With UCU members about to be balloted on a proposal from Universities UK aimed at ending the USS dispute, our branch Communications Officer, Sam Marsh, argues that the current wording offers no guarantees, and explains the thought processes that has led him to come to an easy decision.
When details of the proposal from Universities UK (UUK) dropped in the late afternoon of Friday 23 March, they caused considerable excitement. References to the status quo and expert panels to rexamine the valuation looked, on first glance, like the battle was over: we’d been listened to, and UUK had backed down.
Very quickly it became clear that things were far from what they seemed. The reference to the status quo? That expires in April 2019, the earliest any changes would come in anyway. The expert panel? That will only have the power to make recommendations to the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC). A pension broadly comparable with current arrangements? What does this mean, precisely?
By Monday, a branch meeting of over 250 fellow Sheffield UCU members sent a clear message to the national leadership, instructing our negotiators to take the proposal back for further talks. Many other branches did similar.
Unfortunately, such calls for revisions were not heard, as the HEC voted 10-8 to send the proposal out to all members for a vote, unamended. Significant controversy has flowed from the unsupported claim by the General Secretary that the majority of branches supported this course of action.
Nevertheless, that decision has been made, and it is now for members to decide which way to vote. Allow me to pose and answer some questions which, for me, make the decision easy.
Do we know what pension we’ll end up with?
This is the fundamental question we should be asking of any proposal put to us. And, on this, the UUK proposal tells us nothing. The closest we get is:
“If in the light of [the expert panel’s assessment of the valuation] contributions or benefits need to be adjusted in either direction, both parties are committed to agree to recommend to the JNC and the trustee, measures aimed at stabilising the fund to provide a guaranteed pension broadly comparable with current arrangements.”
This is a commitment to a recommendation, not a commitment to a guaranteed, broadly comparable pension. My experience of negotiating is that one should never leave to trust things that aren’t explicit. The commitments in the UUK proposal are far too vague to provide the basis of a resolution, particularly when trust between UCU and UUK is running so low.
Embarassingly, it seems that even Stephen Toope, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, is aware of this, suggesting amendments of the kind that UCU should have already demanded, such as a guaranteed minimum outcome. It is essential that our negotiators get the chance to push for such guarantees.
Are we likely to end up with something we’ve already rejected?
The dispute started because of a plan to force a defined contribution (DC) scheme onto us. Later, members forecfully threw back an ACAS-facilitated deal for a significantly watered-down defined benefit (DB) scheme. Have these gone away for good?
The JNC ruling which sealed in the DC scheme still stands. Procedurally, until that decision is revoked, it is still the default course for the USS trustee to follow, starting with the statutory consultation of all USS members. A letter from UUK chief executive Alistair Jarvis to Sally Hunt gave assurances that UUK “does not intend to return to the January JNC proposal to consult on moving to a DC scheme”: another weak statement that, at a time of low trust, must be tightened up.
Notice also that the reference in Alistair Jarvis’s letter to “meaningful” defined benefits coincides precisely with the language used to describe the DB deal we rejected. If, like me, you consider that proposal to be short of what we should be settling for, this similarity should be of significant concern.
Should we put faith in the expert panel to solve our problems?
This is a big unknown. Notice that the “terms of reference, the order of work and timescales” for the expert group are still to be determined (point 3 of the proposal). This is very important, as the scope of the panel will make a big difference.
The main problem the valuation has is that it conforms to deep-set actuarial orthodoxy and, to some extent, regulation that does not appear well suited to the status of USS as an open, ongoing, multi-employer scheme. Making an impact on that aspect will require heavy thinking and analysis, and will not be a quick fix.
My view is that the panel is to be welcomed, but that it should be seen as a group which can think for the longer-term. While the panel may have a positive influence over the current valuation, this is far from guaranteed, and as such the existence of the panel should not be seen as enough to settle the current dispute.
Can we settle for now, and strike again if we don’t like what happens down the line?
While this is tempting, especially as we all want the dispute to be over, it has the potential to mean we have to do this all again in a year’s time, with students again getting hit hard. When we are close to an agreement that means something, it seems to me essential that we do all we can to tighten it up enough to make strike action next year unlikely, perhaps even out of the question.
We currently have significant leverage to force concessions: Universities UK called our bluff in the first wave of action, and they can’t afford to do it again. Students must not have their courses further disrupted for the sake of reasonable demands on tighter wording on an agreement. It is for UUK, not us, to ensure that that the action doesn’t happen.
Can this proposal be improved?
Of course it can! Here are some thoughts on things that should, at the minimum, go into the proposal:
A guaranteed minimum outcome. This could take the form of a minimum contribution rate from employers. For example, the UCU proposal tabled immediately prior to the ACAS talks required a 2.7% employer increase, which costed against the September valuation may be seen as an acceptable outcome. If UUK pledged this amount, and we had a clear statement of what such increases would achieve against the November valuation, we would have a basis for an absolute minimum, improvable subject to the panel’s findings.
More detail on the timescales for the expert panel. I would like to see it made explicit that this group will work to a two-stage process, with dates included in the proposal. Firstly, the panel should report on the current valuation as best it can by a specified date sufficiently early to influence the outcome of this valuation. It should then move onto the bigger job of discussion the underlying methodology with an aim to forming high-level recommendations on how it sees the future of valuing USS, with a view to report in time to influence the 2020 valuation at the latest.
A commitment to a review of scheme governance. The structure of the JNC and USS board appears to have been a significant factor in arriving at the current deadlock, with UUK finding it too easy to push heavy-handed changes through the formal processes. Our branch passed a motion early in the dispute calling for the voting rights of the independent JNC chair to be removed, which would mean that agreement would have to be reached between UCU and UUK before changes could be implemented, using ACAS if necessary. The structure of the USS board, currently 3 UCU/4 UUK/5 independent trustees, should also be subject to discussion: as UUK have the chair, should UCU gain a trustee at UUK’s expense? It may be that changes are necessary to ensure that fairer settlements are reached in the future, to the benefit of all parties.
Are the USS board and the Pensions Regulator going to stop any improvements to the scheme?
The ideas above would not need approval by either USS or the Pensions Regulator. True, both parties are likely to be resistant to amending valuations or allow through a fundamentally different approach, but an expert panel should provide the intellectual muscle to make progress, especially with UUK and UCU backing the output from such a group. Importantly, the chair of the USS board is a UUK-appointed trustee.
Final thoughts
I have found it important to remember throughout this dispute that it is not our fault that students are having their degrees disrupted, but the fault of Universities UK. We did all we could to try to make sure that employers were listening, and that this valuation never became a dispute (I devoted three years of my spare time to it!).
I am so grateful for the incredible support students have shown to us during this campaign, and do not take it for granted. That said, if rejecting this proposal leads to further strike action, it will be because UUK have continued to resist reasonable solutions to the dispute. In such a situation, I trust students to continue to see the injustice and correctly apportion the blame to those responsible.
We must recognise that this is a huge step forward from the 23rd Jan decision, and that this change in the employers’ position is a direct result of the power of our strike action. In the end, it is only our organisation, industrial strength and willingness to mobilise which will protect our pensions, now and in the future.
This guest blog by Martin Heneghan, Jo Grady and Liam Foster explains why any movement towards a defined contribution pension system poses a direct threat to women’s income in retirement. As university staff are on strike to protect their pensions, it is important to remember the proposed cuts will hurt women more than men.
University staff have taken the difficult decision to take industrial action against their employers as a consequence of the imposition of a significant cut to their income in retirement. University and College Union (UCU), estimates pension cuts will leave university staff on average nearly £10,000 worse off per year, totalling £200,000 over 20 years. However, this cut will not be spread evenly; women are set to be more adversely affected than men. Here we outline the proposed changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and demonstrate that they pose a direct threat to the adequacy of women’s pensions in particular.
On average, women have a smaller pension than men in any system. This is partly a consequence of gendered discrimination in the labour market, which means women earn less than men. As research from Grady shows, it is also a result of gender blind pension systems that ignore the gendered occupational life course, taking the experience of men as default when formulating pension policy. Women are more likely to leave the formal labour market for caring roles, which reduces both their income over the life course and their career progression. Also, when they do return to the labour market, they tend to take up part-time work, due to caring responsibilities. We also know that the ethnic pay gap, leaves BME women with even lower salaries, and lower pension incomes. None of these intersecting inequalities is reflected in occupational pension systems that are gender and ethnicity blind, and recognise only paid employment as a way to accrue pension income. In a defined benefit final salary scheme, men on average have a higher income at the point of retirement and therefore a higher pension. Some of this is mitigated in the current defined benefit USS scheme, which is a proportion of the average income, rather than the final salary. However, given that women earn less over the life course (not just in universities, but in general), their average salary is smaller and their pension less generous. Under the proposed USS reform, these gendered effects will be exacerbated.
The proposed changes will shift USS members from a defined benefit (DB) to a defined contribution scheme (DC), this switch transfers risk from the employer to the employee, with individual pension scheme members directly taking on more risk. However, there is substantial evidence that women are more risk averse in investment decisions than men. Research conducted about the Australian university superannuation fund (UniSuper), found that women made more conservative investment decisions and as a result received smaller pensions than men. This warning from the Australian university sector should be heeded by those in the UK committed to gender equality, as it could beckon a growing gender gap in retirement income here in the UK. This risk adversity by women is not surprising as those on lower incomes are usually the most risk averse, and given it is women who tend to earn less than men, they are unlikely to want to engage in risky investments with their pension. Furthermore, asking people to be their own pensions investment manager is not gender neutral. As research from Foster and Heneghan shows, there is a gendered difference in how men and women engage with financial information, so encouraging university workers to become financial decision makers cannot ignore these wider structural forces that influence individual decisions.
DC schemes also fail to offer the maternity coverage that DB schemes do. In DB schemes, women receive full maternity coverage on the DB part of the pension scheme. If their maternity pay is less than the pre-maternity salary, the employer makes up the shortfall to keep contributions records as if the maternity leave had never been taken. Employer contributions are also paid for up to 39 weeks of maternity leave (note that women who take one year of maternity leave see their pension reduced!). For those who also take advantage of the USS 1% match into the university investment builder, any shortfall in salary is not made up by the employer. With the proposal to transfer all pension contributions into the investment builder, if the current terms were kept as they are, women who take maternity leave would be adversely affected.
In addition to the removal of benefits and coverage the DB gives women, the switch DC also presents women with larger administration costs. Mainly because in a DC system the cost of administration is usually borne by the individual, whereas in a defined benefit one the cost is usually borne by the employer. In a DC scheme, the administration is more complex, and therefore, more costly. It often requires an individual fund manager for each account. These costs can have a dramatic impact on the value of a pension plan. This is particularly problematic for women and lower earners, as it means that a larger proportion of the accumulated fund is devoted to administration charges.
It is also worth remembering that the establishment of DB pensions was not the product of employer benevolence, successive generations of workers – both male and female – have actively worked to improve pension rights. Furthermore, whilst it is true that DB pensions offer certainty and income security in older age for employees, they also offer advantages to employers. A DB scheme was, and remains, a way to foster loyalty from employees. For a firm that had made a substantial investment in training its workforce, it wanted to ensure this investment was contained in the firm. Do universities not want to do the same? It was also a way to keep job opportunities open to younger workers, by offering income security to older ones. The push for increased flexibility in the labour market, and wider economy, has seen policy makers encourage DC schemes, so that workers can take their pension pot with them to a new firm. However, there are strong reasons to suggest this is not the way the university sector should seek to operate. For research and teaching staff, the sector has likely already made a substantial investment in their training. Offering a DB pension system is a way to enhance retention of academic staff. For women, this is particularly important. There is already significant precarity in an academic career. Short term contracts and geographical relocation are increasingly prevalent. Given that this precariousness also happens at a time when many women are beginning a family, the withdrawal of certainty in retirement, may be the final straw in their decision to leave the profession for good. In addition, the oversupply of PhD graduates is well documented. Reducing the pension income of those close to retirement will likely see them stay in the labour force for longer, further exacerbating the mismatch in the supply and demand of PhD graduates.
We must also remember that a pension is a deferred wage. It is not free money in retirement. A guaranteed and predictable pension in retirement is payment of income foregone during employment. Moreover, considerable financial sacrifice is made in obtaining a postgraduate degree, a doctoral degree and then entering a precarious labour market, and the promise of a stable and meaningful pension in later life, helps offsets those sacrifices. In a patriarchal society it is a reasonable assumption these sacrifices are even greater for women, and greater still for women of colour. Women who have navigated all the challenges that forging an academic career places in front of them, should not have their income security in old age threatened.
We have arrived at Week 3 of the action, and our programme of things to keep you busy has just landed! Now is the time to join us on picket-lines, at our teach-outs, and on our Thursday march for International Womens Day to make sure the national talks reach a consensus as swiftly as possible. Don’t rely on your colleagues to do the job: we need you visible too!
Tomorrow we meet with Keith Burnett, previously missing in action, but now taking much more interest in events on campus, evident in his announcement last week that there would be no pay deductions for refusing to reschedule classes. We will be reporting the outcomes back to members at our open meeting on Wednesday, midday in the Students Union. Please come!
Our hardship fund continues to receive donations. If you could like to donate, or know anyone who does, the bank details are below:
Finally, we will be celebrating International Womens Day with a march on Thursday. Assemble at midday on Thursday at the Arts Tower. Working conditions are a feminist issue: pensions, gender pay gap, sexual harrassment and more. March with us!
Postdocs play a vital role in research; we are the highly skilled hands and minds that create new things, test out theories and provide hands-on training. So why do we feel like we go unrewarded and underappreciated? The answer has a lot to do with fixed-term contracts. Apparently, 68 % of postdoctoral research staff in the UK are currently employed on fixed term contracts.[i] However, from talking to postdoc and academics within my institution and others, I would estimate that this proportion is actually far higher for your average postdoc with 0 – 8 years’ experience.
Fixed-term postdoc contracts vary in length from a few months to a few years; however, one thing they all have in common is an expiry date. This article collects my fellow postdocs and academics opinions, and my own, to explain some of the unproductive impacts of fixed-term contracts on the wide-scale employment of postdocs.
I’d estimate that the current consensus is that postdocs need to acquire something like 5 – 8 years’ experience (publishing 2- 3 papers per year), to have a chance at securing that dream academic job. This means that postdocs need to spend the first 5 – 8 years, of their career moving around from university to university, seeking the next contract. The pressure of constantly having to look for a new job, relocating, making new friends and finding a new place to live has been described to me as “exhausting, frustrating, distracting and demotivating”.
If you have progressed to postdoc status by your mid-twenties (which is about as soon as you can get there) this period of uprooting and moving around coincides with when the majority of people are likely to consider the possibility of settling down and starting a family. Many researchers (in their late 20’s to early 30’s) find it difficult to put roots down and or plan for the future during this turbulent period of moving around. Many researchers also commented to me on how they found their future to be full of uncertainty and grey areas: “If I take maternity leave will I have a job to come back to?”, “Am I eligible for parental leave if my contract is less than 12 months?”, “Can I get a mortgage if I/we are on short term contracts?”
Struggling with a mortgage and childcare / maternity arrangements, are common issues. You may (or may not) also be surprised to learn that even now the attitude toward female researchers remains archaic in some part of academia. It was relayed to me by a fellow postdoc that a particular PI took a very hard line on postdocs returning after maternity leave, putting them in an all or nothing situation, where retuning part-time was not considered an option. I have heard of occasions when female researchers have be told that now they are pregnant that’s effectively the end of their research career. Are we supposed to choose between career and family life…?
Fixed-term contacts leave us with an ultimatum: continually relocate or seriously damage your chance of getting a permanent job in the future by ‘stubbornly’ staying in one place. But what about those of us who cannot easily relocate? “As a single parent my career decisions had to be location based. I have had to make sacrifices, choosing not so optimal jobs at times, because of the way the system will affect your career prospects if you do not move.” Those of us with partners (who also have careers to think about), young families, caring responsibilities or disabilities (who may require help with day-to-day living) cannot just move at the drop of a hat. In short, fixed term contracts fail to promote equality. When you consider that lots of university departments are keen to show off how much they support equality (e.g. the Athena Swan award in Science related disciplines) it is inconsistent that they employ the majority of postdocs on fixed-term contracts.
Is there a way you can stay in one place? The short answer has been put to me as: “yes, but it doesn’t look good”. There is a redeployment system at UoS, however, postdocs who have used it regarded it as “inadequate and ineffective.” To make things worse, academic staff appear to prefer to select postdocs from a wider ‘world’ market rather than the redeployment pool. Living in the same place and commuting to a different university is also an option, but you would be faced with the same type of fixed-term contract there too.
For those that do manage to stay in one place by securing the elusive open-ended contract there are still problems ahead: Without a steady stream of research money coming in the contract isn’t really worth a whole lot, and even if you are successful at bringing in funding, it’s difficult to gain the same stature as academic staff. A long term researcher with 16 years’ experience has observed first hand that “research fellows are not treated equivalently (as permanent academic staff) by the University system”.
What about promotion? Other than acquiring a new role as a research fellow or lecturer, there are no promotional steps you can take as a researcher, which makes progression and development another one of those grey areas. One postdoc described their situation as being “adrift on the sea of science”, receiving very little in the way of advice and career support from their supervisor. Although people at the University will tell you that it is the job of the line manager, to help postdocs plan and progress in their careers, the bottom line is that they are overworked (so don’t have the time) or don’t understand the issues (because they are not on a fixed-term contract). A common response from postdocs is that they feel “undervalued” especially when they are “expected to pick up the pieces of over worked lecturers without the credit.”
You can make it work staying in one place, but it’s a lot about luck. You may feel like you are always playing second fiddle to your academic peers, “if you stay in the role long term, you do begin to wonder if you do genuinely have a career and whether any progression is possible, even when demonstrating superior publications and income than your (academic) peers.” The turnover of academic staff is slow and there are many more postdocs than there are jobs (a recent advert for two lectureships in my department attracted around 200 applicants). For those of us who have already invested several years as a postdoc, there is a difficult decision looming: Do I stay or do I go? If I change career, what can I do with my skills?
Looking forward, how should we fund and employ postdocs? Right now, I don’t have the answer, but I do know that it requires a big, bold change. I think a key issue is that the fundamental building blocks of the system fail to promote equality and are un-suitable for the future. As researchers, we know that a good research proposal relies on solid principles and clear aims, lets apply the same approach here.
Ultimately we want to achieve fairness, stability and clear continuity into postdoctoral employment, so we can focus on our work, instead of the next pay packet The university could aid this by: Using bridging funds more effectively with open ended contracts to ensure continuity; developing alternate career streams, e.g. career researchers, to provide promotion into areas other than academic positions; challenge the out-of-date culture surrounding postdoc by nurturing and promoting home grown talent to the wider community.
The problem is a shared one, we all (individuals, universities and research councils) have a responsibility to ask questions, stimulate discussion and implement change. In order to promote equality across the university as a whole, using a fair selection process, we first need equality in the pool of talent.
Fixed-term contracts are archaic leftovers from academic cultures of times gone by, they are a barrier to equality, and to the future of academia. They are having an impact on current postdocs and on those starting out in research, one PhD researcher said “I’m done with research after my PhD, I don’t want to be in the same situation as you (meaning myself) 3-4 years down the line. It’s a lot to gamble on, when you may not achieve what you set out to.”
