Pension win for UCU Members

Pensions for UCU members will be restored to “pre-April 2022 levels” in what the union is describing as a “historic victory.”

This should come into effect by April 2024 and restore the value of university lecturers pension schemes.

After the last academic year, which saw a plethora of strike days and a marking boycott, the UCU says this result is something “[o]ur members can be rightly proud” of.  

Universities UK (UUK) and the UCU released a statement together on October 5, laying out the agreement to restore benefits to previous levels.

The agreement includes a one-off payment of £900 million to restore lost funds .

Another key element of this agreement is the reduction of the contribution rate (the amount paid into the pension by the worker, monthly). 

This reduces the amount that university staff will have to pay into their pension schemes moving forward. 

UCU members were being asked to pay a larger amount of their salary (9.8%), which has now been reduced down to 6.1% going forward.

This means that members will get to keep more of their monthly salary, helping to achieve a UCU goal to “create a higher education sector that properly values its staff.”

Attitudes on social media indicates that the UCU will continue strike action. 

Pay cuts of “25% since 2009” continue to be a substantive issue for the union with a tweet from the UCU X account (formerly known as Twitter) stating “We’ve beaten them on pensions. Now let’s beat them on pay”.

The UCU argue that “69 days of strike action, years of campaigning, protesting and lobbying have brought us to this moment.”

The UCU is currently in a balloting and consultation process regarding a new mandate for strike action.