UCU: Future of pay disputes

Motion

Motion text: Conference notes that ‘A new strategy and plan of action for the Four Fights dispute’ report (20.04.2022) outlines how a ‘significant amount of time and resources needs to be committed to prepare properly for any UK-level dispute’.
Conference believes that:
1. Pay erosion is a direct consequence successive UK Tory governments failing to properly fund higher education.
2. Employer movement on pay and conditions is a result of our successful aggregated ballot and action.
3. The early imposition of an offer for 2023-24 provides potential breathing space to build for an effective campaign in 2024-25, when we are also likely to have a new UK government.
4. Achieving real improvements in our pay and conditions will be reliant on policy change as well as our industrial leverage
Conference resolves to:
a. Develop an 18-24 month campaign focused on achieving significant movement on the issues beyond the current dispute, including an above inflation pay rise, concrete advances on progress related to casualisation, an end to hourly contracts, unequal pay, workload and a 35-hour working week, with a focus on growing membership and member confidence.
b. Lobby UK Labour and other parties at Westminster for a renewed higher education settlement beyond 2024-25 that addresses shortfalls in funding and allows for material improvement in staff pay and conditions.