| University staff - members of Unite – demonstrated outside an employers’ high-powered seminar on Wednesday 8 February over the ‘lousy’ pay offer of £150. Placard-waving protestors were outside the headquarters of the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA) at Woburn House, 20 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HU between 11.00am till 2.00 pm on 8 February. UCEA was hosting a training event for HR managers. Protesters came from as far afield as Aberdeen, Belfast, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Glasgow, Hull, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Reading and Swansea. Unite, the largest union in the country, represents 20,000 staff - from professors to porters - at Britain’s Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) - and is the only union to have rejected the derisory offer of £150-a-year for all grades to run from 1 August last year for 2011/12. Unite national officer for education Mike Robinson said on Monday 6 February: ”The protest will bring home to the employers the strength of feeling of our members at this lousy pay offer. For example, Imperial College, London has given its staff £500-a-year more on all scales and so has Royal College of Art. ”The HEIs - represented by UCEA - can well afford to be more generous at a time of runaway household bills for families. ”Will Hutton’s ‘top’ peoples' pay inquiry found that the pay gap between vice chancellors at the top and the lowest paid staff in universities was one of the largest in corporate life.” Unite members voted for industrial action, short of strike action, at the end of last year – and are sticking to the letter of their contracts with no working outside their contractual hours. In a letter to UCEA chief executiveJocelyn Prudence, Mike Robinson has said: ”Unite members will also be asked to raise the profile of the low offer on pay for 2011 in their own HEIs, as publically as possible.“ ENDS Notes to news editors: For further information please contact Mike Robinson on 07768 931 284 and/or Unite communications officer Shaun Noble on 07768 693940 The demonstrators came from Scotland (Aberdeen, Glasgow Strathclyde, and St Andrews); Northern Ireland University of Ulster (Belfast); Wales (Swansea, Cardiff). England: Hull, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Leicester, Cambridge, Norwich Bristol, Reading, Surrey, and Sussex. From London: Kings College, University College London, University of East London, RCA and City Universities, London. |