Following our Committee meeting (1/12/21), this is UCU’s latest response to the ‘final’ proposals on terms and conditions (as articulated here: https://one.northumbria.ac.uk/staff/Pages/NewsArticle.aspx?articleId=1558).
Some aspects of the proposals do indeed represent a welcome move forward, and we appreciate the explicit statement in the proposals that ‘Under our collective bargaining arrangements, we are committed to seeking agreement with our recognised trade unions’. With that in mind, however, in general we could and would not, at this stage, recommend these proposals to members. In part this is because we (and members) would need more information to do so, and in part because some aspects of the proposals are unacceptable in their current state. As ever, we remain happy to meet to negotiate a mutually-satisfactory resolution to these matters, when other, current disputes have been prioritised and resolved.
Outstanding issues:
1 - “an increase in the length of the full pay Occupational Maternity Pay and Adoption Pay period to 20 weeks followed by 19 weeks of Statutory Maternity or Adoption Pay”. DETRIMENT. Maternity pay is indeed 'improved' from 18 to 20 weeks, but now only after a qualifying period of a year rather than 6 months. UCU have been very clear in saying we would accept 30 weeks after 6 months, and have not heard a convincing argument as to why this could not happen. UCU have also been clear that this change is divisive, potentially detrimental, and out of step with other institutions, including Newcastle University, which offers OMP to staff from the start of their employment. Why is this not on offer for all people who work here? This change to eligibility creates a divide between new and existing staff and evinces a lack of trust in new staff. Surely an inclusive employer would offer the same support to all staff regardless of their length of service? Indeed, this has the potential to open up problems for staff who have been kept on a sequence of fixed-term contracts. Without seeing existing and projected modelling of costings (which we have asked for several times) it is hard to see this as an ‘improvement’ worth accepting. Is shifting from the current position and/or the initial proposal to the ‘Final proposal’ cost neutral? Simply put, for example, are improvements to maternity benefits (currently accrued after 6 months) cancelled out by moving to them being subject to a year’s service? There is a clear risk that what looks like generosity and progression is neither. Finally, it is worth noting that the proposed reduction in the length of service necessary to qualify for paid maternity leave will mean that staff who would previously qualify for paid maternity leave by virtue of being employed for 6-11 months will be forced to rely upon statutory maternity pay as their sole source of income. This matters as we are a public institution in receipt of public funds. Just as academics could not receive furlough money, so our employer should not expect to subsidise its parental leave provision by relying on staff accessing statutory pay.
2 - “an increase in Paternity Pay from one to two weeks at full pay”. Paternity leave remains lamentably low and falls far short of the unions’ joint formal claim (8 weeks).
3 - “the introduction of up to four weeks at full pay for neo natal care”. The neonatal care proposals are a step in the right direction but fall far short of the unions’ joint formal claim (4 weeks against 18).
4 - “harmonisation of the qualifying periods for sick pay for academic and professional support colleagues… a move to a rolling-year calculation period for sickness pay for academic colleagues in line with professional support colleagues”. DETRIMENT. The changes to sick pay seem reasonable, but there is no clear reason not to allow people 2 months of half-pay if they have been here up to a year. However, UCU have already said we cannot and will not agree to changes to the ‘calculation period’ for sickness pay because it has the potential to hit the most vulnerable colleagues hardest. The proposed changes to sick pay may only affect a relatively small number of staff, but for those staff the changes are very severe, especially if you have a chronic condition. If you’ve been off on long term sick and have gone down to ½ pay (e.g. for a serious illness) then when you return you would only be eligible to ½ pay for any other illness for a longer period than is currently the case. Your entitlement to full sick pay would change from 6 months per period of illness to full pay for up to 6 months in any 12 month period. This means that if you return to work after 4 months’ sickness and are then ill again 8 months later (a very possible pattern) you only get a further 2 months full sick pay. The pandemic only intensifies these concerns: if you have a chronic illness that forces you to be off for more than six months ending in March, and then a week after you return, you catch Covid. Under the current system, you’d be eligible for full pay for up to six months; under the new system, you’d be straight onto Statutory Sick Pay, through no fault of your own. UCU understand the desire to ‘harmonise’ provision here, but there are many more academic colleagues than professional support colleagues so it would make sense to ‘harmonise’ or ‘level up’ to the majority rather than the minority, and this is achieved just as readily by improving conditions for UNISON colleagues. If it costs the university money to do so, the university would presumably save money by worsening sick leave provisions for academics and UCU members, indicating that this is the driver and that academics would indeed get less for sick pay (and why would we accept that?). In turn, this again suggests the university is robbing Peter (and Petra) to pay Pauline (and Paul).
5 - “an increase in the length of probationary periods for future-appointed early career academic colleagues from 22 to 36 months (3 years)”. POTENTIAL DETRIMENT. UCU have said many times that in order to negotiate and hopefully agree this, we also need to know, negotiate and agree exactly what people criteria are being evaluated on, and we can't agree/recommend this until we know (not least because members ask about this a lot, and would ask about it if the proposals were put to them). UCU would like this section to include a statement about teaching hours per week to the effect of "where these figures represent an agreed upper limit exception and maximum, not a target or aspiration, and where the contract states teaching should not exceed 18 hours and not normally be more than 16 hours in any week".
