As ever, our colleagues at USS Briefs have been working hard to keep up the pressure over pensions. This piece, co-written by Cardiff UCU’s Nicky Priaulx, provides an excellent overview of how we’ve been completely vindicated in striking and fighting to retain our pensions.

Cardiff UCU’s Woon Wong has been tirelessly engaging with all of the relevant stakeholders to advance his analysis of the “phantom deficit” behind USS – read his most recent piece.

And finally, this one isn’t about pensions per se, but instead about the dangers of Universities acting like banks and issuing large public bonds. As you read, remember that Cardiff University issued a £300 million bond a few years ago, and that all our employers’ upcoming decisions (about pensions, pay, and broader working conditions) are likely to be in some way affected by this increasing financialized debt:

Financial Times Journalist Josephine Cumbo reported on Twitter a few days ago that UUK has now, in principle, accepted the Joint Expert Panel’s recommendations on the future of USS. You can read the thread on Twitter.

While there is still a way to go in the pensions dispute, the fact we have moved our employers from wanting to do away with our DB pensions entirely to basically accepting our critiques and points of view is a massive testament to all of us who took the difficult and brave decision to strike last winter.

If we’d caved in, we’d not have our pensions any more.

One of the things we won in the USS Strike was the opportunity to re-form and democratise our union’s handling of the dispute. The NDC was formed so that rank and file UCU members would have an on-going say in how we manage the pensions issue, and it recently released a statement to the UCU’s Superannuation Working Group which should guide union policy. This conclusion sums up their “no detriment” position nicely, but you can read more in the link below:

“The NDC believes that the precipitate and misleading attempt to impose a DC scheme on members was a disappointing and unwarranted breach of promise by employers. Given no reform of the scheme was required, and therefore UCU members were compelled to take strike action that was unnecessary, the NDC adopts the following:

1. UCU members should suffer no detriment in any proposed resolution of the USS dispute. Lost earning should be repaid, any interim contribution increases should be shouldered by the employer, and USS benefits should remain the same.
2. UCU should call upon UUK and individual Vice Chancellors to apologise to their staff for their role in triggering the dispute.
3. UUK and individual Vice-Chancellors should also apologise to students for their actions and offer appropriate compensation for lost teaching.

The NDC notes there are important areas of concern to UCU members and matters of UCU policy that are not covered in the JEP report. The NDC recommends that the SWG push for negotiations on these issues. The NDC also recommends that the SWG insists that resolution of the dispute incorporates reform of the Joint Negotiating Committee so that the scheme cannot be modified without the approval of members.”

You can read the full statement, and you can keep yourself informed of the work of the NDC.