{"id":1877,"date":"2023-03-15T15:20:50","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T15:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/?p=1877"},"modified":"2023-03-15T15:20:50","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T15:20:50","slug":"day-7-of-the-ucu-strike-the-magic-of-an-arbitrary-number","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/?p=1877","title":{"rendered":"Day 7 of the UCU Strike: the magic of an arbitrary number"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jim Callaghan&#8217;s memoirs of the way in which his 5% pay increase limit came about (courtesy of Andy Beckett&#8217;s excellent <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.faber.co.uk\/product\/9780571221370-when-the-lights-went-out\/\">When The Lights Went Out<\/a><\/em>) are fascinating:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>At the Cabinet Meeting on 22 December, I threw out the idea that from August 1978, we should aim to get pay settlements down to 5%&#8230;As far as I can recall, because no formal proposal was before the Cabinet, there was no discussion&#8230;Ministers probably assumed that I was thinking aloud &#8211; as indeed I was. However, when I made my New Year Broadcast&#8230;the 5% idea hardened and popped out when the interviewer tempted me&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inflation was at around 8% at the time. However average earnings between August 1977 and August 1978 rose by 14% and this was the anchor for future pay deals. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2022\/jul\/20\/stuff-your-5-is-the-uk-facing-a-summer-of-discontent-and-what-can-we-learn-from-the-winter-of-1979\">September 1978<\/a>, 50,000 workers at Ford went on strike in response to a 5% pay offer and went on strike (\u201cStuff the 5%\u201d was on some of the placards). Two months later, the strikers accepted an offer of 17% from Ford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">CPI was at 10.1% to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/economy\/inflationandpriceindices\/bulletins\/consumerpriceinflation\/january2023#:~:text=The%20fall%20in%20the%20annual,of%2011.1%25%20in%20October%202022.\">January 2023<\/a> and CPIH (the one that includes housing costs) at 8.8%. However the anchor now appears to be working in the opposite direction due to years of low inflation: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cipd.co.uk\/knowledge\/work\/trends\/labour-market-outlook#gref\">a recent CIPD survey<\/a> indicated that planned pay settlements in the public sector fell to 2% from 3% in the quarter before, compared to a median of 5% in the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This may be changing. Another <a href=\"https:\/\/employeebenefits.co.uk\/53-of-employers-planning-pay-rises-of-at-least-5-in-2023\/\">recent survey<\/a> of 181 large private firms had 29% of firms expecting to award pay increases between 5% and 5.99% in 2023 and 24% increases of 6% or higher.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This therefore seems like an odd time for the UCEA (the Universities and Colleges Employers Association) to refuse to negotiate with the University and College Union, particularly after agreeing a two week &#8220;period of calm&#8221; without strike action specifically so that further negotiations could take place. Instead they are unilaterally implementing their arbitrary number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Needless to say, the strikes are now back on!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jim Callaghan&#8217;s memoirs of the way in which his 5% pay increase limit came about (courtesy of Andy Beckett&#8217;s excellent When The Lights Went Out) are fascinating: At the Cabinet Meeting on 22 December, I threw out the idea that from August 1978, we should aim to get pay settlements down to 5%&#8230;As far as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1877"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1883,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions\/1883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}