1 day to action… Why strike?

Because universities must not be allowed to have their cake and eat it. They claim recent pay offers have been at the limit of affordability, but have given huge rises to VCs and built cash surpluses. Last year, the USS pension scheme was savaged based on projections involving pay settlements of 4.5% per year every year, yet at the very first opportunity to show this was sensible, universities offer just 1.1%. Real-terms pay decline of 15% over the past 7 years has been matched by increased capital expenditure and soaring wage growth at the top-end. At the University of Sheffield, staff costs have been ‘managed to 52%’ as a proportion of income, down from over 60% in 2006, a ‘recent achievement’ on the CV of our Director of Human Resources.

Universities are trying to have their cake and eat it. It is time for them to listen to staff saying that this hypocrisy is intolerable .

STRIKE OVER PAY & RELATED ISSUES

Wednesday 25th & Thursday 26th May

Remember Sir Keith Burnett’s 29% pay rise?