On the go: The Scottish government’s higher education minister has urged the University of Dundee to reach an agreement with staff striking over controversial plans to move low-paid workers to a defined contribution scheme.
As Pensions Expert reported in October, protests kicked off in September over the plans to move clerical staff out of the University of Dundee Superannuation Scheme and into a new DC arrangement, a change Unison said would create “the worst higher education scheme in Scotland”.
Staff represented by the union are on their ninth day of industrial action, a strike that has been joined by the University and College Union and Unite, and are campaigning against a change Unison said could see affected staff lose as much as half of their retirement fund.
The university has argued that the existing DB scheme is unaffordable.
In a Q&A document published in October, the University of Dundee said the costs of running the superannuation scheme have risen in recent years. The deficit as of its 2017 valuation was £44.9bn, and this is likely to have increased by the 2020 valuation, despite additional contributions having been paid.
“Whether you would be better or worse off in the new arrangement depends on a lot of factors such as your age, how you wish to use your pension savings, the investments chosen in the new arrangement, and how they perform and your future salary increases,” the university said.
“Therefore, it is not possible to say with certainty whether you would be better or worse off in the new arrangement until you actually retire.”
It argued that making no changes would prevent the university from making “important investments”, and “it is likely that it would still need to make changes in the future. The longer the university leaves things before making the changes, the greater the issue will become”.
Now, as reported by the Daily Record, higher education minister Jamie Hepburn has called for the two sides to reach an agreement.
Responding to a question from Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman, Hepburn said: “Since August, I have both corresponded and spoken with the principal at the University of Dundee on a number of occasions to reiterate the need to continue negotiations with all three trade unions involved in this industrial action.”
Chapman has tabled a supplementary question, asking whether the minister agrees that the proposed change “will almost certainly have negative impacts on those lower earners, many of whom are women, and therefore a full equalities impact assessment should be done”.
She has pledged her continuing support for Unite in its dispute with the university.
