What is going on with pay reform at the University? Staff at the University of Birmingham will have seen the news that union members have rejected the University’s latest offer on support staff pay reform. There is a lot of misinformation about why this decision was made and where the responsibility lies if the negotiations…
On 17 February UNISON members passed a motion calling for urgent improvements to the University’s offer on pay spine reform (and changes to conditions). This gave University management until the start of this week to come back to us. Unfortunately they have confirmed that they are not willing to negotiate at this stage. While this…
University releases proposals on support staff pay (and conditions) The University has released what they describe as their final offer on support staff pay. All trade unions are now moving to consult their members on the proposals. The committee’s view on them is that while generous for some staff, there remain significant issues with the…
What is the pay spine and what are the discussions for? The structure of grades and points is how our pay is organised. Our yearly pay talks mostly involve increasing everyone’s pay by a percentage, but the pay spine talks are more nuanced and include negotiating the pay people begin on, how quickly they move…
Update 10.06.2022 – we’ve received an *updated* offer from the University. This is summarised below and can be also be seen in full in PDF format. While pay negotiations at the University of Birmingham started differently this year, we are now ending up in a very similar position to the Universities who remain in national…
Listening to Liam Byrne talk today on why all staff deserve to be paid a living wage I was struck by the fact that Birmingham was once called “…the best governed city in the world” – acknowledged by many as somewhere that not only fulfilled its civic duty but exceeded it. It also reminded me…
On Thursday 30th May, Liam Byrne MP, will be on campus (12.30pm – 1.30pm, Murray Learning Centre, UG07) to talk about how to persuade the University to become a Real Living Wage employer. Liam made headlines recently when he turned down an honour from the University because of its ongoing refusal to formally accredit as…
An important step was recently taken by local MP Liam Byrne, who refused to accept the offer of an Honorary Senior Research Fellowship position at the University of Birmingham, explaining that his decision was based on the fact that the University is not an accredited living wage employer. The MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill noted…
