Dear Professor McDonald,

Industrial Disputes

I am writing to express my concern about the continuing problems with working conditions in UK Higher Education. These include detrimental changes to staff pensions, a decline in real-terms pay, precarious employment, rising workloads, and persistent pay gaps associated with disability, ethnicity and gender. It is my belief that these issues require urgent action for two reasons. First, they are causes of the current industrial disputes in UK universities and such disputes will not end until action is taken on these issues. Second, I am concerned that these working conditions serve to entrench inequalities in Higher Education. 

I ask you to use your influence with Universities UK and the University and College Employers Association to press for a return to negotiations with UCU on these matters. Because staff working conditions are students’ learning conditions, I ask you to urge employers’ representatives to stop cuts to pensions, improve the pay offer, and negotiate binding commitments on workloads, precarious employment, and pay gaps.

Yours sincerely,

[xxxxx]