FE pay in England

In England the vast majority of colleges are members of the Association of Colleges (AoC), an employers' organisation which negotiates with UCU and other recognised trade unions (UNISON, ATL, ACM, T&G and GMB) in the National Joint Forum (NJF) to produce recommendations on pay and conditions for individual colleges to adopt.

2 July 2010: employers make final offer

The further education employers yesterday made what we understand will be their final offer, which is a consolidated 0.2% on all scales or £50, whichever is the greater. The employers claim that this is an improvement on their previous offer of an non-consolidated 0.2%, but none of the unions accepted this offer. With inflation measured by RPI running at 5.1%, this would be a significant cut in the value of pay, far below the 2.3% offered to school teachers and lower even than the 0.4% offered to higher education staff. The Further Education Committee's is to recommend its rejection by branches and to begin to prepare the ground for a ballot for strike action and a special sector conference will be held in October in Manchester.

May 2010: AoC offer 0.2% as a One Off Payment!

Negotiations on the further education joint union pay claim for 2010/11 (see box opposite) opened on Monday 17 May. In response to the claim submitted in April that included a modest 3.5% pay demand, the Association of Colleges (AoC) offered a one off 'non-consolidated' 0.2%. This was rejected by all unions. Read more in FE news:

 FE news, no.32, May 10 (.pdf) [234kb] FE news, no.32, May 10 (.doc) [256kb]

Joint union claim

The joint union claim for 2010-11 submitted to the employers;

 FE joint union claim 2010-11 (.doc) [77kb]

Recommended FE pay scales

The recommended pay scales effective from 1 August 2009: FE salary scales for England

'Time to pay up'

The six recognised unions (ACM, ATL, GMB, UCU, UNISON & UNITE) have come together to launch the 'Time to Pay Up' campaign to target offending colleges who are refusing to implement nationally agreed pay deals negotiated with the Association of Colleges (AoC).

UCU is currently engaged in targeting colleges that have still to pay the shortened pay scales agreed in 2004. This will continue to be a major focus of our activity and we hope that where possible other unions will now join us. The aim of this new joint initiative is to widen and increase pressure on employers to honor national pay settlements.

Find out more here: IOU - no more teaching on the cheap

2009-10 pay round

FE ballot result

After a special FE sector conference in September 2009 voted to reject the AoC pay offer of 1.5% to staff in FE colleges in England, the results of the subsequent ballot for national strike action was as follows:

ARE YOU PREPARED TO TAKE PART IN STRIKE ACTION?

Number of votes cast in ballot: 7699
Number of YES votes: 3780
Number of NO votes: 3912
Number of spoilt ballot papers: 7

UCU's further education committee has produced the following strategy paper in response to the result:
 FEC strategy paper (.pdf) [43kb]
 FEC strategy paper (.doc) [157kb]

See also:
 Further, adult and higher education - fight for an alternative vision: lobby parliament on 26 January (.pdf) [42kb]
 Further, adult and higher education - fight for an alternative vision: lobby parliament on 26 January (.doc) [159kb]

Find out more at: National lobby of parliament to defend jobs, defend education

2008-9 pay round

UCU submitted a joint pay claim for 2008-9 with the other FE unions which called for a 6% increase or £1500, whichever is the greater, taking account of the shortfall UCU members have suffered - see 2008-09 FE pay claim backed by call for industrial action

College lecturers throughout England then took strike action in April 2008 in support of the demand to bring their pay up to that of schoolteachers:

• College lecturers walk out across England
• College lecturers vote to strike on pay
• see our campaign pages for events which took place near you.

In October UCU members then voted to accept the employers' final offer of 3.2%: College lecturers vote to accept 3.2% pay offer