University Strikes - 61 universities

[LittleLow]

More - What on earth is going on? - than AIBU

The planned strikes seem massive with four weeks of teaching time lost. Students in their final year or those writing dissertations could end up with lower marks potentially impacting on job offers.

What will happen with regard to tuition fees? How about special consideration for exams? There seems to be no help or advice for students & parents. Anyone have any information?

It is a bit worrying that as someone not involved in universities in any way I haven't really heard about the strike at all in the mainstream media... In fact if it wasn't for MN I don't think I'd know anything about it.

@livlemler.

Am I right in understanding you are saying that the main universities pension scheme is being changed from DB to DC? Presumably staff will keep their existing DB entitlements? And future pension years will all be DC?

I'm off to google this. I know that the civil service scheme now gives two options for new recruits - one DB and one DC. I don't know how the contribution rate and benefits compare, so I don't know whether one is more generous than the other.

I didn't realise this was happening (and I work in the DC pensions industry).

www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/news/Pages/Employers-propose-reforms-to-ensure-pension-scheme-remains-sustainable-and-attractive.aspx

Oh I see. Crikey. Still, an 18% employer contribution rate is stratospheric compared to private sector levels and to auto enrolment rates.

But academic salaries are not comparable to similarly-qualified roles in the private sector. The pension is, or was, the compensation for that.

That was the case, I know. But wage growth in the private sector has been almost non existent for the last ten years. I'm not sure the salaries are so out of line any more.

Academic salary growth has also been non-existent for the past ten years; we’ve had a real term pay cut of 16%. While workloads have increased exponentially due to excessive neo-liberal management takeover of universities, and VC and senior management getting massive pay rises.

So we’ve also had wage stagnation.

Still, an 18% employer contribution rate is stratospheric compared to private sector levels and to auto enrolment rates.

The 18% won't be going into individual employees' pensions, as it currently is. It's going to be cut to 13%, with the remainder to fill in the "deficit".

So, in addition to the move from DB to DC, the employers' contribution is effectively being slashed.

A employer's contribution, I might add, that has always been recognised as part of a package of employment benefits that went some way to compensating for the fact that academic salaries are low, both in comparison with other areas of employment with equivalent qualifications, and with the salaries academics earn in other countries (Ireland, the US, Australia, etc.).

Dh is private sector and has a company pension that is very similar to uss in it's current form. Yes final salary is long gone but db does exist in both public and private and in the third sectors.

Well no one has ever contributed a penny to any pension for me, I will work until I die and get £7k state pension at age 67 and am funding university fees out of income already taxed at very high rates and private sector wages in many cases are the same as 5 years ago - not even inflation rises. I am not sure how much sympathy there will be out there for this strike but they have the strike so so be it.

I am sympathetic to the "massively moving the goalposts" argument though.

All pension schemes with any element of defined benefit are in absolute crisis and unaffordable - they will all have to go eventually. The bills for local authorities and unversities are huge - the Universities pensions fund is something like £19b in deficit. Every institution will be top slicing £millions off their expenditure before any of their finances are spent on education, salaries and facilities and actually teaching students. In order to meet future deficits they will be cutting actually teaching to pay for ex employees. Its not sustainable and the older academics will have amazing packages of defined benefits salaries that most other professions would only dream of (younger academics are more likely to have mixed DB/DC schemes or DC only schemes).

Defined benefit schemes were fine when people only lived two years after retirement on average. Now the average person is living 14 - 16 years longer we shall have to work longer and pay less. It not sustainable for any institution and people/politicians/unions are conning you if they say it is.

The valuation which resulted in the supposed £19bn deficit is contested and based on a highly unrealistic perception of the risk facing the sector (ie that all 61 universities could go bust simultaneously).

First Actuarial’s report, on the other hand, concluded:

We conclude from the cash flow analysis later in this report, that the current contribution rate from the 2014 valuation remains a prudent contribution rate, given the current benefit design of the USS. In a scenario of “best estimate” pay rises, the benefits of the USS can very nearly be paid from contributions, without reliance on the assets. There is no need to change either the contribution rate or the benefits to have a prudent funding plan. The strong likelihood is that the USS can be invested to outperform the return required to safely deliver the benefits. Given time, the outperformance will increase the funding level to any desired target. Any formulation of the sign off of the valuation which maintains the current contribution rate and the current benefits is acceptable.

"Other than lectures and access to staff, what exactly are they getting for their £27,000?"

Well, first of all, I don't agree that lectures are a bad way of learning: I like to think that my lectures (which I spend many hours writing) are both stimulating and engaging.

But secondly, this is what my students are getting for their money, apart from their lectures:

weekly seminars to discuss the module topic in detail

a website which I update on a weekly basis, providing ample resources for the module and for further study

a further online teaching resource which I have designed myself and put many (unpaid) hours into

a weekly office hour when they are encouraged to drop in and see me

the offer (well advertised) to make appointment for meetings outside of office hour if they need to

extra 1: 1 meetings by appointment before and after every essay for support and feedback

prompt response to emails regarding course and/or personal issues

regular papers given by eminent scholars in the field which they are encouraged to attend

links with outside body which gives free access to further lectures by eminent scholars in the field at nearby location: this is advertised to students at the time

departmental presence of facebook and twitter, drawing attention to events and new developments in the field

a very well-stocked university library open 24/7 with working spaces and online resources

a Personal Academic Tutor for every student who will see them at least once per semester to check that everything is going all right and who will liaise and support them with any non-module related needs

a Pastoral Support Officer in every department who will be able to offer advice and liaise with appropriate support staff in case of any pastoral issues

a drop-in centre for SEN-related support

specially dedicated Literary Fellows to offer support with writing issues (by appointment)

carefully prepared: a) Faculty Handbook b) Subject Handbook c) Module Handbook.

Like other lecturers, I find that take-up is very varied and that it is usually the same students who take advantage of everything. The ones who complain about lack of contact hours are often, by some strange coincidence, the ones that didn't keep 1:1 appointments they had made themselves, who turned up to seminar without having prepared the text, and who don't check out the website for announcements.

I like students. I like teaching. But I do wish students who find it too much effort to turn up for a 9 o'clock Monday lecture or a 5 o'clock Friday seminar didn't complain about lack of contact. Because I jolly well do turn up- and spend months beforehand preparing.

oh, and I forgot Study Days with invited speakers, the chance to participate in conferences, trips off-site- all of which are organised outside of contracted hours by university staff

Being in the middle of a dissertation is irrelevant to class contact time. The whole point of a dissertation is that it's an independent project. At our uni we were only entitled to 4 sessions with our supervisor for this reason. if anything a strike gives extra time to do dissertation work when otherwise they would have been in class

Also if the "other industries" that have had their pensions cut had unionised and organised against it maybe they'd have had results. Can we stop this race to the bottom and expecting unionised industries to sit down and shut up because others don't fight for their rights

Soupy. Whether the actuarial valuation is contested or not the general point remains true.

Unless everyone is planning to die within two years of retirement Defined Benefits schemes are unsustainable. Actuarial valuations and regulator approved compensation payment plans will continue to go up as we live longer and until DB schemes have died out. The only gear leavers pension schemes/employers have are:

• kill everyone 2 years after retirement or reduce medical interventions to older people to reverse life expectancy
• increase the retirement age (it should really go up to 75 to accommodate length of life to put it on a comparable basis to when DB schemes were created)
• lose more of their core funds from their primary purpose (like education) and therefore shrink the service - thats already happening to finance DB schemes
• reduce benefits for new staff or switch them to alternative models

as happened in the shift to DC schemes but you could opt to decrease employer contributions, reduce offer to state pension only or offer no pension - which is the reverse of auto-enrolment (ie illegal) and will impoverish future retirees

• cut staff

Ultimately its the choice whether to prioritise current pension beneficiaries drawers/soon to be pensioners over future generations of staff and the service offered to current and future students.

I think I prefer the interpretation from First Actuarial, who actually looked at the USS scheme in depth, rather than your doom-laden ‘general’ scenario.

First Actuarial concluded that the USS scheme has enough income to cover the next 40 years of pension payouts, without touching its assets, which have grown by 12% per year in the last five years. It’s a very healthy scheme and in no way deserves this unprecedented and unjust attack.

Also, as an insight into the attitudes of university management towards its staff, many universities have sent out threatening emails to staff, informing them that they will deduct up to 100% of pay for ‘working to contract’, which they deem ‘partial performance’.

Not working over and above our contracts (for which we do not receive overtime) is deemed partial performance.

*Also, as an insight into the attitudes of university management towards its staff, many universities have sent out threatening emails to staff, informing them that they will deduct up to 100% of pay for ‘working to contract’, which they deem ‘partial performance’.

Not working over and above our contracts (for which we do not receive overtime) is deemed partial performance.*

This bears repeating.

We could also try not to prioritise astronomical salaries for senior management. Did I mention that my VC gets paid 23 times as much as I do?

Soupy We all got the same email about "working to contract"? There was general disgust/anger/disdain/rage/fury in our department about that.

Surely deducting pay for working to contract isn't legal.

starry well, we run labs, examples classes, computing projects, team projects, lab projects, electronics labs and research projects....we mark progress tests and homeworks, we set exams and mark them....plus all the other stuff around pastoral care that others have mentioned.