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[sidey]

Re post above:

See, it's working already.

As soon as local deals get struck, its bye bye national bargaining power, and come the next pay negotiations in 3 years time, you're on your own.

Without a national unionised system, you will be a screwed financially as many are in the UK.  Good bye auctomatic increments, hello market salaries.  Good for some, terrible for most.

[delighted]

You may be right about the future and I would prefer (I think) a national to a local pay agreement. But it's hard to see that the whole system (increments etc...) would be scapped in the near future.

In the meantime, I'm happy for the students!

[busacad]

national bargaining benefits those at lesser institutions and punishes those at better instititions. with a single national lecturer / senior lecturer grading system those at the top are expected to do far more for the same money than those at lesser institutions who get the same pay.

what does this lead to - less and less young people entering academia as there is no reward for excelling- why be the best in a profession that offers someone who is the best no more than some third rate community college clown who does no research/no writing?? result - those who come in, aint that good or don't work that hard.

[science expat]

I take serious issue with busacad's post. What is the definition of a "lesser institution" - non Russell Group?

I'm a serious researcher at a non-prestigious pre-92 in the hinterlands that engages in some outstanding research. I work my a$$ off.

We already suffer the "London factor" - the linear decrease in research funding with distance from the "City".

Now busacad is suggesting that I should be paid less as well!

[s]

That's what annoys me most: I don't want to earn more in absolute terms (it would be nice though), but only in relative ones: You went through a highly competitive selection through schooling, exams, and interviewing. You spend hours at work, writing tons of articles, finding research money, and managing your research team, you teach large classes etc.,
And you get paid exactly the same as someone at a mediocre to bad university, who doesn't publish, does not do research, is teaching a very little bit, and always the same class without ever updating. A person who sees university as a stable income, so that he can spend most of his time writing his poetry, do gardening or travelling, and who does not read the academic literature anymore.

That's what the problem is.

And before some people start arguing: Yes, there are mediocre universities.

[to s]

Sure, let's agree there are mediocre universities - but there are plenty of idiots and plenty of lazy, non-research active profs in the hallowed halls of the very prestigious ones. If we go for 'merit-based' locally-negotiated pay that s is advising (and I'm not), could we just make sure the idiots don't get the rise?

To return to Lyotard's age-old question, who will legislate the legislators? HEFCE? Vice-chancellors?  s him/herself?

(Just to clarify, mainly for s:
1. I'm at a 'prestigious' uni
2. I'm research active )

[%sig%]

[UKsystem]

> what does this lead to - less and less young people entering
> academia as there is no reward for excelling- why be the best
> in a profession that offers someone who is the best no more
> than some third rate community college clown who does no
> research/no writing?? result - those who come in, aint that
> good or don't work that hard.

For a start, it's 'fewer and fewer' young people, not 'less and less'; second, no 'community colleges' in the UK (third rate or otherwise); third, I agree that those academics who don't pull their weight don't deserve to be paid more - but there are good and bad across the range of universities, and judging the quality of the academic by the quality of their university (however you want to measure quality) is not a useful approach - the job market just isn't fluid enough for all the best people to be at the best universities at any one point in time.

Judging quality is also difficult as no single measure (e.g. number of outputs) is going to apply equally across subjects (e.g. high (immediate) 'impact' but short 'shelf-life' vs low (immediate) 'impact' but long 'shelf-life' - which is the best research?). Even the within-subject RAE ratings are based on the subjective opinions of the handful of academics...

[personne]

I think the main problem with national bargaining is not that it rewards poor performance, but that it doesn't allow for the huge differences in cost of living between areas. True, there is probably some correlation between desirable (therefore expensive) areas and good universities; but there is plenty of good research in cheap locations. You can still have collective bargaining over pay but within an instituition or a region, avoiding the current situation which is nonsensical.
finding ways to weed out non performing faculty is worthy but a separate issue.

[ExPat in UK]

I don't want  to get into the whole research/teaching thing or 'my university is better than your university'.

We are academics... and for the most part, on this board, Americans. We all 'grew up' with the research/teaching/service model and I assume that most of us actually do that. I know that one of the reasons I went into academe is because I like working with students. I left industry because I like research. I am in a very 'professional' field that is also quite interdisciplinary. I do have difficulty at times in dealing with the 'pigeonhole' view of a lot of the UK experience (RAE for example). But it is what it is... I'm here because I want to be.

I can't honestly make the argument that I'm better because I published two papers and book last year. I was able to do that because I wasn't dealing with 400 students like some of my colleagues. Who can say who was more productive, me for doing 1/2 hour tutorials with six Ph.D. students or someone who delivered six lectures a week to 400 students? If you asked the students they would probably say that I'm not really productive.

One of the advantages of the UK system of a national scale is that unlike in the US you do not get caught in the salary compression nightmare.

[science expat]

ExPat in UK wrote:

> One of the advantages of the UK system of a national scale is
> that unlike in the US you do not get caught in the salary
> compression nightmare.

Amen to this. Do we really want to get into a highest bidder scenario in which you have to get outside offers in order to get pay raises?

The money's not great but the pay structure is pretty good, IMO.

[to busacad]

Yeh right. I am sure you grade people the same way.  I feel for your students.

[bus acad]

> Yeh right. I am sure you grade people the same way. I feel for your students.

Yes - I grade people based on their demonstrated ability (as opposed to grading everyone in the class exactly the same regardless of ability - which national bargaining would be the equivalent of). What approach do you use?


As for the comments that there is no way to differentiate good versus bad universities - what planet do you live on??? Yes there are dozens of different league tables but there is general agreement on good/bad even if the exact order is different. Warwick University is significantly better (RAE, course rankings such as FT/Times, entry requirements for students etc) than Coventry but both use the same pay scales for lecturers even though the people at Warwick are expected to do more/better research/publishing and teach to a higher level (and no I don't work there - just came to mind as an example).

The RAE system allocates money to universities for every submission - the amount varying by RAE grade - a 5/5* got about 26k per person submitted each year from 2001, a 3 got a lot less. The RAE/ HE system pays universities of different measured quality different amounts for staff employed - HOWEVER - national bargaining destroys any potential gains for staff that could be passed on - unionisation REDUCES pay for the best people by dragging it down to national levels (the lowest common denominator).


As for the comments that some post-92 places have good depts - yes they do - the argument there is that pay should be varied WITHIN institutions based on dept quality - why should a 5* dept in a 4 grade university be paid the same as those who have proven themselves less able to research  just because they happen to work at the same address.


As for the unions agreement to a 3% raise in August - how comforting that months of distress, student upset and academic unrest have now been resolved and a pair rise just around the level of inflation has been awarded. Well done the unions- you've just about managed not to reduce peoples pay in real terms.

[UKsystem]

bus acad wrote:

>
> >
>
> As for the comments that there is no way to differentiate good
> versus bad universities - what planet do you live on??? Yes
> there are dozens of different league tables but there is
> general agreement on good/bad even if the exact order is
> different. Warwick University is significantly better (RAE,
> course rankings such as FT/Times, entry requirements for
> students etc) than Coventry but both use the same pay scales
> for lecturers even though the people at Warwick are expected to
> do more/better research/publishing and teach to a higher level
> (and no I don't work there - just came to mind as an example).
>
> The RAE system allocates money to universities for every
> submission - the amount varying by RAE grade - a 5/5* got about
> 26k per person submitted each year from 2001, a 3 got a lot
>
>
>
> As for the comments that some post-92 places have good depts -
> yes they do - the argument there is that pay should be varied
> WITHIN institutions based on dept quality - why should a 5*
> dept in a 4 grade university be paid the same as those who have
> proven themselves less able to research  just because they
> happen to work at the same address.
>
>

The problems with your argument are as follows:

1. The criteria used to determine quality for RAE and league tables are questionable (whose league table? One that gives student 'satisfaction' a large weighting? are students qualified to judge when most of them seem to think that lecturers work 3-4 hrs per week and go on vacation when they do?). What about student entry scores - this reflects the demand students have for that course or university, but the reality is complex; students (or their parents) may prefer a certain university because of the name (e.g. Bristol - was the hardest university to get a place a couple of years ago) but end up in a department with a lower RAE rating than a another department (same subject) in a less prestigious university, the staff of which may well be doing cutting edge research (and thus have the higher RAE rating).

2. Good, hard working, innovative researchers may be in departments without similar colleagues - so they would be penalised under your system as the department 'quality' would be dragged down by other members. Likewise, someone who finds themselves in a high rated department, and be rewarded despite simply cruising and not showing much ability or effort. This would only be solved if individuals were rated, and pay allocated accordingly (but then who does the rating and how? The 2008 RAE will rate individuals and combine the scores to allocate to a department, but that is a subjective judgement by a few academics - none of who may be at all knowledgeable of the current state of the various sub-fields - not to mention that the new RAE rating scale is more strongly skewed than previously).

3. The academic job market is not fluid. Jobs are literally few, and far between (both in space and time). Shifting jobs may require relocating to another part of the country (ignoring the international dimension for now) - which may not be possible (need to sell a house, move children to a new school, find a new job for spouse etc.). This might be practical once or twice in a career but not every couple of years. Then, of course, cost of living differentials will create a problem, particularly if moving from a cheaper area of the country to a southern city (and there would be little choice if that happened to be were the 'good' departments were located.)

4. It is next to impossible to fire someone (and that's not just in universities, take a look at employment legislation) unless they are grossly incompetent or entire departments are closed. This means departments can't get rid of lower-performing people, and so create vacancies that would encourage movement. And again, how would you judge 'low' performance? The current RAE doesn't seem the best system...


> As for the unions agreement to a 3% raise in August - how
> comforting that months of distress, student upset and academic
> unrest have now been resolved and a pair rise just around the
> level of inflation has been awarded. Well done the unions-
> you've just about managed not to reduce peoples pay in real
> terms.

The word capitulation comes to mind - although given the current talk of limited public sector workers to 2% pay rises, it might turn out to be a better settlement that it currently appears to be.