Author Archives: heriotwatt

USS legal action update 7

Posted on by

Note: This is a crowdfunded legal action separate from the UCU pension dispute. It may be of interest to members and non-members who are in the USS scheme. Updates published on behalf of the team at savepensionsandplanet.org.

Dear colleagues,

We have a date for our hearing at the Court of Appeal – the 13th of June! We urgently need your help to raise funds for the legal action to end the cycle of disputes over the USS and change it for good.

You can help in five ways:

  1. Donating via CrowdJustice, most (90%) of our funding has come from individual donations, £10, £20, £50, so please support the case!
  2. Asking your UCU branch to donate; see the model motion here
  3. Sharing the link to the CrowdJustice page with your colleagues – adapt and send one of our model messages around your departments or school.
  4. Attend the call with DivestUSS on Friday, 24th March, at 16.00 for more information about the USS and climate change
  5. print some posters and flyers and give them out! We’ve got one on divesting fossil fuels, one on reversing the pension cuts, and one with more details. Stick them up behind photocopiers, inside loo doors, in lifts, or where people queue for lunch. Or print and give it out on picket lines!

Thanks to your brilliant support, we’ve raised £375,000 of the £570,000 we need for the appeal hearing. We’ve had further donations from branches, including Warwick and Ulster, with further branches due to pass similar motions. We need to raise the remaining amount, and with your help we will.

Website and Twitter page: Please look at the new website and follow us on Twitter (@PensionsPlanet).

As ever, let us know if you have any questions or would rather not receive further emails about the USS.

All the best,
Neil, Ewan, Lindsey, Thomas and the rest of the team

Making Plans for Nigel

Posted on by

This handsome chap is Nigel. After a hard life of racing Nigel was fortunate enough to be rescued and rehomed. Nigel is now enjoying a happy retirement. We would all like the same too

In 2018 our employers tried to end our guaranteed pension in favour of a defined contribution scheme where our retirement income would depend on the performance of investments instead of contributions. We fought to stop this.

In 2020 at the height of the market crash USS then conducted a valuation which they used to claim that contributions would need to rise substantially to maintain our benefits in retirement. Cuts applied between 2011 and 2019 had already reduced a typical retirement pot by £240,000.

Changes were forced through which cut the value of guaranteed income in retirement by up to 35% for an estimated 196,000 staff. Our employers have also imposed a cap on inflation protection of 2.5%. The latest 12-month consumer price index is currently 10.1%. The value of our pensions has been doubly impacted and once again we found ourselves having to take action to defend against proposals aimed at destroying the USS pension scheme.

In the Joint Statements agreed for calling off the Assessment and Marking Boycott last summer, the senior leadership team at Heriot-Watt agreed that the return of improved benefits to staff is a priority and that governance reform is needed.

Progress has been made but the fight is not over. In a joint statement published on 17 March 2023 UUK tentatively agreed to prioritising the restoration of benefits back to pre-2022 levels, a moderately prudent and evidence-based approach to future valuations, and a review of scheme governance.

Negotiations have so far been described as constructive but at this point our pensions have not yet been restored. We need to secure a mandate for further strike action to ensure that these committments are delivered on.

Please vote Yes in the the re-ballot. If you have not received your ballot papers you can request replacements at https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/ucuRISING-ballotupdate until Sunday 26 March.

A big thank-you to Nigel and to all the staff and students who were also on the picket today.

 

Update on Save university pensions, and save the planet

Posted on by

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We hope you’re having a great morning – we know many of you will be back out on pickets this week. UUK and UCU have done welcome joint statements indicating the pension could be restored, and they could “examine” divesting fossil fuels, and “governance reform”.

But we know it’s not a done deal till it actually happens. The reason we’ve got so far is because of your help in this legal action, and all of our collective action. We’ve got a date for the Court of Appeal, 13 June 2023, and we are absolutely determined to get there. We must raise awareness, and more money. Make no mistake, this is now the biggest pension reform and climate risk case in the UK, ever. What we do could help every other worker with a pension, and it can affect every financial institution and every corporate director. We must have a legally binding precedent that USS directors cannot abuse their powers by reporting nonsense deficits, driving through discriminatory cuts, squandering our money on fancy Threadneedle Street offices and failing asset managers, and bankrolling worthless and toxic gas, oil and coal.

We’ve had so much support from university branches, which is tremendous – but the incredible fact is nine-tenths of our support comes from thousands of individuals like you, with an average contribution of £41. So, we need to spread the word. And this morning we’d like to ask you three things:

  1. print some posters and flyers and give them out! We’ve got one on divesting fossil fuels, one on reversing the pension cuts, and one with more details. Stick them up behind photocopiers, inside loo doors, in lifts, or where people queue for lunch. Or print and give out on picket lines!
  2. ask your branch chair and secretary to send out an email asking your colleagues to donate to our case! Just write “Dear Friends and Colleagues…” and then use the text from “We need you…” from the detailed poster/flyer. We just need half as many new people to donate again to get to the Court of Appeal, so publicity is crucial.
  3. get Ewan and Neil to visit your branch! We’re more than glad to attend branch meetings, and take the time you need to talk to all our colleagues. We can do Zoom/Teams, and we can also come in person.

Also, if you’d like to be more involved, just write to ewan.mcgaughey@kcl.ac.uk and/or neil.m.davies@ucl.ac.uk. We’re also trying to get climate groups on board, because the climate claim is so huge. We can’t do it alone – this is a big group effort – and it’s because we all help and support each other that we’ll win.

And just imagine the effect if every director in the UK had a duty to end investments in stranded assets like gas, oil and coal, and have a credible plan for 100% clean energy, now. Just imagine – and here’s a wild thought – that everyone’s right to social security, and a good pension, was really made universal. That’s why this case matters, why we’re so grateful for your support, and why we’re determined to win a better pension system for everyone.

Best wishes, Ewan and Neil

Published on behalf of Dr Neil Davies, Dr Ewan McGaughey, and many more supporters of Save university pensions, and save the planet at Crowd Justice.

Let’s stick together

Posted on by

After all the excitement of the disruptive but ultimately empty offer by the employers last week it was back out onto the picket first thing this morning. It bears repeating that the offer was simply not good enough. While we welcome the positive signs on pension restoration we note that it remains a qualified commitment. On 4-Fights there has been little progress beyond agreeing the Terms of Reference which will frame the negotiations about casualisation, workload and the equality pay gap. The imposed final pay offer of around 5% for most falls well short of inflation and has already been emphatically rejected in an online poll.

So, for now, we must stick together and continue with the strike action, and vote YES in the re-ballot.

We will win these disputes by coming together, sticking together, striking together and voting together – Jo Grady, UCU General Secretary

We are staying out

Posted on by

The sun was out and we are staying out. The Higher Education Committee met today and it was decided that we will continue with the strike action and that members do not need to be consulted on the latest empty offer from the employers. This is in line with how our branch membership voted ahead of yesterday’s Branch Delegate Meeting.

Please join us and show our employer that we are not happy with the offer. Our picket will be back on Monday morning. Same time, same place. If you are not already a member, take the first step and join today.

Re-ballot

Not to be confused with Wednesday’s e-ballot is the ongoing re-ballot. Legislation requires that we do this now so that our mandate for industrial action continues for another 6 months. No-one wants to strike but it is critical to the success of negotiations that we are able continue to maintain the leverage of potential strikes and marking and assessment boycotts if we are to get the best deal.

Be in the room with your negotiators. Please vote in the re-ballot, and please vote yes.

Replacement re-ballot papers can be ordered at https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/ucuRISING-ballotupdate

 

 

An empty offer, another e-ballot, and a BDM

Posted on by

Thank-you brave few for the show of soggy solidarity on a soaking wet picket this morning. We could have all stayed home warm and dry to read about the latest offer from our employers. Except that it wasn’t really a new offer at all. There are some positive signs in the pensions dispute but so far nothing solid, just a committment on prioritisation of restoration of member benefits back to pre-April 2022 levels if it is affordable. Very little progress has been made in the Four Fights dispute, particularly on pay.

Consultative e-ballot and BDM

UCU national launched a consultative e-ballot on whether members should be consulted on the offer via a formal vote and whether the current industrial action should be paused in the meantime. Unfortunately the e-ballot rolled both into a single Yes/No question which is not ideal because apart from conflating the issues not all institutions are in USS and taking action over pension cuts.

An emergency meeting of the local branch committee was called at short notice last night to discuss and it was decided unanimously that we should run a local members’ poll to guage opinion on both seperately ahead of today’s Branch Delegates Meeting (BDM).

The majority vote was a very clear No to both with 78% against voting on the proposals and 88% against standing down strike action. This was presented at today’s Branch Delegate Meeting. The weighted votes from the BDM along with the results of the informal member e-ballot will inform a decision by the Higher Education Committee (HEC) who meet tomorrow. The HEC is the elected body that has authority to decide whether to consult members on an offer and to recommend how to vote and whether to cancel strike action.

Strength and Solidarity

Posted on by

A colourful picket today as we were joined by Prospect union members from British Geographical Survey. Prospect members at over 30 Civil and Public Service employer voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action to defend against pay cuts and job insecurity. It is the largest action in over a decade by members who have seen a real term reduction in income of over 25% in this time.

The protests over fair pay and a decent pension continued at the Mound afterwards in a joint rally with the Public and Commercial Services Union.