Statement from UCEA on latest talks with UCU

The Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) has published a statement following its meeting with University and College Union (UCU) on Tuesday 26 November.

UCEA is the employers association for universities and colleges in higher education, a national body representing employers on pay.

Statement from UCEA

A UCEA spokesperson said:

“UCEA representatives met today with UCU to enable dialogue on the issues currently in dispute. It was a helpful opportunity to hear from UCU representatives about the concerns they wished to relay on behalf of their members regarding their claims on gender and ethnicity pay gaps, casual employment arrangements and workload.

“We were clear that we would also listen to UCU’s views regarding the 2019 pay position. However, both before and during the meeting UCEA confirmed that the 147 universities are giving no collective mandate to improve further on the above-inflation final pay offer that was made in April of this year (effective from 1 August). We had indicated prior to the meeting that we hoped that we might have fruitful dialogue on the other three issues and found it informative to hear UCU colleagues articulate some of their aspirations and concerns.

“UCEA has now undertaken to seek feedback from the 147 universities they represent in the JNCHES negotiations and to come back to UCU next week with some fresh responses on the kind of work we believe we could take forward at sector-level on the three issues*. We have also indicated that we will be very willing to then arrange a further meeting to pursue what we hope would be constructive discussions at that point.”

* UCEA’s April offer included proposals for sector-level joint work on gender and ethnicity pay gaps, casual employment arrangements and workload, which built on successful joint work on these issues in previous years.

Read the statement on the UCEA website

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