UCL Provost Admits University Is Underpaying Staff

Photo Courtesy: University of Oxford

There are several strikes happening in the United Kingdom, including in universities, partially due to inflation being at its highest level in 40 years. UCL has admitted that it has systematically underpaid staff for many years, a situation that may lead to deprivation of education in the near future even in the case of a highly-ranked university.

Michael Spence, the president of UCL, told the Times Higher Education’s THE Campus Live event: “We’ve balanced the books by hugely increasing numbers of international students, by, in many institutions, not investing in adequate repairs and maintenance and, as a system, systematically underpaying our staff.” 

He added that given the current pay levels, it was not sustainable to recruit staff at grades six to nine: “While UK universities had got good at scoring high-flying top staff, those in the middle had not been well looked after”. 

Miguel Rivera, a lecturer who has been teaching Computational Chemistry for two years, said that the work conditions are worse than previously, adding that the underpayment has affected his personal life with the current cost of living crisis.

Rivera explained how inflation caught him off-guard: “I rent a poorly insulated flat with my partner, making it unsustainable to heat during the day. I have, more than once, hurt my hands as I try to write student feedback in time for a deadline with fingers stiff from the cold.”

While the university attempted to increase international student influxes as a solution, this also led to problems in teaching and learning.

“More students with the same number of staff and resources means more work by the educators and worse learning experiences for the students. If I have to double-check every assignment to make sure there is enough feedback and the marking is consistent, I take longer, but with the same deadlines” said Rivera. His classes have become larger with around 50 more students attending than in previous years. He found that the worst impact of high student numbers is the lack of attention given to students facing serious academic obstacles, whose mental health is already deteriorating.

Last December, more than 70,000 staff and 150 universities joined the University and College Union's (UCU) strike to demand better pay, pensions, and working conditions. A total of 68.7% (4,322) of students voted in favor of the strikes at UCL, making it the largest referendum in the university's history. Dr Meckled-Garcia, the Branch Secretary of UCL UCU, pointed out that if current university staff do not succeed, “academia will become much more of a factory for making money out of students.”