We have written to all members this week, quoting celebrity fans such as Madonna, Danny Millum and Loyd Grossman (of pasta sauce fame), to inform them of developments in our ongoing campaign to achieve equality and fair pay at the central University of London.
Read the email below!
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Hi everybody,
Holiday! Celebrate! It will be so nice!
You may already have heard from friends and colleagues that there has been a big victory on holiday for grades 1–6 – it has now been equalised with grades 7+, to 30 days!
That’s fantastic news, and is due in large part (rough estimate: 99.9%) to work done by IWGB! We have been campaigning for holiday equality for many years and for a LW increase since 2014.
We’re (still) waiting for decent London Weighting…
On the issue of London Weighting (LW), which affects all grades, you may also have seen that the two recognised unions are balloting their members on whether or not to accept the University’s latest ‘final’ offer: an insulting one-off payment of £275, to close the issue forever. We discussed this in the branch meeting and as a result, if you are dual-carding with either of these unions, we urge you to vote NO to acceptance, as we believe they can do better!
(Not everyone can make it to the branch meeting, so please do let us know if you have a different view – thoughts welcome. J)
As Loyd Grossman would say on Through the management keyhole, let’s look at the evidence:
Original demand made in 2014:
- An immediate increase of £1,866 per year, to bring annual LW up to what it should have been at that time (£4,000), had it kept up with inflation. (See also our original info about this (attached), if you haven’t been around for the whole story!)
Original deal accepted by Unison and UCU in 2014:
- Raising it to £3,500 per year by 2018 – an increase of only £1,366 (five hundred quid less) over a four-year timeframe. See:https://uolonline.sharepoint.com/news/archive/Pages/London-Weighting-Offer-Accepted-by-UCU-and-Unison.aspx
Current offer, prompted by IWGB agitation and apparently acceptable to the recognised unions:
- A one-time-only offer of £275, not affecting the annual LW at all. So it’s still £500 less than it should have been four years ago.
Obviously this doesn’t account for increases in cost of living which have occurred since 2014, which is precisely what LW is supposed to counterbalance. And to state the obvious, it’s almost 2020 now!
The LW offer may be derisory, but it wouldn’t have happened at all without IWGB pressure. And the holidays are an outright win! It was an IWGB member who pointed out last year that the LW negotiations could be reopened at UoL if the London Living Wage went above a certain threshold, which it now has. And it was our indefatigable Assistant Branch Secretary Mark Murphy who, with the help of many other wonderful IWGB members, circulated a petition for increased holiday for grades 1–6, which went around the entire University. We’ve sent this to management, repeatedly raised the issues of LW and holiday parity in the ICE forum, and written to the University about it numerous times. This is what we can achieve when we work together. Great work everyone!
As you can see from the attached email, [included below in PDF] the usual suspects are claiming the credit for this. However, we know that IWGB members did the hard graft! This means that University management are effectively negotiating with IWGB by proxy. So let’s vote NO to the LW offer, and let’s keep up the campaign!
As Danny would say – ¡Hasta la Victoria!
Catherine
Independent Workers Union of Great Britain - Universities of London Branch 