FRom http://brightgreenscotland.org/ with acknowledgements to Josiah Mortimer

Education

Young Greens plan week of action against university pay inequality

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Josiah Mortimer | No Comments

The Young Greens are planning actions at campuses across the country as part of a national week of action against pay inequality at UK universities.

The youth branch of the Green Party, which represents thousands of students and young people in England and Wales, has launched the week of action running from the 17th March-21st March as part of its Fair Pay Campus Campaign. The organisation’s Fair Pay campaign is calling on universities to:

1. Publish the ratio between their highest and lowest paid worker

2. Commit to working towards a 10:1 ratio on campus

3. Pledge to pay directly employed workers the living wage

4. Ensure your contractors pay their workers the living wage

5. Publish the pay of vice chancellors and senior management

Chris Jarvis, Campaigns Coordinator and organiser of the week of action said: “Fair pay at our universities is resoundingly on the agenda. As part of our ongoing campaign to make pay in the higher education sector more equal, the Young Greens have called this national week of action to demand universities take the huge pay gap in the sector seriously and to treat institutions of education as public goods – not fat-cat corporations.

“Over the past 6 months, education unions have been rightly taking industrial action over a 13% real terms pay cut since 2008 – at a time when the pay of the average Vice Chancellor has increased by 8% last year alone. It’s time for university bosses to treat all staff fairly instead of stuffing their own pockets.

“Thousands of university staff across the country are lingering on low pay and being shifted from outsourced contract to contract, while university heads earn more than the Prime Minister. Our Fair Pay League report shows that if university heads took a pay cut to £140,000 – still an enormous sum – the money raised could bring thousands of minimum wage workers up to the Living Wage.

“As it stands, the lowest paid in HE currently have to work on average 18.6 years to earn the annual salary of the head of their university. This is a national scandal at a time of cuts to education, and it’s time that universities got behind the Young Greens’ call for maximum pay ratios of 10:1. Our week of action will be calling on universities to do just that.”
The Facebook event for the Week of Action is here: www.facebook.com/events/630502876998854/

Read the Young Greens’ Fair Pay League report on university pay: fairpayunis.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/2013-fair-pay-league.pdf

For more details visit the campaign website at fairpayunis.wordpress.com and

Twitter: twitter.com/FairPayCampus.

Find the Young Greens online at: younggreens.greenparty.org.uk

- See more at: http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2014/03/young-greens-plan-week-of-action-against-university-pay-inequality/#sthash.klZW4o7q.AbC9HeId.dpuf