Dear Unison Member,
When we consulted you on the final pay offer from UCEA in January/ February this year we received a very strong vote to reject the offer; 82% voted to reject on a 34.3% turnout. Since then, the joint trade unions went into a dispute resolution process facilitated by ACAS and UCEA made a slightly amended offer without changing the overall percentage increases, just offering to bring forward implementation of a slightly larger portion of this to 1 February 2023: a consolidated increase added to the annual salary of £1000 or 2% whichever is the greater. The employers then made clear that there was absolutely no further money on offer.
The Higher Education Service Group Executive considered this slight change in the offer and decided not to waste members' time by consulting you again, as it did not represent a substantive improvement. As a result, we are writing to you to explain that UNISON will not be running another all-member consultation on this slightly revised offer which has now been imposed in the majority of HEIs.
Instead, the HE SGE decided to push ahead with strike ballots over 2023-24 pay instead, and let that be the measure of what members think of this slightly changed offer. Ballots over 2023-24 pay will be run in two phases. The first phase ballot, of a small advance party of HEIs in England only, opens on 4 April and closes on 9 May to deliver a mandate for impactful strike action from 1 June around the administration of exams and assessments.
Our branch and the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Hope will be part of this advance ballot. We need to continue our efforts to get a successful industrial action ballot and that means you the members need to Vote, as you know we need to get over 50% of our members to vote and then out of those that do vote we need to be over 50% in favour of strike action. When this happens we will be in a position to hold JMU and ACEA accountable for a below-inflation pay award.
Some important Dates:
Ballot opens on 04/04/2023
Ballot Hotline opens 11/04/2023
Last date to Join Unison to be included in the Ballot 26/04/2023
Ballot hotline closes 02/05/2023 (noon)
Actual Ballot closes 09/05/2023(10am)
Results of ballot released 09-10/05/2023
Window for industrial action opens from 01/06/2023
More information will follow soon.
Best wishes
UNISON@LJMU
