Sussex UCU win huge pay rise for Doctoral Tutors

In Summer 2022, Sussex UCU successfully fought a local marking boycott, winning on five key demands, including the right to renegotiate the 2016 Doctoral Tutor (DT) Agreement that governs graduate teaching assistant employment.

After two years of talks, we have finally concluded negotiations; the branch approved a new best-in-sector contract for DTs, the centrepiece of local efforts in the ongoing national campaign against casualisation. 

The journey to this point was long. While DTs have been campaigning locally for years, we built new momentum when Nat became the UCU PGR rep in their school, joined in 2021 by Tom and Kam. The branch has supported us from the outset; the first recurring item in our weekly committee meetings is the PGR update, which has been a vital platform for strategising and raising awareness. Alongside using official branch structures and channels of communication, Sussex UCU also committed financially to training PGR reps, sending an initial cohort of 6 reps - and 8 more this spring - to attend Organising for Power training with the national PGR as Staff campaign.  

We joined the PGR as Staff Campaign early on and were able to count on support from the national leads from day 1. We have benefited enormously from their organising expertise and drew heavily on the networks that the national campaign has built. These networks gave us access to knowledge about best practice across the UK, and were invaluable in negotiations, helping produce data to substantiate our demands. Comrades at Newcastle shared their new contract with us, and this was instrumental in securing our first win from these negotiations: a grade uplift (a pay rise of ~14%) for Demonstrators in the sciences. The national campaign helped us design and prosecute a local postcard campaign to build pressure when talks stalled and saw over 300 staff and students show their solidarity with our negotiators.  

These campaigns - and the dedication of negotiators, branch executives, reps, and wider membership - have produced a contract that ameliorates some of the casualisation that DTs face. It reaffirms our right to fractional employment (in place at Sussex since 2016), and the new workload model commits to pay DTs for: 10 hrs training/year; pre-term preparation; admin work; replying to student emails; and to attend meetings and lectures. It also provides immediate access to occupational sick pay, and carer's support. 

This is only a first step - we must still ensure it is implemented properly, and the campaign will continue in the face of austerity at Sussex, and job cuts across the sector. Moreover, the fact that our agreement is the best in the country is testament to the rampant casualisation of PGR labour. However, the wins we secured here are also proof positive of the power of PGR organising, and the strength of UCU's PGR as Staff Campaign. We look forward to seeing more wins as the campaign grows.  

Dr Nat Arias, Anti-Casualisation Officer, PGR negotiator
Tom Cowin, Anti-Casualisation Officer, PGR negotiator
Kam Meakin, Equalities Officer, PGR negotiator