STAFF in UK universities are preparing to walk out for their third one-day strike tomorrow as part of a worsening pay dispute.
On the eve of the strike, analysis of the most recent international figures on pay, compiled by Deloitte, show that UK lecturers earn significantly less than their counterparts in Australia, Canada and the USA.
The University and College Union’s analysis of the report into pay levels in the UK, Australia, Canada, the USA and New Zealand demonstrates that UK academics’ pay is amongst the lowest in English-speaking countries, despite our higher education system being ranked second out of 50 countries for the results it produces.
After adjusting salary data to purchasing power parity, pay for UK lecturers is outstripped by all other countries except New Zealand.
The figures showed UK lecturers were paid 45% less than Canadians, 34% less than American lecturers and 16% less than their Australian contemporaries.
University staff’s refusal to accept a 1% pay offer for this academic year has prompted the current pay dispute with UK universities.
A 1% pay rise would leave staff with a real-terms pay cut of 13% since 2009. While staff pay has been kept down, vice-chancellors enjoyed an average pay rise of 5.1% last year, and an average salary of £235,000.
UCU, Unison, Unite and the EIS trade unions will take part in Thursday’s one-day strike.
l The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) has to open up its books and reveal the true cost of a series of disastrous foreign investments, said the UCU yesterday.
The union has written to the members of the university’s board of governors and sent them a copy of its report ‘Empire built on sand: UCLan’s great overseas gamble’, which looks at a series of investments in Sri Lanka, Thailand, China and Cyprus by UCLan which appear to have lost considerable sums of money – possibly raised from public money and assets, and students studying in the UK.
The report details how UCLan’s ‘overseas misadventures’ have received some very high profile critics, which include Amnesty International and UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.
It also asks if plans to axe 75 posts and downgrade some teaching posts at the university in the UK are to free up resources for more international investment.
The union said it was deeply concerned that £7.5m had been written off the balance sheet of UCLan’s chief holding company, Centralan Holdings.
The union added that because of UCLan’s complex web of companies, it is impossible to determine just how much the failed overseas projects have cost, or who exactly has funded them.
