Imperial College 2024-25 pay offer ACCEPTED and pay disputes concluded

On 4/4/24 we were able to inform Imperial UCU members that the members of all three Imperial College affiliated trade unions voted to ACCEPT the College pay award for 2024-25.
The Joint Trade Union (JTU) pay negotiation team informed College management that the pay award has been accepted by the unions, and that this has formally ended the trade dispute over pay that has been running for approximately 3 years.
While this is good news, it is not without several caveats. We include below the full acceptance email sent to the College Negotiating Team (CNT) on the matter, where we also provide them with the principal features of the membership free text survey responses that outline membership sentiment and recognised shortcomings in the offer.
Regarding UCU members free text survey responses we have read and appreciated all of them, and will address every aspect in good time. For now we would just like to thank everyone who provided a response, and add that we especially appreciate the numerous expressions of gratitude and support that came in.

—–

Acceptance email to College management on the 2024-25 pay award

From:
Sent: 04 April 2024 18:26
To:
Subject: JTU response to the full & final pay offer 2024-25

Dear College Negotiating Team,

The JTU pay negotiation team are happy to report that members of all three trade unions have voted to ACCEPT the College’s “full & final pay offer” for 2024-25. We therefore:

(a) Accept the 2024-25 Imperial College pay offer, as detailed in emails exchanged on 14/3/24 and outlined on the College webpage and

(b) Formally end the long-running trade disputes over pay between all three trade unions and Imperial College.

We also feel it important to provide you with insights into the full range of views expressed. Each union provided members with the option of adding a comment alongside their vote on whether to accept or reject the pay offer. Each union received several constructive and useful comments; we provide a summary of the principal features of the comments that we think it is useful for the CNT to bear in mind:

The primary feature was that many members of all three unions took the time to express gratitude to the JTU side of the pay negotiations specifically, citing the difficulty of the role in the face of negotiating with the CNT in pay negotiations previously.

There were also a significant number of comments expressing dissatisfaction with the magnitude of the pay offer, noting that while it goes some way to restoring the spending power of College salaries after the pay cuts caused by high inflation over the last few years, it does not go far enough, and that the College could easily afford more, should it wish to. There were pointed remarks about the fact that only a small proportion of the USS savings were going to staff.

Two features of the pay offer were subject to extensive negative criticism:

(i) The “top up” for those above the £120K threshold was noticed by several members who expressed strong resentment that there should be what is perceived to be an enhanced financial protection for super-earners.

(ii) The CNT tactic from the 2023-24 pay negotiations of providing an offer of a £500 one-off payment which would be (and was) subsequently removed when the pay offer wasn’t accepted has clearly caused deep resentment. Members have variously and severally brought this up, referring to it as a “bribe”, a “threat”, and “act of blackmail”. Although not exactly the same, the explicit threat to withdraw the £1,000 consolidated payment was seen by many members as similar. Some stated they have rejected the offer on principle on this basis. You will recall our lengthy dialogues over this very point; the JTU would like to avoid this condition featuring in the future.