UoB will continue to cut our pay and attack our conditions – unless 50% of support staff members vote in the ballot
One of the key demands of our dispute is: Restructure the Pay Spine and allocate a budget for it, with no strings attached
Year on year of below inflation pay increases have compressed the pay spine. You can see this by just looking at the support staff pay spine on the University website here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/staff/salary-support.pdf
Band 400 and 500 staff have experienced unprecedented pay restraint, losing 6% of their pay in real terms since 2013 (on top of bigger cuts after the 2008 financial crisis)
Band 200 staff have lost all of their semi-automatic increments, while band 300 have lost most of them (they used to have 6 like the other bands) and the grades have been pushed closer together every year to allow the University to implement pay rises in the cheapest way possible.
This means that staff on all bands have received less of a benefit for taking on greater responsibility and building up experience in their roles.
When we raised this with the University, they said that they wouldn’t commit any money to doing this and they wouldn’t rule out changes to other terms and conditions being required. In the past we know they have wanted to cut holiday, bank holiday pay, and sick pay.
This is completely unfair – the pay spine needs fixing to properly reward staff for experience and progression. The University can afford this without needing to cut anything else.
Vote YES for strike action, and make sure you do it by tomorrow to make sure the ballot makes it in the post in time.
