Defend pay ♦ Defend education ♦ Fund FE
- £1 extra per hour for all
- Vote yes for strike action in the national pay ballot
- Get the Vote Out – Ballot opens Monday September 28, closes Thursday October 15
Vote YES to strike action
As agreed at our Annual Sector Conference in May, UCU is launching a national ballot in pursuit of our pay claim for £1 extra per hour for all.
The employers (AoC) response has been to offer 0 percent! This is an insult to everyone working in FE and represents a continuation of the pay cuts suffered over the last five years.
This means:
- Lecturers on point 8 of the pay scale have lost 17% of their pay since the start of the financial crisis. This amounts to £6,100 in lost spending power.
The AOC claim there is no money to pay lecturers as a result of the government’s austerity agenda and funding cuts. This is not the case. The money is there to fund our claim:
- The top 1 percent in the UK have doubled their wealth during the last government.
Despite UCU’s proposals to the AoC to join with us to campaign for more funding for the sector college employers have decided simply to implement the Tory government’s cuts. But by seeking to impose yet another pay cut the employers only encourage more funding cuts.
As more staff leave the sector through redundancies those remaining find their workloads spiralling, putting them more at risk of stress related sickness.
Lecturers’ frustration and anger over pay cuts and funding cuts is fuelled by the continued pay boosts for college principals who have seen their wages rise, in many cases, to over five times that of a main grade lecturer.
New times
The campaign to defend Adult Education and the landslide election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party signals that we are not alone. Through our anti-cuts campaigning over the last three months we have raised the profile of our sector. More people now understand the significance of the role we play within Education. Coupled with the new leadership of the Labour Party who understand the importance of Further and Adult Education, we are in a good position to pursue our case for £1 extra per hour for all.
What branches can do to get the vote out:
Campaign materials will have arrived at your college.
If they have not please contact campaigns@ucu.org.uk
Recruit new reps as part of the campaign: Identify a person in each workroom who will distribute campaign materials and systematically check that members have received ballot papers and voted.
Invite a speaker to your branch.
Invite an NEC speaker or National Negotiator to speak to a branch campaign meeting.
Leaflet: UCU Left FE pay ballot Sept 15