BUCU have been working with a group of Grade 7 staff in a department who have been undertaking Grade 8 and Grade 9 work. We have raised an equal pay claim for this group of staff, and the response from the University has been unsatisfactory. Instead of trying to resolve the inequity for this particular group of staff, the University has widened their lens to include all 335 Grade 7 staff across the whole University, and they uncovered that these staff have amongst them 118 or so different job titles. We think that this is because the University is attempting to slow down the equal pay claim as they will certainly have been advised by their legal team that if an equal pay claim is successful, the affected employees can claim back their lost pay up to a limit of six years. BUCU noted that many teaching are doing the jobs of Assistant Professors and most of these people are more likely to be women and people of colour.  Many of these teaching fellows had also been working for up to 4 years without an entitlement to a permanent post. The University stated that there are processes about how people progress and how the University helps people’s career progression. The University also stated that no one should be doing work that goes beyond their job description; if they do, they should be recognised for it. BUCU returned to the question of workplace mapping (which had first come up in our discussion about surveillance and Cubane / Nous) and explained that they had been misled into taking on additional responsibilities after Grade 8 and Grade 9 staff had left their roles in the UoB and their positions were not replaced. BUCU also noted that the circumstances of those Grade 7 staff who have had to carry out this extra work needs to be considered. 

The University has acknowledged that this is a messy picture and a work in progress; they have committed to meet amongst themselves and come up with recommendations both for the wider group of Grade 7 staff and the staff that we are representing in one department. 

As you know, one of the core demands of the We Are the University Campaign is to hold UCEA members accountable to the National Pay Framework Agreements. BUCU will continue to highlight the discrepancies that we see between the local job families and role descriptions here at the UoB and those agreed nationally by JNCHES. What local breaches in the National Pay Frameworks amounts to are inequities in the progression pathways for staff here at the UoB compared to the wider sector. While asking staff to undertake work beyond their defined grade and role descriptions may seemingly give the UoB Senior Management Team a “competitive advantage” (because the UoB extracts “more work” from its staff by not adhering to the nationally agreed job families), this is experienced on the ground by staff as greater work-related stress levels experienced by staff here will be higher and more intense than at other institutions. Vote Yes and Yes.