Union attacks university pay ‘alchemy’
Posted by Turigck on June 8, 2008
Education
Union attacks university pay 'alchemy'
The AUT complains of 'distortions' in the pay system
One of the main unions in higher education is saying that proposals to revise staff pay and conditions amount to little more than "dark arts" and "quackery".
The President of the Association of University Teachers (AUT), Chris Banister, says attempts by employers to assign points to jobs and put them into a rank order is a "pseudo-scientific" approach in an area in which it is completely inappropriate.
"Job evaluation is pure quackery and the sooner it is exposed as such the better," he said at the AUT's national council meeting in London.
Different ways in which the pay and conditions of higher education staff might be revised are being investigated by a committee under Sir Michael Bett. The committee, which has a number of trade union nominees, was set up as a result of a recommendation by the Dearing Report on Higher Education.
Evaluation program
The Higher Education Role Analysis scheme was singled out for specific criticism. It uses a points score, derived from questionnaire answers, which are then weighted to rank staff according to local circumstances.
"On this basis it is inevitable that the humanities as a whole will have smaller job sizes than the sciences but even in the humanities those who work with the new technologies, rather that using just say library resources, will again have larger job sizes," he argued.
"This will create distortions in the system with certain kinds of research clearly being valued on a job-evaluation basis above others.
"The concept of teamwork will disappear, and the much-vaunted flexibility that our employers allegedly like will disappear. We shall continue being a highly casualised workforce with a series of endless job demarcation disputes."
'Equitable'
The Universities and Colleges Employers' Association is arguing for local pay negotiations within a national framework. It wants individual institutions to allocate their staff to pay grades on the basis of a system of "suitable job evaluation".
The people behind the role analysis computer program Mr Banister complains about, Educational Competences Consortium, say it "can provide … an equitable, consistent and transparent means of establishing basic pay rates for all categories of staff".
The AUT council meeting was expected to endorse a pay claim of 10%, despite objections from some members that this is not enough. The Liverpool branch wanted the claim to be in the range of 25-40%, Bradford wanted 10% above inflation and Manchester argued for 34%.
The draft claim says that over the last 16 years average earnings have risen by 40% whereas those for lecturers are up by only 3.1%.
Preparations for industrial action are proposed which could include one-day strikes, boycotts of examinations and boycotts of admissions.
The settlement date for next year's pay award is set for 1 April for 'old' universities and 1 September for 'new' universities.
