Created on: 07 Jun 2023
Dear Member
As Summer approaches, you might be feeling the pinch. Inflation is still high, and the value of your pay continues to fall.
Since 2019 you have lost significant amounts of money to sub-inflationary pay awards being imposed on you. You can see how much you have personally lost since 2019 on this table.
Let's assume that you sit on point 44. You have now lost over £15,000 because of real terms pay cuts by your employer.
British Gas estimates that the average gas and electricity bill is approximately £2500 per year on current tariffs for a 3 bedroomed home. You could pay for 6 years of your energy bills with the money your employers have taken in real terms cuts from your pay since 2019.
Similarly, if you spend £500 a month on food, you could have paid for almost 3 years groceries with the same amount deducted from your pay in real terms.
The 2% imposed in February and 3% in August on this year’s pay round is yet another real terms pay cut by your employer. This on top of an 8.8% real terms cut for 2022-2. In April RPI had fallen slightly to 11.4%, but prices have not stopped going up. They're going up very slightly slower now, but that just means a slightly smaller increase in your bills this year. A 5% offer is not enough to keep up, never mind catch up on the previous decrease in the value of your pay.
When you start to assess the real impact of these real terms cuts to your pay on your lifestyle, it is easy to see why continuing to sit back and allow these cuts is untenable.
There is no easy solution. We must get UCEA back to the table to talk about real pay increases that address not only keeping up with inflation but restoring the value of university pay.
That means voting to reject these sub-standard, sub-inflationary pay offers, and taking serious action to force the employers to pay up.
You should now have your ballot codes for the consultative ballot on pay for 2023-24. If you haven’t received your ballot papers, please contact ballot@eis.org.uk.
Your EIS-ULA Executive Committee urges you to Vote to REJECT the pay offer and Vote YES to both Strike Action and Action Short of Strike.