Today (Friday 24 February) the five unions UCU, UNISON, Unite, EIS and GMB, representing staff working in UK higher education confirmed that talks via the conciliation service Acas will continue into next week.

The joint unions have continued to push employers, represented by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), on the issues of pay, workload, casualisation and equality pay gaps

Some progress has been made in establishing agreed terms of reference for negotiations on reviewing the higher education pay scales

Talks via Acas will continue into next week on the terms of reference for negotiations on workload, contract types and equality pay gaps.

However, the unions are disappointed that UCEA has moved to instruct its members to impose the first element of the 2023/24 pay proposal. This is despite nothing yet having been agreed on pay. The unions will continue to make that clear in negotiations

The joint unions view UCEA’s pay advice to higher education employers as regrettable, given the strain it inevitably places on the current Acas-facilitated negotiations.

Joint statement signed by UCEA and unions:

Following constructive talks between UCEA and the Joint HE Trade Unions on Thursday 23 February, facilitated by Acas, some progress has been made towards establishing agreed terms of reference for negotiations on the review of the national HE pay spine. Talks, through Acas, will continue next week on the terms of reference for negotiations on the pay spine and on workload, contract types and pay gaps.

This month we lit up our UNISON Centre in Pride colours to celebrate all our LGBT+ members during LGBT+ History Month.

As this is UNISON’s year of Black workers, I also want to celebrate our Black LGBT+ activists, both from our past and present, who’ve led the way in the struggle for equality and LGBT+ rights both within UNISON and across the UK.

Rizwan Sheikh was a leading activist in lesbian and gay, and Black members groups. He became a senior activist in his region and then nationally. He was very proud to be the first Black co-chair of UNISON’s national lesbian and gay committee (as it was known at the time, now the LGBT+ national committee) and campaigned for supporting migrant workers in the Northern region.

Then there’s Bev Miller, our first ever lesbian chair of the national Black members’ committee and a tireless advocate for Black LGBT+ rights for many years in UNISON.

Dave Merchant’s activism on trans rights was pioneering. He was the first trans man to co-chair the national LGBT+ committee and drove the work on trans equality in workplaces and within UNISON itself.

Tim Roberts is now Eastern regional secretary, but he has always been an influential advocate for equality, whether it was on our national LGBT+ committee, or challenging racism and discrimination in the workplace. Tim led the way for UNISON to have continued representation at UK Black Pride.

We also can’t forget Ted Brown and Dirg Aaab-Richards, both national lesbian and gay committee members who led a successful campaign against media homophobia in the 1990s. They organised an advertising boycott of The Voice, until it issued an apology for a homophobic comment piece about Justin Fashanu and pledged to include positive coverage.

Another prominent activist at this time was Claire Andrews. She had big ideas about where we were going as a movement and what that meant for Black lesbians and gay men. She served on both the national lesbian and gay committee and Black members committee and ensured that there was space in both to debate their issues and set union policy.

Anyone that has been to LGBT+ conference over the years will know Paul Amann, who has been part of the LGBT+ standing orders committee for 20 years! Paul has led campaigns for LGBT+ refugees and was a strong advocate for LGBT+ rights at the Qatar World Cup. He was a vocal critic of the World Cup being held in a homophobic country.

These are just a small number of our activists that have made our LGBT+ Black history. To all our Black LGBT+ activists past and present, we thank you for your activism and for making our union what it is today.

Responding to ministers’ comments about the government’s continuing refusal to talk to unions about health workers’ pay, UNISON head of health Sara Gorton said today (Sunday):

“Ministers should stop making excuses and hiding behind the pay review body. Its recommendation is heavily influenced by government wages policy. 

“The facts are simple. The wage rise given to health workers this year simply hasn’t been enough to stop staff leaving in droves. Without enough employees in the NHS, patients will go on waiting too long for ambulances and for treatment to start.

“Instead of putting plans in place for the strike days, ministers should be concentrating all their efforts on ending the disputes.

“Speaking to unions about improving wages can work wonders as the Scottish government has found. It’s time ministers in Westminster did the same. They should stop talking tough, put a proper pay plan on the table and get the unions in to discuss it.”

Notes to editors:
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.

Media contacts:
Anthony Barnes M: 07834 864794 E: a.barnes@unison.co.uk

UNISON is urging activists and members to lobby their MPs and call for a general election in Westminster next Wednesday, 2 November.

The lobby takes place during the worst cost-of-living crisis in 50 years. Everything is going up but wages. The Tories crashed the economy with their mini-budget and all the signs are showing that they will try and fill the hole in public finances created by their own mistakes with a fresh wave of austerity.

This will place public services under unbearable strain, as they are still struggling to recover after the pandemic and 12 years of cuts and low investment.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that the cuts implied by the government’s economic mismanagement could lead to 200,000 jobs being lost. Added to this, further austerity will have implications for pay settlements in years to come and condemn millions of people who are dependent on benefits to poverty in the months ahead.

The lobby is an opportunity to tell MPs about the reality of the cost of living crisis and to make it clear that cuts are not the answer.

Instead, we need higher pay, investment in public services and for benefits to increase in line with inflation.

This government simply has no mandate for more cuts.

Where relevant, the lobby is also an important opportunity to speak with MPs about current pay disputes and ballots in the NHS, higher education, the Environment Agency, the Food Standards Agency and the Care Quality Commission.

The TUC is co-ordinating the lobby and helping to arrange the meetings with MPs. However, once you have signed up, UNISON will be in touch with you to provide a briefing note.

If your workplace is in a different constituency to where you live and you want to meet the MP for where you work, please enter the postcode for your workplace on the sign-up page.

The day will end with a rally at the Westminster Methodist Central Hall at 6-8pm. The rally will feature contributions from trade union members, general secretaries and celebrities and focus on the need for an election.

It’s time to let voters choose a new Westminster government.

Teaching assistants are still filling the gaps left by specialist staff ?during the pandemic and providing vital emotional support to students and parents, ?according to a UNISON-commissioned report ?published today (?Thursday).

From Covid to the Cost of Living provides a snapshot of the way ?Covid has fundamentally changed the role of teaching assistants, says UNISON.

The report also captures headteachers’ concerns that chronic low pay is driving more teaching assistants out of classrooms to better paid, less stressful jobs ?in other parts of the economy.

The report challenges Liz Truss’ government to do more to acknowledge, support, reward and ?train teaching assistants whose responsibilities and workloads have soared as schools struggle to help pupils catch-up in the wake of the pandemic, says UNISON.

?For the research, University of Portsmouth academics interviewed teaching assistants, teachers and school leaders at five primary schools in England. They found that teaching assistants were delivering a range of vital services and informal support to families, on top of their normal duties.

The report describes, for example, how teaching assistants regularly help parents complete benefit application forms, while others have helped set up food and clothing banks for families in financial difficulty.

Researchers also heard that teaching assistants calling parents during the pandemic to check how they were coping, were often greeted by distraught parents struggling with the stress of the lockdowns and isolation.

Teaching assistants took on specialist roles – such as delivering speech and language therapy – when expert staff couldn’t go into schools due to the lockdowns. Despite restrictions being scrapped, teaching assistants continue to carry out these roles, as demand for specialist staff outstripped supply when schools reopened.

The report also chart?s the devastating impact the cost-of-living crisis is having on teaching assistants and ?makes the ?case for staff to receive decent pay, says UNISON. ?

Support staff mentioned the high cost of fuel ?as a particular strain on their finances, ?to such an extent some said they could no longer afford to drive to work.

Headteachers are aware of the financial hit teaching assistants are taking and the impact ?on schools if staff continue to leave, says ?the report. One headteacher ?said they had been ?constantly advertising for teaching assistants since the start of the year but had only been able to fill one out of eight positions.

To halt the exodus of teaching assistants, the report recommends ministers take an urgent look at better rewarding teaching assistants, says UNISON.

The government must also invest in the workforce by creating opportunities for professional development that build on the skills staff already possess and the new responsibilities taken on since Covid struck, says the report.

UNISON head of education Mike Short said: “Teaching assistants stepped-up during the pandemic and repeatedly proved their worth, as they ?were doing long before the crisis struck.

“But chronic low pay is threatening to rob classrooms of dedicated, experienced staff, just when schools need them most.

“The report highlights the value headteachers place on teaching assistants, and the important role training ?p?lays in boosting skills, status and pay.” ?

University of Portsmouth researcher Dr Rob Webster, who co-authored the report with Dr Sophi?e Hall, said: “Schools are facing many challenges, but the consequence of the loss of teaching assistants is the most catastrophic.

“Without these staff, schools will struggle to provide adequate support to children with additional needs. Teachers’ workloads will also skyrocket, driving yet more from the profession and deterring others from joining.

“The report makes it clear that while there are things schools can do to boost staff morale, a properly funded effort to support and retain teaching assistants is urgently needed.”

Notes to editors:
– The full report, From Covid to the Cost of Living: The crises remaking the role of teaching assistants, can be read here.
– The report was commissioned by UNISON and conducted by the Education Research, Innovation and Consultancy Unit based at the University of Portsmouth between March and June 2022.
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.

UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Everyone’s thoughts will be with the royal family at this sad time. I’d like to offer UNISON’s sincere condolences.

“The Queen has given a lifetime of exemplary public service and her loss will be felt deeply across the whole of the UK and Commonwealth.”

Notes to editors:
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union with more than 1.3 million members providing public services in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.

In a landmark legal case for sufferers of long COVID, an employment tribunal recently ruled that the symptoms brought about by the condition may be classed as a disability.

Terence Burke brought claims of disability discrimination and  unfair dismissal after being sacked from his job as a caretaker in 2021. He had worked in the role since 2001, but had been unable to attend work for nine months after suffering substantial and long-term effects from COVID-19 after contracting the virus in November 2020.

The tribunal considered and decided at a preliminary hearing that Mr Burke’s symptoms during this time amounted to a disability within the definition of the Equality Act 2010. The Tribunal gave Mr Burke permission to proceed with his claim of disability discrimination against his former employer.

The judgement referenced a TUC report from June 2021 about workers’ experience of long COVID, and supported what the claimant said about the recurrence of the symptoms.

The judgement also noted that occupational health evidence had been unhelpful for the claimant, highlighting a challenge for UNISON members and representatives who are facing similar problems.

Employment Tribunal decisions are not binding, but they are persuasive, and may still be used by negotiators to point to employers the direction a tribunal might take in similar circumstances.

UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said: “I welcome this employment tribunal decision, which shows that the symptoms of long COVID can amount to a disability.

“It’s important that employers consider this decision and provide reasonable adjustments and support to their staff with long COVID.

UNISON has updated its guidance on how to support members with long COVID.

UNISON national officer Deirdre Costigan said: “UNISON’s updated guidance explains this important case, which gives our reps more tools in their toolbox when representing members with long COVID in the workplace. It highlights the importance of looking at the individual circumstances of each case when arguing the member is disabled due to the impact of long COVID.”