A message of support from Sally Hunt, General Secretary, UCU

Dear colleague

I am writing to ask you to support your union in the current ballot at Leeds College of Art and Design. You are being balloted for industrial action and action short of a strike so that we can ensure that you finally receive the money your college owes you.

Four years ago, we signed a national deal that brought with it substantial pay rises for lecturing staff. Unfortunately, your college is one of a group who refused to honour this agreement.

UCU can no longer tolerate this. At a time when politicians are talking about the importance of investing in skills and training to support our communities through the recession, it’s unacceptable that colleges such as yours are trying to get their teaching on the cheap.

I know that your local branch officers have tried talking to the college to persuade them to implement the agreement, but in spite of their best efforts for four years the college has refused to negotiate meaningfully.

That means that we need to show them we are serious and that’s why I am asking you to vote yes for industrial action and action short of a strike.

I know that we can win this campaign. If you support your union in this ballot, together we can ensure that you get the money you are owed. Over the last six months, UCU has targeted around 20 other colleges who had not implemented the 2004 pay agreement and all but a handful of these colleges have either reached agreement or are now in talks about implementing the pay increases. See: http://www.ucu.org.uk/iou

I sincerely hope that industrial action will not prove necessary. We have written to the management of your college asking for talks. But the lesson of the other ‘IOU’ colleges shows that we must be able to send a clear message that we are serious. The bigger the turnout and the bigger the yes vote, the greater will be the chances of your management coming to the table.

So please vote yes and make sure your colleagues see this message.

Yours sincerely

Sally Hunt,
General Secretary, UCU

VOTE YES

Leeds College of Art and Design UCU members will be voting in a ballot for action as part of a national campaign to press those colleges that disgracefully have failed to implement a national agreement on pay reached in 2004.

The Principal has been asked to give a commitment to move lecturers onto the harmonised pay spine and negotiate a timeframe for assimilation. This has not been forthcoming and there has been no response to our request. National officials and Regional Officials have written urging the employer to talk to UCU – again nothing.

Of the five colleges in this second round, Canterbury and Peterborough colleges have agreed and have been removed from the ballot leaving LCAD, City College Birmingham and Suffolk New College. There is still time for this college to stop this process by agreeing the Harmonised Pay Spine and a timeframe for implementation.

Unfortunately the past years of inactivity by the local union has led to a management culture that feels it can do anything and will face little resistance. This college has the worst paid staff not only in Leeds but in Yorkshire.

There is nowhere else that fixes people on a single pay salary point. Every other college has a spine and movement annually up that spine in some form or other. Management themselves have recognised there is a problem with the currently opaque and ad hoc system, stating in the Corporate Aims and Objectives for 2008-13 that they wish to establish a “consistent recruitment procedures for promotions”. The Harmonised Pay scale provides that consistent framework for promotion and its adoption by management would signal the college’s commitment to ‘valuing staff’ rather than empty rhetoric and the stated practice of seeing teaching at the college as a first step on our careers; the subtext being, if you want more pay go somewhere else. Our high staff turn over is testament to this.

Not only we the worst paid staff in Yorkshire and alone in having fixed salary points, we are discovering that conditions enjoyed generally in colleges, schools and universities have been steadily eroded here while the Union has been dormant. Check your sick leave entitlement. Other colleges provide for six months full pay and six months half pay after a qualifying employment period. This college sometime in the recent past changed that to a maximum of 2 months full and two months half pay after 4 years service. Because we haven’t been organised as a union over the past few years the employer has got away with murder.

That is about to change. Membership of UCU has tripled over that past two years we are getting organised. We’re not greedy, we are not militant – 15 years of taking it on the chin shows that. We are however becoming angry and fed up with the shoddy treatment of hard working and dedicated professionals. The Art College is built on the commitment of its staff, and to not have that dedication acknowledged by providing a salary spine that promotes career progression is insulting to all of us.

We urge you to vote yes and get behind your union. if you are not a member join on line at www.ucu.org.uk

Questions & Answers

We know we are going to be faced with many questions and with statements about our action. The one already being bandied about is that it is wrong to take strike action during a time of economic recession and spiralling unemployment. Well no, it is not! Any public opprobrium should be directed at the bankers that have been on strike i.e. refusing to lend money, for several months. That refusal to lend money causes firms to go bust and workers to be made redundant. They continue withholding their capital (actually it’s our capital, now that we are bailing them out). The Government wants them to put money into the economy so that people begin to spend and create demand for goods and services. We will do that when we are paid what is owed us. Any increase in our spending power will benefit the local economy, stimulating demand for goods and services and therefore creating employment.

No doubt we will also be told that our action will jeopardise the viability of our college putting our jobs at risk. Well no, it will not! Many will remember that during the last recession it was FE that re trained and re skilled the people of Yorkshire. Again the government this time has stated that Colleges will be the lifeboat in this crisis. Money will be pumped into colleges to re-skill and re-train the workforce and reduce the dole queue. There has been a 40% increase in applications for HE courses nationally. Our message is that colleges should treat the crew of the lifeboat with respect and with the remuneration commensurate with the vital role that we will play. They should pay us what we are owed and have waited long enough to receive. It’s worth remembering that the college is forecasting an operating surplus of £400,000 for 2008/09, having achieved a similar figure in 2007/08.

The old spectre of an argument that the students will be harmed by our action will once again be raised. Well no, it will not! What will harm the students is an exodus of staff to other colleges in Yorkshire, where the Harmonised Pay scale is a reality. If you want to keep the crew in the lifeboat you don’t pay second rate money for a first class and crucial job!

One question you might be asking yourselves is can I afford to take strike action in these economic times? Nobody wants to loose a days pay, but at the same time the longer you work at the college the worse off we are. Colleagues in other institutions will be repeating the benefits of the incremental Harmonised Pay scale while we stay on our fixed points. Also, UCU will be supporting our action by paying £30 strike pay. Employers are exploiting fears about the economy, to ride rough-shod over employees. The key question is can we afford not to take action?

Our college is one of a minority of colleges that refuses to implement a national agreement reached between UCU and the Association of Colleges.

Q. What is the 2004 agreement?
A. The 2004 agreement reduced the pay gap between FE staff and schoolteachers. It means higher salaries both for new lecturers and those at the top of the scale and has been uprated in line with pay settlements since.

Q. How long has our college had to bring in the better pay rates?
A. UCU reached agreement with the employers in 2004. The college has now had four years to honour the agreement reached with the unions.

Q. Why does it matter whether my college pays the nationally agreed rate?
A. Staff working here provide first class teaching, yet receive second class salaries compared to other
colleges.

Q. How can I find out what I should be getting paid?
A. Go to www.ucu.org.uk/FEpaycalc to see the current nationally agreed rates enjoyed by staff in
the majority of colleges. Starting salaries for qualified lecturers are £22,857, and top of spine staff get £34,587.

The principal’s 16.8% pay rise

The recent highlighting of the Principal’s salary increase by our newsletter has caused an understandable wave of anger and resentment across all sections of the college.

While we fought for and received a 3.2% pay rise in the same period LCAD’s Board of Governors awarded the Principal a 16.8% increase from £96,000 (2005/06), £107,000 (2006/07) to £125,000 (2007/08). Turn your anger into support by getting behind the campaign and petitioning for a better deal for everyone.

March and Rally at Doncaster College, 9 May

Defend jobs, Defend education at Doncaster

The campaign to defend jobs at Doncaster college will move up a gear on Saturday 9 May with a local march in the town centre. Staff are fighting to defend their jobs and win a fresh start at the college after years of mismanagement culminated in a plan to slash jobs and deskill the workforce. The march will be an opportunity for UCU members all over the region and beyond to show their support for colleagues at Doncaster, as well as pushing forward the union’s general campaign to defend jobs and education during the recession. If you can make it on the 9 May, head to Doncaster and show managers that UCU will defend access to education in the interests of staff, students and the whole community. The march will Assemble at 10.30am at The Hub, Chappell Drive, Doncaster: www.multimap.com/s/NGzPhEF8. For more on this campaign click here: www.ucu.org.uk/doncasterjobsthreat

IOU campaign becomes visible

Raise The Scarlet Standard High!

Our new union banner, delivered today, and fetchingly modeled by Christian and Dave (in retro 80's Harrington)!

For the time being it is on display in the Vis Comm office (206) but if anyone fancies displaying it in their office / department, or taking it for walks around Hyde Park then please feel free!

Their Crisis! Not Ours! Day of action Weds 22nd April

They’ve bailed out the bankers who started the crisis - but millions of working people across the country are paying with their jobs, pay packets and their homes.

On Wednesday 22nd April, you will finally have your chance to ask the Government: ‘Where’s Our Bailout?’. As the Chancellor delivers the Government’s annual Budget, come and protest in front of the world’s cameras.

Alistair Darling will announce unprecedented cuts in public services. The recession is being used as a convenient marker in the drive to dismantle public services further.

All of the major trade unions, including UCU, will be represented on the day. As educationalists we must keep flagging up how the market is distorting, and will continue to distort, the purpose of education. Support the action if you can, if not spread the word to friends and colleagues.

For more info see Their Crisis! Not Ours! website.

IOU campaign – Four more FE colleges balloted for action as next wave are targeted

Four more colleges face ballots for industrial action on 28 April unless their managements agree to talks to implement the 2004 pay agreement. Canterbury College, City College Birmingham, Leeds College of Arts and Design, Suffolk New College will become the next wave of target colleges as the highly successful IOU campaign moves into its next phase. The IOU campaign aims to win implementation of the 2004 pay agreement on pay which introduced significantly improved pay scales for FE lecturers. 17 colleges were targeted as part of the first wave and 12 of these have either agreed on implementation or are now in talks to do so. This is a national campaign with national significance as it is about our ability to win adherence to national agreements and one feature of the campaign so far has been the level of national solidarity shown to colleagues at the target colleges. Watch this space for more on what you can do. For more on this campaign, click here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/iou

Jonathan White

Deputy Head of Campaigns

University and College Union (UCU)

IOU - please support your union

Dear colleague,

We are writing to you to ask you to support your union.

The IOU campaign is the union’s campaign to ensure that you receive the pay to which you are entitled. Four years ago, we signed a national deal that brought with it substantial pay rises for lecturing staff. Unfortunately, your college is one of a group who refused to honour this agreement.

We think this is unfair. At a time when politicians are talking about the importance of investing in skills and training to support our communities through the recession, it’s unacceptable that colleges such as yours are trying to get their teaching on the cheap.

Your local branch officers have tried talking to the college about this but in spite of our best efforts, for four years, the college has refused to negotiate meaningfully. That means that we need to show them we are serious and that’s why from 28 April, we will be balloting you for industrial action.

Your college will be one of at least four who have been targeted by UCU as the next phase of our highly successful campaign to persuade colleges to honour national agreements.

We can win. If you support your union in this ballot, together we can ensure that you get the money you are owed. Over the last six months, UCU has targeted 18 other colleges who had not implemented the 2004 pay agreement and all but a handful of these colleges are now in talks about implementing the pay increases.

Our hope is that industrial action will not prove necessary. We have written to the management of your college asking for talks. But the lesson of the other 18 colleges shows that we must be ready to send a clear message that we are serious. See: http://www.ucu.org.uk/iou

So please be ready to support UCU should a ballot prove necessary. In the meantime, the best thing you can do to help the campaign is to make sure your colleagues have seen this message and to urge those who are not yet members to join the union and help us win pay justice. Please pass on this link to join online: http://www.joinonline.ucu.org.uk/

Yours sincerely

Barry Lovejoy, National Head of Further Education
Jonathan White, Deputy Head of Campaigns

LCAD Principals Salary 2005-8

Following our hard fought, but still unsatisfactory, 3.2% pay rise last year, the union feels it important to highlight the pay increases awarded to the principal at Leeds college of Art in recent years (All information is available in the public domain on the LSC website)

LCAD Principals Salary
2005/6- £96,000
2006/7- £107,000 (12% increase)
2007/8- £125,000 (16.8% increase)

Why do the hard working and successful lecturing staff of LCAD only merit a 3.2% payrise yet the principal merits a 16.8% payrise for the same year?