Earlier this week, Cambridge voted down 'emergency measures' designed to minimise the impact of the marking boycottVarsity

by Eric Williams Follow Eric Williams on Twitter

A public statement from the University of Cambridge, calling for employers to settle the ongoing pay dispute, would be a major step towards minimising exam and graduation disruption, Cambridge UCU President Michael Abberton has claimed in an interview with Varsity.

Earlier this week, Cambridge voted down “emergency measures” designed to minimise the marking boycott’s impact. Now, there are two potential outcomes: either there will be major disruptions to graduations, or negotiations will restart on the dispute behind the boycott.

The industrial dispute is over pay and working conditions. The University and College Union (UCU), whose action comes under a national strike mandate, are lined up against the national-level employers’ representative, the UCEA. As it stands, the UCEA has refused to re-enter negotiations with the UCU.

What are staff's pay demands?

The UCU are demanding a pay rise of 12%, or RPI inflation plus 2%, whichever is higher. They are also demanding action to end zero hour and temporary contracts.

Strikes last year did lead to concessions from the UCEA, with a pay offer worth between 5% and 8%. However, the UCU criticised the package as a real-terms "pay cut", before members went on to vote to reject the offer.

The university’s senior administrative team have been meeting with the University and College Union (UCU) every day this week, in attempts to come to an agreement on how to approach the situation.

The University cannot directly negotiate with staff given the national nature of the dispute with the UCEA. However, Abberton said that Cambridge’s senior management “have immense influence” and can “affect the dispute nationally”.

Abberton cites the precedent of Cambridge’s past action on other industrial disputes as an example of how the university “has influence, although they may try to play it down, strong enough to break through these kinds of situations”.

Can the sector afford to give staff a pay rise?

The employers’ representative UCEA has argued that the higher education sector is in deficit, with staff pay rises being unaffordable.

However, recent analysis by the UCU has challenged this claim - demonstrating a £2.1 billion surplus in the sector, and staff expenditure at a four year low of 51% of income.

Frustration at UCEA evaluations have also been expressed by staff this week, after new findings have undermined past employer evaluations in the pensions dispute.

In April, the employers representative Universities UK (UUK) imposed major cuts to USS pensions scheme benefits. Pension cuts were justified on the grounds of March 2020 evaluations, taken during a pandemic-driven market crash, that placed the scheme in a deficit between £14.9bn and £17.9bn.

However, estimations by Cambridge University’s actuary advisors later demonstrated the pensions scheme would have been in surplus without the cuts, as of June 2022. In recent days, this conclusion has been underlined by USS valuations reporting a £7.6 billion scheme surplus in March.

This has led some to suggest that “dodgy” evaluations have been used in the past to justify worsening staff conditions.

In 2021, staff were also striking over pensions. Cambridge issued a joint statement with the UCU, asking the employers’ representative Universities UK to negotiate. The University also undertook an independent valuation of the national USS pensions scheme, which determined that restoring pension benefits was financially viable. Earlier this year, Universities UK made concessions to the UCU, which academics and staff voted to move forward with.

“Other universities are just waiting. If Cambridge makes the move, they will be joined”, Abberton said, arguing that the University is well placed to build pressure on the UCEA “to come back to the table”.

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If a “sufficiently realistic” offer were tabled, Abberton claimed that “the national executive of the union could suspend the action”, and marking and graduations would go ahead.

However, the Cambridge UCU President stressed the need for quick action from the University in a joint statement: “we’re so close now to running out of time”, he stated, “we are against the clock. If we are going to make sure that students can graduate this year, then we have a very short window to act”.

Discussing the new student #SettletheDispute campaign, Abberton expressed his “complete support”, and stressed the effectiveness of students’ attempts to put pressure on the University.

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