Joint Statement between the University of York management, and the three recognised trade unions: UCU, Unison and Unite

All parties affirm the importance of providing attractive salaries, pensions and working conditions to staff. More specifically:

• The University of York management, UCU, Unison and Unite recognise that talks are currently taking place between UCU and the employers at UK level regarding pay and pay related conditions, and should continue. 
• The University of York management, UCU, Unison and Unite acknowledge the real progress that has been made locally on conditions. This includes an agreement to establish joint working arrangements at the University of York to address the issues of workload and wellbeing; casual staffing/employment contracts; and the gender and related pay gaps. More specifically this partnership work will focus on:
• A commitment not to use zero hours contracts for any group of staff and to provide all casual workers with a clear statement about how work is allocated, and rates of pay
• Formalising employment relationships for our Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA), so the anticipated working hours, and pay arrangements, are transparent and consistently applied across the university
• Reviewing all “non-standard” working arrangements and ensure all staff are on the most appropriate employment contract type, including reviewing the option to move staff from longer (e.g. more than 4 years) fixed-term contracts to open contracts, where this aligns better with the nature of the work
• A commitment to provide additional redeployment support for staff on a fixed-term contract which is terminating, and to develop forms of forward planning to support the research and teaching plans of departments and the career development of FTC staff
• An institution-wide approach to improve the information we hold, to better understand the make-up of our workforce, and the implications for pay, pay gaps and progression
• A gender pay action plan, linked to a joint statement between the University management, UCU, Unison and Unite, and a joint working group which is committed to reducing the university’s gender pay gap, with a commitment to provide additional trade union facilities time to dedicate to this important work,
• A further commitment to mirror these arrangements to reduce our ethnicity pay gap, and to report this information ahead of any statutory requirement to do so

The University management, UCU, Unison and Unite are committed to joint working at the University of York on this important agenda under four key principles:

Principle 1
To agree key data/metrics to understand our local position in York, and commit to transparent sharing of this data. This may include, but is not limited to data relating to: equal pay audits; pay gap reporting; progression, including Academic Promotion; employment contract types; Recruitment statistics; Staff turnover

Principle 2
To operate through joint working groups around: Casual staffing / contract types;  Pay gaps (gender and ethnicity); Workload and wellbeing

Principle 3
To commit to the appropriate resourcing of additional trade union facilities time for these joint working groups, in line with the approach to resourcing additional time already committed for the joint gender pay action group

Principle 4
To agree an appropriate governance framework for this programme of work, to give transparency, robustness and accountability.

Signatories: Charlie Jeffery, UCU (Joanna De Groot; Ana Duarte), Unison (Jenny Underhill) and Unite (Bob Hide)