Aberystwyth University employs over 400 members of the University and College Union. They are represented locally by Aberystwyth UCU.

Aberystwyth University is a member of an organisation called UCEA – Universities and Colleges Employers Association. This represents the interests of UK university businesses in pay and conditions negotiations.      

UCEA meets with all university unions (there are five, including UCU) to negotiate on behalf of employers on national pay and working conditions issues.

All negotiations are conducted and agreed between representatives of the university businesses (UCEA) and the representatives of their staff (e.g. UCU), NOT between staff and managers of individual universities.

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The negotiators meet early in the year through to June to try and agree a settlement. If no settlement is reached then the parties enter into a dispute resolution phase – further negotiations, possibly mediated by Acas.

UCU remains ‘in dispute‘ with UCEA over negotiations in previous years. ‘In dispute’ means negotiations have broken down and the union has had to ask its members what action they are willing to take to secure improvements in the offer being made by employers.

Members voted in large numbers in October 2022 to enter a national dispute and take industrial action (withdrawing our labour is industrial action) to seek a shift in the position of the employers. Some improvement in the offers were obtained in April 2023 and subsequently rejected by UCU/members of UCU. As a result many branches entered into a marking and assessment boycott during the summer term and beyond in 2023. This ended in September 2023 when members also decided not to continue the mandate for further national industrial action.

The essential elements of previous disputes persist with one exception for Aberystwyth University – pensions.

  • Pensions

In summer 2023 Universities UK agreed to change the contribution rates for pensions following a flawed valuation of the pension scheme in 2020. Until 2023 employers had unilaterally imposed a higher contribution rate on staff and themselves to the detriment of employees and institutions alike.

As a result of the negotiated agreement staff and employers have seen significant reductions in contribution rates to the USS pension funds. Essentially UCU and its negotiators were correct in the argument they had been making for the previous three years. Industrial action by UCU members led directly to a reversal of a highly detrimental policy decision of the employers.

  • The Four Fights

There are four remaining aspects being negotiated via UCEA that have previously led to industrial action and dispute with the universities: pay, inequality, workload and casualisation.

  1. UCU has been seeking a pay award of inflation plus 2% or £2000 per employee. This follows a decade of below inflation pay awards, including during recent inflation peaks and a cost of living crisis.

Along with pay UCU and the other trade unions seek movement from the employers over long term erosion of job security and working conditions for people working at universities. It is asking UCEA for a national framework (approach) to address:

2. the systemic inequality in opportunity and pay based on ethnicity and gender,
3. the average working week of lecturers (currently over 50 hours per week) by addressing the stresses of workload,
4. and to move away from forms of ‘casualisation‘ (e.g. hourly contracts) as a means raising profits at the expense of job security.

Keep an eye on UCU emails and notices for updates on progress in negotiations or stages of dispute resolution.