Unions announce balloting of members on industrial action

02 Dec 2021

Message from Adèle MacKinlay, Director of People and Organisational Development

Unison has announced that they will ballot their members at Manchester as well as 35 other universities on industrial action in relation to pay and/or pensions. The ballot will open on 6 December and close on 28 January 2022.

Alongside this, the University and College Union (UCU) has advised that they will be re-balloting members at branches which narrowly missed the threshold level. This will be in respect of pensions only for our branch. The re-ballot will open on 6 December 2021 and close on 14 January 2022.

As we have previously stated, we are extremely concerned that we face the potential for further industrial action. Any kind of industrial action causes serious disruption for our community, and particularly our students, after such an extended period of pandemic upheaval

Negotiations are conducted at a national level for both pay and pensions, so we are unable to make changes at a local level. We do recognise how important pensions and pay are to colleagues and we take those views very seriously. It is of fundamental importance to the University that we remains a great place to work, and study.

 We will keep you updated on developments in these ballots with results expected in January.

You can read more about the changes to the USS pension scheme and impending industrial action on Staffnet.

Adèle MacKinlay

Director of People and Organisational Development