethnicity pay gap is 12.2%, and we are united in our conviction that any such gaps are cause for concern. In the absence of concrete action via JNCHES — and we encourage UCEA to adopt the joint unions’ call for “a national, time specific, agreement detailing how action will be achieved by each HEI working with their trade unions to close the gender, ethnic and disability pay gap”— we are committed to actions to reduce the local pay gaps to zero, recognising that this will require sustained action over a prolonged period.
Workloads have been an issue of shared concern for many years, and the university and campus unions agreed to a new Workload Allocation Model in 2020. While the full implementation of this has been regrettably delayed, both the university and union remain committed to the principles articulated in the original agreement, to reviewing its impact according to the originally agreed timescale, and to ensuring that workloads are manageable.
Looking to the future, SOAS University and SOAS UCU urge UCEA and UCU to jointly explore a reassessment of national pay grades, in order to ensure that the multi-billion-pound generating sector that is UK HE remains globally competitive and attractive. The possibility of multi-year rather than annual pay settlements may also help to break the cycle of dispute, but requires further and mutually agreed consideration. Any settlement will have to take seriously the substantial pay cut in real terms that HE workers have experienced in the last 15 years and work towards redressing that pay cut. We also call upon the government to recognise its own role in perpetuating and exacerbating the current enduring crises in the sector, and to intervene proactively and positively to ensure both the sustained vitality of this hugely important element of the UK’s economy and society, and the conditions of employees therein.
In the spirit of this statement, SOAS UCU and SOAS University make a joint commitment to do everything in our power locally — and in communication with our national associations — to avoid disputes by finding agreeable resolutions going forward.