UCU members vote to step-up industrial action in pensions row

Delegates in Harrogate backed a motion calling for UCU members in the 'old' pre-92 universities who are in the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension scheme to be balloted for 'sustained industrial action.'
 
The row centres on changes to the pension scheme forced through by the board which the union says would leave staff thousands of pounds worse off a year as well as create a two-tier scheme.
 
Last month, USS threatened to take High Court action against the union's five pension negotiators, and to make them individually liable for any costs, after they refused to attend a board meeting where they feared detrimental changes proposed by the employers would be rubber-stamped.
 
Despite protests from across the academic world, the employers, including those who sit on the USS Board, remained silent on the attempts 'to bully' the union's negotiators.
 
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'We have tried and tried again to persuade the employers to negotiate and resolve this increasingly bitter dispute sensibly. We have been left with little option but to re-ballot our members about how best to try and move this dispute on.
 
'We are incredibly frustrated that we may be forced to take serious and damaging industrial action to secure a fair and decent pension scheme.'

Tomorrow (Sunday) UCU members in the Teachers' Pension Scheme will discuss the next steps in their dispute the employers over changes to their scheme. They are likely to consider joint action with other unions at the end of June. Members of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers are currently balloting their members for strike action in the row.