UUK

In response to Earth Overshoot day, TransitionLab.earth have facilitated an open letter to all university Vice Chancellors, Universities UK (UUK) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) with a clarion call to everyone in the UK research and university sector to take a much stronger and active role in climate change mitigation, adaptation and ecological restoration.

UCU members and UUK eventually agreed to set up a joint expert panel to review the pension valuation at the centre of the row.

The UUK determined that this was perilous, and could not be sustained for the future.

As the strike progressed, details emerged of the (botched) UUK survey that was undertaken in 2017 to find out what employers' appetite for risk-taking in the pension scheme was.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: "In line with the decision of members, the union will suspend its immediate industrial action plans but keep our legal strike mandate live until the agreement between UCU and UUK is noted."

UUK said yesterday that it would still establish a panel of experts to review the processes behind the valuation.

The University and College Union (UCU) has been locked in a battle with Universities UK (UUK) over proposed pension reforms to address a reported deficit and rising benefit costs.

Even today snow, we've picketers "Janet Beer is the President of Universities UK (UUK), the collective body that represents Vice-Chancellors nationwide.

The strikes have been organised to put pressure on Universities UK (UUK), the universities' representatives, to negotiate the proposed changes, which have been criticised by the University of Warwick's Vice Chancellor.

Universities UK (UUK) maintains that the pension scheme has a deficit of more than PS6 billion that cannot be ignored, and that it has met union officials more than 35 times to discuss reforms.

UUK said that the pension scheme has a deficit of more than [pounds sterling]6 billion that cannot be ignored, and there is a legal duty to put a credible plan in place by the summer to reduce the deficit.

The dispute centres on proposals of the employers' representative, Universities UK (UUK), proposals to end the defined element of the lecturers' pension scheme, which the UCU says would leave a typical lecturer almost PS10,000 a year worse off in retirement than under the current set-up.