Vice-Chancellor's Response

Unison industrial action

Dear all

I am writing to update all staff that yesterday we were served with a formal notice of industrial action from Unison with confirmation that they will be calling for their members to strike on Monday 26^th September, which is the first day of teaching for many of our students.  Unison have also identified 4^th October and 11^th October as additional strike days.

This is extremely disappointing, and I was particularly shocked that the notice was served as we begin a period of national mourning when we are urging our communities to come together with respect and compassion.

As a university, we are part of national pay negotiations by which we are bound and prevent us from setting our own annual pay award.  It is worth noting that we tried to influence the outcome of the negotiations at every step and also that all of our recognised trades unions have expressed a preference to remain in the national pay negotiations.  The national award of 3% was paid to all staff in August.

Just last week I wrote to all staff with the announcement that we are making provision to pay staff a one-off sum of up to £1,000 for the lowest paid staff which represents a double digit increase for staff on the lowest grades.

At LJMU we have always been a fair and supportive employer, throughout the entire pandemic we supported every single member of staff, regardless of individual roles and we have introduced hybrid working as standard practice across the university which makes this a particularly dismaying response from Unison.

We will assemble a set of principles for staff to consider in advance of strike action and this will be communicated shortly.  From this moment though, no member of staff may book leave for the days above – if leave has already been booked and approved we will honour that commitment with no detriment, and hybrid working will be suspended in the lead up to and on the planned strike days.

I am sorry to have to bring you this news. We will of course have contingency arrangements in place to make sure that the planned days of action don’t disrupt the experience of our students and have minimum impact on the rest of the staff.  

Best wishes

Mark 

Professor Mark Power

Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive