KCL UCU statement on the USS consultation outcome

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It’s completely predictable that UUK just rejected central UCU’s proposal: it suggested we have contribution rises of 2% of salary for employees, and 3.8% for employers – that’s about a £1000 pay cut for a typical lecturer or senior lecturer, plus a £2800 bill for employers, when the pension fund has a record surplus, and assets of £92 billion. It was done based on the mistaken basis that we cannot update the 2020 valuation assumption of 0% asset growth. But UUK’s current proposals are far worse – a massive 35% total cut to your pension, leading to a loss well over £100,000 in a pension for a typical early career lecturer. Our joint statement with KCL management shows the way forward, and that we will get a deal if we put enough pressure on the employers. 

This is why we need to be all out in force next week – when we are on strike on both USS and on pay, workloads, equality and security (‘the four fights’) – and the following week. The disputes should have never been decoupled in the first place, because they are interconnected and we cannot have one undermining the other. Precarious members, women and racialized global majority workers must be at the centre of our disputes, and they have given so much energy to our strike action so far. We need to build on this strength to oppose the cuts to our pension and organise for escalating action in the months to come to bring about structural change in the governance of the sector. This has never been just a question of ‘reasonable proposals’, it’s a question of power. And we have the power to win.

This coming week, including the Tuesday 22nd February Joint Negotiation Committee, we need UUK and UCU:

  • to recognise that a pension fund with £92 billion in pension assets has a huge surplus not a deficit: a £30bn surplus even if we went through war and depression;
  • to recognise that they can change the valuation assumption of 0% growth to a prudent assumption;
  • to agree not to cut benefits or raise contributions: no detriment, and the status quo;
  • to agree for the future to develop a credible valuation method, reform the failed governance of USS, and divest fossil fuels.

Among the central actors in this crisis, we also need change: members must be in control of our strike. This is why our Branch has repeatedly called on the UCU General Secretary and the members of the appropriate committees to organise an emergency Branch Delegates Meeting with voting power ahead of the next HEC meeting on 25 February that will decide on the next steps of our disputes. We need to ensure there are no more flawed proposals from UCU, that UCU negotiators have credible legal advice and support, and that UCU develops a clear, member-led strategy to win our disputes. To this end, the UCU should publish details of its strike fund which VP Mercer says has ‘never been healthier’ and can therefore support escalating action. 

We believe that if we take control of our disputes, we will also be able to push:

  • Principals and Vice Chancellors to take control over the agenda of their representatives at UUK, because we cannot have this damage to the pension when there’s a surplus – this is what our joint statement with KCL management implicitly recognises, as so does that of Imperial, Cambridge and Oxford;
  • the USS trustee directors to refuse to comply with proposals for pension cuts. If they don’t, they should be defunded under Scheme Rule 62.6: this is still in the power of the Joint Negotiation Committee, to withdraw its agreement for ‘all expenses and costs’ (p.207).

If UUK attempts to force its plans to cut 35% of the pension when there is a massive surplus, we have further options. These not only include legal action against USS (our first hearing is 28 February), but also options against universities and against decision-makers personally, such as under the Equality Act 2010 section 61 for cuts that have a discriminatory impact, in violation of the ‘non-discrimination rule’ for pensions. 

But these legal options will only be effective if we have all the organised strength of our members behind. This is why we believe UCU must call for escalating action for an indeterminate time. Given that our members stand to lose 100s of 1000s of pounds, and some are threatened with 100% deductions for ASOS, this is the rational thing to do, whereas cuts to a pension with a multi-billion surplus is not. 

So, what matters now is to build our collective strength to create the conditions for winning our two disputes and democratising the sector. 

Join our activities on Monday and Tuesday’s March for Education! We can stop the pension robbery.

KCL UCU

19 February 2022

Emergency motion on USS strike and strategy

16 February 2022

KCL UCU notes

  1. We are in the fight of our lives over USS and the 4Fights, with a threat to wreck the pension scheme in pre-92 universities.
  2. The latest HEC acted against UCU’s nationally agreed strategy to keep the action on USS and Four Fights together
  3. UCU proposals on USS call for a new moderately prudent valuation in 2022, with employers providing the level of covenant support they agreed to provide in their own proposals and finally employers and employees agree to an interim rise in contributions for the period to March 2023.
  4. The proposal for a new valuation comes with the suggestion of accepting “current benefits or, if not possible, the best achievable” (proposal 3).

Our branch believes:

  1. With £92b in assets, up from £64b in March 2021, our pension fund does not have a financial deficit, but a democratic deficit.
  2. Increasing contributions to 11% immediately and rising to 11.8% in October 2022 abandons the element of our No Detriment policy that current benefits should be maintained for no more than current contribution rates.
  3. Given the cost-of-living crisis and long-term decline in our purchasing power many of our lowest paid and precarious members will find it increasingly difficult to afford higher contributions
  4. Suggesting that UCU would accept the “best achievable” benefits after March 2023 is openly against UCU’s No Detriment policy and disarms us in our future potential action to oppose pension cuts.

Our branch therefore resolves:

  1. Any successful strategy must put precarious members, women and racialized minorities at the centre, and keep the pension and four fights disputes together.
  2. We oppose temporary increases in contributions and any potential cuts to our defined benefits
  3. We need to organize for escalating indefinite action in the months to come to bring about structural change in the governance of the sector
  4. To achieve these demands, members need to be in control of our action 

KCL UCU therefore further resolves

  1. To call on the UCU General secretary and the officers of the appropriate committee to organize an emergency Branch Delegates Meeting with voting rights and plenary interaction among delegates to decide on the next steps of the disputes before the next HEC meeting on 25 February 2022
  2. To call on UCU to publish detailed information on its striking fund, which according to VP Mercer “has never been healthier”, and UCU’s ability to support indefinite and escalating action.
  3. To publicise this call and organize with other branches so that members can take control of the disputes and organise to win.

 

Joint statement from King’s College London and the KCL UCU branch

KCL UCU and the King’s College London senior management team are united in our belief that a contribution rate of 25-30% of salary should be sufficient to secure a good pension for staff who are members of USS, and that the USS trustee’s current approach to risk makes it difficult to obtain good value for money.

We acknowledge that the current UUK proposal for reform places a greater burden on members with a cut to future defined-benefit pension and a reduction in take-home pay due to increased contributions, and that this jeopardises the scheme remaining attractive both to new and current members. We acknowledge that the current UCU proposal for reform raises contribution rates, and therefore reduces take-home pay and employer funds, even if this is intended to be temporary pending a new valuation. However, we agree there is no legal requirement to stay within the March 2020 valuation assumption of nearly-zero asset growth and that other prudent assumptions may be possible and should be explored. We note the changes to the governance of USS in 2019, which led to directors that are appointed by UUK and UCU becoming irremovable except by the existing USS board. We highlight the increasing number of pension and endowment funds, including at King’s College, London, that have divested from fossil fuels for financial, environmental and ethical reasons. We also recognise that a sustainable and long-term vision for the future of our pension is essential and will only be possible if all parties work together towards a common goal.

We therefore:

  • Call on UUK and UCU to return to negotiations on proposals that achieve the best possible pension for 25-30% contribution rates and do so consistently with all legal requirements. For KCL UCU the best possible pension will keep or enhance existing benefits, and for KCL senior management this is a desirable goal but will depend on future negotiations and funding arrangements.
  • Call for UUK and UCU to join forces and create a well-resourced working party to explore the feasibility and promise of alternative approaches that will give long-term stability and viability to the USS pension scheme. We agree that conditional indexation, or alternative scheme designs, could make it possible for USS to continue as a collective, mutual, multi-employer scheme with an ability to invest for the long term in growth-seeking assets.
  • Call upon UUK and UCU to negotiate on governance reform for USS that reflects the principle of joint management of the joint pension scheme.
  • Call upon UUK and UCU to ensure that USS divests from fossil fuels, and develops a policy on the use of shareholder voting rights that reflects the environmental, social and governance values of the scheme’s beneficiaries.

 

Joint statement agreed 18 February 2022

Building solidarity

Register here for Wednesday’s meeting on the Four Fights & Black History Month (27 October 6pm)

We are happy for the support we received both from the National Union of Students and our own KCL students, who wrote this open letter to the principal, Prof Shitij Kapur, urging the College to meet UCU’s ‘demands immediately before any action is necessary.’ But it is also clear to us that some students, especially third-years, who experienced a rather rocky few years with the strike in 2020 and throughout COVID-19, are worried about potential further disruption.

NUS President and UCU Secretary in front of the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association, October 2021

We want to reassure our students that your lecturers and professors love teaching you and have been forced to ballot on strike action by the intransigence of our employers. It’s them, not us, who are creating the conditions for more disruption after one and half years of pandemic. Staff have kept the university going through their commitment and have faced the total lack of leadership of a senior management who failed properly to plan during the pandemic, did not renew the contracts of hundreds of precarious workers despite rising student numbers and forced staff to teach on campus during the deadliest phases of the virus. And now they are forcing through cuts in our pay and pension while keeping their own pay levels secret.

For us, the real issue is whether students support our demands and are ready to put pressure on our employers to make it possible for these demands to be met. We will never tire of repeating that our working conditions are also students’ learning conditions.

Pic from 2020 UCU strike

We are not just campaigning on pension, pay and casualization. A key part of the UCU’s Four Fights campaign relates to addressing ballooning workloads and the scandal of the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps in the University. These gaps are a stain on our reputation as a university supposedly committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. Their very existence is inconsistent with KCL’s duties under the Equality Act 2010. Details of 2020 pay gaps, by faculty and according to KCL’s own data, are available here. These concerns are shared by students as they affect who is teaching them and those teachers’ ability to provide effective and inclusive education.

For more information on this issue – and the wider Four Fights campaign and the struggle for equality at King’s – we encourage students and staff to two join national UCU negotiators, a representative of KCL UNISON and other KCL students on Wednesday 27 Oct at 6pm. In 2018 KCL students stood with staff in opposing cuts to staff pensions that are now being revisited by employers and they also campaigned for the insourcing of KCL cleaners and security staff. Insourcing was not a concession but an achievement of our movement. It shows that it’s only when students and workers stand together that we are at our strongest and can make the University a better place. There’s much more than pay and pension at stake in the current disputes. It’s the future of our universities. Please come and discuss how to get involved! 

 

Visible Skin, Invisible Gaps: Black History Month and the Four Fights

Wednesday 27 October 6pm – Zoom registration here

To celebrate Black History Month, Kings College has organized a wide range of events across the university, including the exhibition ‘Visible Skin’, which rediscovers the Renaissance through Black Portraiture. But what do the portraits of Black workers in 21st Century academia tell us about the College itself and the Higher Education system in general? With pay diminished by wage freezes and inflation, unsustainable workloads, ethnic and gender pay gaps and casualisation, the university is currently a broken environment for both staff and students. That is why the UCU is balloting members on strike action on the 4 Fights! Join us for a special event on UCU’s 4 Fights – on pay, workload, ethnic and gender pay gaps and casualisation – and how we as workers and students can transform the university. We are joined by national UCU Four Fights negotiators Dr Marian Myer and Dr Robyn Orfitelli, by a KCL UNISON rep and by three KCL students leading on different campaigns to discuss why the 4 Fights dispute and the current ballot for strike action matters for our diverse community.

Write to KCL Principal and President

Dear President & Principal Professor Shitij Kapur,

I hope you’re well. I am writing to you because, as a student of KCL, I am deeply concerned about the current working conditions of our staff. During the pandemic, KCL staff worked tirelessly to keep my education going and to move teaching and learning online.

But it does not seem that KCL senior management acknowledges and appreciates their efforts. Even if it recognises that workloads are much above the contractually defined ones, KCL senior management it is supporting employers’ attempts to cut their pensions by at least 25% and a 16% real term decline in their pay since 2008, 

I appreciate KCL’s focus and emphasis on combatting inequality and its cutting edge research on these matters. KCL is committed to race equality and gender equality. And yet, KCL does not seem to follow the statements and research agenda at its own institution. In material terms, the gender pay gap is still 17.1% and the ethnicity gap is 20%. I ask the university to practice what it preaches. It should eradicate these pay gaps right now.

Student learning conditions are teachers’ working conditions. Inequalities among staff are reflected in significant students’ attainment gaps at King’s. The increase in workloads means that KCL staff have less time to engage with my studies. The fact that a lot of my teachers’ contracts are short-term only adds needless stress to their work.

Given this increasing precarity of the academic profession, and unacceptable inequalities, I am deeply concerned about the quality of education for future years.

When staff and students complain about this discrimination at work, they should be congratulated. Instead, the university condemns the actions taken by staff when the university leaves them no other choice.

This decision by the university has devastating consequences to my education and I demand that the university reverses the cuts and the increases in workloads, and eradicates the pay gaps.

We all want to attend our classes after one and half years of pandemic. Our lecturers and professors love teaching us.

We demand KCL senior management plays a part too.

Kind Regards,

 

 

ALL STUDENT-STAFF MEETING Thursday 21st Oct 6pm

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Dear Students,

We hope you’re well. You may have heard that the University and College Union (UCU), which represents many staff across the College, is taking a vote on whether to take action to improve their working conditions. This is directly relevant to the quality of your education and we feel it is your right to learn about what is happening.

KCL Student Union is voting this Friday, October 22, about whether to officially support the UCU. Student voices matter for a satisfactory and quick resolution to these issues, so your vote counts!

In the interest of transparency, we would like to invite any students to attend an all staff & students meeting over Zoom this Thursday at 6pm. Join it here. We’ll summarise what’s happening and  we want to hear your questions, your views and hear your voice.

KCL Senior Managers has expressed their “deep disappointment” that UCU is balloting on the pension and the Four Fights disputes “at a time when we are all working together to prioritise the needs of our students.”

We disagree with this juxtaposition between the needs of students and staff.

Meeting the needs of the students is at the centre of our demands. First, obtaining fair pay and working conditions has a direct impact on our ability to fulfil our role as educators. Second, the entire King’s community has had to make extraordinary efforts throughout this pandemic to ensure smooth continuity and public health precaution, which has meant an increased workload for staff.

But despite all this, KCL Senior Management persisting in cutting out pay and pensions and has no clear plans to stop unsustainable workloads, the gender and ethnicity pay gaps, and rampant casualization.

  • Our pay has fallen by 17.6% in real terms over the last decade.
  • Bringing cleaners in-house (an achievement of student solidarity during the 2018 strike!) shed light on the real extent of the racialised pay gap at King’s, which increased from 13.2% to 20%, while the gender pay gap is still at the unacceptable level of 17.1%.
  • We see no serious commitment on the part of SM to end casualisation. SM say that, “where possible, during the pandemic [they] extended fixed term contracts.” But we know that the contracts of at least 700 people were terminated while our Principal was taking £463,000 in 2020.  

What about the pension?

Our managers tell us that “taking industrial action won’t impact USS in any way.” But the 2018 UCU strike forced concessions, including the withdrawal of the threat to impose Defined Contribution pensions that has now returned. Without industrial action, our employers will force through cuts using the discredited USS valuation conducted in March 2020, during a stock market crash. This valuation is not accurate. In reality, there is no deficit in the pension scheme, but rather a huge surplus.

If these cuts are allowed, members will be paying more in pension contributions for greatly reduced pension benefits. The guaranteed income portion of our pensions (Defined Benefit) will be cut, everyone will be shunted towards a lump-sum pension that runs out if we live too long (Defined Contribution), and protection against +2.5% inflation rises will be removed.

Staff working conditions and students’ learning conditions

We are all acutely aware of the impact strike action could have on our students, this year more than ever. But we are also all too aware that the learning and wellbeing of students are negatively affected by unsustainable workloads, gender and racialised discrimination, casualisation, pay and pension cuts and undemocratic levels of inequality.

If the KCL senior management really cared about students, they would have not allowed the situation to get to this point.

We need to be clear: the reason why we are being balloted for strike is the intransigence of KCL administration. UCU has worked tirelessly, locally and nationally, to find alternative solutions to the combined crises of pensions, pay, conditions and inequalities. So if we’re forced to take action, the blame lies with the employers who have made the conditions of working and learning at UK universities so much worse – for students and staff alike. Our students know that – that’s why the NUS has come out in support of UCU’s campaign.

Students and staff can cooperate to achieve solutions to the above issues.

  • You can learn more background, ask questions and engage in dialogue this Thursday, October 21 at 6pm
  • You can voice your support by voting this Friday, October 22, in the KCLSU ballot to support the UCU strike action
  • You can write to our Principal, Professor Shitij Kapur, using this sample email, and ask him to act. 

Together, we can demand KCL management to use the three-week ballot period to take concrete action, along with other employers, to end this ruthless attack on our working conditions and on students’ learning conditions.

Power concedes nothing without a demand! 

In solidarity,

KCL UCU Executive

 

 

 

Welcome

Welcome to KCL UCU: this is your academic union.

Casework and individual support

If you require individual support from a KCL UCU caseworker and are a member of KCL UCU please attend the next Friday lunchtime online drop-in. KCL UCU members routinely get an email with the link for the drop-in being held that week. If you are new to KCL UCU and think you are not on the KCL UCU email list please contact the Membership Secretaries cc Branch email: ucu@kcl.ac.uk

Our administrative staff check this email on Tuesdays, and KCL UCU executive members check the email occasionally between times.

UCU caseworkers are employees of King’s and have their own work commitments. They are volunteers and often will not be able to respond to requests immediately. They should not be contacted without prior arrangement unless the matter is extremely urgent. For the same reason, it may take some time to find a caseworker.

Please provide a brief outline of your issue by email. The caseworker needs to be informed of your situation prior to meeting, having a telephone conversation or email dialogue with you.

You may be able to find the information you require via the King’s HR webpages without needing to use the caseworker service.

UCU/ACAS information

The UCU website has advice for common workplace issues at:

https://www.ucu.org.uk/support 

and useful information can also be obtained via the ACAS website at:

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx

Regional and legal support

In a very small number of cases it’s possible that more substantial support is required. The branch has access to UCU’s regional officers. There is also a legal support scheme available. However, in both cases, the KCL UCU branch should be the first port of call – applying direct to region will only slow things down as region will always pass enquiries back to branch in the first instance. Details on the legal scheme are available at: https://www.ucu.org.uk/legal

New members

A Unions’ strength comes from its members. We encourage every eligible staff member to join UCU at the earliest opportunity. Please note that only limited support can be given within the first three months of your membership, particularly if you join with a pre-existing issue or an issue arises soon after joining.

Please take a moment to read & act on the following:

In this time of rapid development we will be making every effort to keep KCL UCU members promptly informed.

To help us and yourselves please can you ensure that you do *both* the following things:

1. Check your individual UCU member record online and ensure all contact details for you are up-to-date here: https://ucu.custhelp.com/app/utils/login_form

2. Be aware the KCL UCU e-list is a separate system – updated from UCU records. So if you are still not receiving emails please do update you record as above, but also email: ucu@kcl.ac.uk to let us know you are not getting emails.

Your correct details can then be manually entered onto that system as soon as possible.