Students and unions criticise wage hikes for vice-chancellors

UK: Reports of high pay rises for university heads anger those campaigning for better wages for lower level staff.

Students and unions have spoken out against reports that wages for university vice-chancellors at top research universities have risen on average by 8.1%, with some receiving salaries of more than £400,000.

The news of pay rises at the top comes in the wake of recent university staff strikes over poor wages and pensions.

Haydn Morris, chair of the Unite national education committee says: "This smacks of rank hypocrisy, given that university staff have endured a six-year pay drought which has seen a 13% cut in pay in real terms since 2008.

"On the day that the cost of living crisis has again been highlighted by the leap in rail fares, the university bosses are lining their own substantial pockets, while those staff that keep Britain in the top 10 world university league table struggle to make ends meet."

At the University of Southampton, where it is reported the vice-chancellor received a £19,000 pay increase in 2012-13, the student union (Susu) president David Gilani says: "Susu's priority is ensuring that the university can pay the living wage to its employees. Hopefully the university can show that the increase in pay for their vice-chancellor can coexist with increases for their lowest paid staff."

The University College London (UCL) president reportedly received a £41,077 increase in pay and pension package. Hannah Webb, external affairs and campaigns officer at UCL's students union, says: "It's completely unfair. The people who allow the university to function are at the lower level: the academics, the cleaners, the support staff. These are the people whose wages have been decreasing.

"In some universities, some staff like cleaners aren't even getting the living wage, and yet the vice-chancellors are getting paid hundreds of thousands a year."

Webb says that the news could lead to more student protests and Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, says that "these controversial rises will galvanise union members who are determined to fight for fair pay".

Ben Jackson, a third-year English student who took part in a recent occupation at Birmingham University against fees and privatisation of uni services, says: "When we hear things like the 13% decrease in lecturer pay since 2008, compared with the vice-chancellor's pay rise; and when we hear that our vice-chancellor is being paid £419,000 while so many staff are not getting the living wage – this information is what mobilises people and makes everyone, not just the minority, stand up and say this is wrong."

But a Russell Group spokesperson says that the salaries of vice-chancellors are in line with the demands and level of the job.

Some of the pay increases coincide with improvements in university rankings, for example, at Durham University, which has risen from 17th in the Guardian's university league table to 6th in 2014. But at others, like Southampton, the £19,000 increase in the vice-chancellor's wage came in the same year as a fall of two places in the rankings and a 13% drop in undegraduate acceptance.

Despite recent university strikes about pay, figures from the University and Colleges Employers Association show that people who work in higher education are paid above average wages compared with people in other sectors. In April 2012, median full-time earnings for higher education professionals were £46,817 compared with £36,201 for professionals in other sectors. And at a lower level, even staff such as cleaners and caterers who worked in higher education institutions were paid more than cleaners and caterers outside of the sector.

During the university staff strikes in December, an anonymous member of support staff at the University of Bath told the Guardian: "I get paid more than a fair salary compared to what I'd get doing the same job in the private sector (maybe not compared to the VC, but I don't do her job, so don't feel that is a fair comparison).

"I get a really good pension package and amazing holiday allowance, sick leave, flexible working, and can work from home if I need to."

Many unions, however, are still not happy with the benefits on offer to the majority of university staff. Morris says: "The 'them and us' situation is made worse as the cumulative operating surplus in the higher education sector is now over £1bn. Cash-rich universities could well afford to be more generous than the 1% offer currently on the table."

At the London School of Economics, where the director took home a total of £466,000 in 2012-13, the student union education officer Rosie Coleman says: "Our director is a valuable asset to the institution, especially when utilising his philanthropic networks. However, questions do have to be asked about how valuable can one person really be to warrant such a high pay cheque.

"We'd love to see our director, who throughout his academic career has been a champion of socialist anthropology and politics, challenge the extreme privatisation of education taking place in UK higher education sector at the moment, by taking a stand against such gross inequality in the pay structures of our institution."


(Source: Libby Page, The Guardian)