Pay forum update
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1. PROGRESSION
After many months of delay, in December 2008 it came to our attention that management had been consulting at a senior level over progression procedures without including the unions in their discussions or informing us that such discussions were taking place. Management did, however, apologise for any failures of communication in this regard at the JNCC on February 24. In order to accelerate the process of negotiation, UCU at this point proposed additional meetings to resolve the procedures in good time. Finally, at the Pay Forum on March 10, management belatedly produced a document setting out progression procedures.
The progression document did not meet several of the criteria set down in the Framework Agreement. In particular the proposal:
a) Did not give a firm commitment to setting up ‘job families’ beyond
academic pathways, and therefore to career trajectories for academic
related staff;
b) Set up progession between Lecturer A and Lecturer B as dependent upon application instead of seeing movement from ‘training grade’ to ‘career’ grade’ as expected UNLESS concerns are raised in Probation and PDRs;
c) Failed to establish ‘role profiles’ for Readers and to score those
roles, and thus failed to establish the objective criteria by which
promotion to Reader would be judged (where Readers sit on the pay spine is
still disputed);
d) Created unnecessary ‘add ons’ to the existing and agreed role profiles;
e) Failed to set out an appeal mechanism.
In response to detailed UCU objections, management came back with a revised proposal at the additional Pay Forum meeting on March 24. Although these came some way toward meeting UCU concerns on Lec A-B, and management agreed to ditch the role profile ‘add ons’, they did not come far enough. Furthermore, little progress had been made on the other aspects of the proposal. UCU has offered to set out what we would consider an appropriate set of procedures, to create role profiles for Readers, and to table our revised document in time for the next Pay Forum after Easter.
2. HOURLY PAID/ FIXED TERM STAFF (VTs and ATs)
A working party was set up before Christmas to consider the movement of
hourly paid and fixed term staff onto the Pay Spine, as agreed in the
Framework Agreement. HODs are currently being asked to ‘match in’ VT and
AT staff to role profiles. Management has indicated that the intention is
to shift as much of the workforce on to Fractional contracts as is
possible (a principle UCU is in agreement with).
The nub is the methodology by which ‘hours worked’ (over and above contact hours) are calculated. UCU has called for a transparent, simple and fair method of working out ‘hours worked’ using a standard multiplier (at least 2.5 x every contact hour) plus marking as a variable. An alternative would be to establish with each VT an agreed estimation of their annual workload.
At the latest working party meeting (March 31) management produced a model of conversion to fractionality which was very vague and which gave a low estimation of the hours worked per contact time. UCU has agreed to circulate to the HR team the material it has that supports its own model.Management has embarked upon a complex data gathering exercise to establish existing practice in Goldsmiths. Despite warnings from UCU that we need to move more quickly, they still have implementation by the beginning of 2009-10 as their target.
3. HOURS OF WORK, OVERTIME, STANDBY AND CALLOUT
This area was one of those which needed quite some detailed work done before it could be adequately incorporated into the Framework Agreement so it was agreed to come back to it once the main structures had been established.
A paper was tabled at the 9 December Pay Forum as a first attempt by
management to standardise the detail for staff working hours and associate
areas. This will eventually replace the current Section I of the Framework
Agreement. The first tabled draft was needlessly harsh and, when spoken
to, did not articulate management’s position. Since then, we have had four
revisions and examined the fifth at the latest Pay Forum. Sections on
standby and callout have been cut for now, but will be returned to by
June. There are some inconsistencies of emphasis which we are trying to
address before we agree to it, but we are quite close.
It may seem odd that there is still a split in the terms and conditions
between staff on grades 1-5 and those on 6-10. GM regards the document as
evolutionary rather than setting anything in stone for ever. As a
transitional stage towards fuller equality it articulates some duties of
care and well-being which is worthwhile.
Duncan Branley
Ben Levitas
UCU reps, Pay Forum
Major UCU conference on cutbacks to education on 2 April
Major UCU conference and rally at University of London Union at Malet Street on 2nd April between 4-8pm. Please register and attend. More details here.
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