The UCU ballot opens on Tuesday and you can expect your ballot papers to arrive by the end of the week.

Pay

Yet again we are facing a real terms pay cut but this time a bigger pay cut than ever before. Our employers have over successive years chosen to offer us below inflation pay rises. Even when times were relatively good they made cuts to our pay. They have nipped half a percent here, 2 percent there. We have had sub inflation pay rises imposed on us since 2008. Remember the year they gave us 0%!? It all adds up.

They chose not to match inflation when the sun was shining, now things are looking increasingly bleak with many of us facing a cold winter of fuel poverty, our employers are trying to convince us there is no alternative than to offer us the biggest real terms pay cut yet by offering only 3%. If you are not already annoyed enough, look at the UCU modeller to see how far you pay has eroded. Pay modeller

Enough is enough- we are not asking for a pay rise, we are fighting against yet another, massive, pay cut.

Pensions

On pensions- the USS deficit has vanished. Who could have predicted that? We did.

It is infuriating to yet again be proven right and yet not listened to.

Deficit recovery contributions, the extra money our employer is charged to shore up the pension if USS declares a deficit, are at 6.5%, but USS says 0% is required. #thereIsNoDeficit. That is an extra 6.5% our employer is paying that they don’t need to. That is 6.5% that could be going into our pension benefits or into our pay.

Not only that, the future service cost- that is the amount USS predicts it will cost to fund our pension has dropped from the 40 to 50% to ~21% for our current slashed benefits and low thirties percent to keep our previous benefits that were cut in April- that is within the current contribution levels.

All of this is based on USS’s own, contested and overly pessimistic valuation methods.

Yet USS despite being shown to be wrong, again, are saying that they cannot assume the current rosy picture is long term. They were quick enough to cut based on a deficit that was a vanishing artefact, slow to restore our benefits when things improve.

I know it is really galling that we keep having to fight not to be put to further disadvantage. However, we cannot let up. Instead we need to increase the size of the fight. An aggregated ballot will allow us to do this. This is a once in a decade opportunity to actually end these rumbling disputes and it has never been more important.

Thus far we have been able to hold back worse changes: we stopped our employer from allowing USS to get rid of our DB pensions altogether, we reduced the level of the recent cuts, we have shown a light on the failing if USS through the JEP and the increased interest in the FT etc. and I have no doubt had it not been for our action the disappointing pay offers would have been even lower.

We made significant progress with the Marking and Assessment Boycott. Our employer is one of those who have said should there be an upside in USS they would prioritise restoring benefits. Employers representing 32% of members of USS by contributions have taken this position (this does not mean the other 68% are against it- most have no stated position).

If we can bring out the whole sector we can force other employers to move to this position. An aggregated result is a game changer. some employers, particularly the larger richer and arguably more influential employers, sit there happily watching other HEIs suffer- a full aggregated ballot will bring out those HEIs some of them for the first time- they have no experience of strike action and they will panic. They can no longer sit back while strikes happens elsewhere.

We have succeeded in making the employers’, and USS’s position, uncomfortable, this time we need to make it impossible for them to maintain.

What you need to do

You have all been outstanding in the past at returning your ballot for the branch, this time we need you to lend your vote to the whole sector. We have refused to accept the unacceptable before and we are not accepting it now. Please return your ballot when it arrives and let the branch know.

Let’s finish what we have started, this time with all our colleagues across the sector all able to take part in the fight for all our pensions and all our pay and alongside our fellow trade unionists in other unions. The more of us who are out the sooner we win.

We literally cannot afford not to vote to fight.

Together we will win.