1) Vote Now, Vote Yes
Ballot papers are arriving this week.
Make your vote count. Vote now, vote yes.
UCU needs a 50% turnout of its members voting yes. Not voting is a no vote.
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2) University of Bristol – With The USS Hawks
The Universities UK (UUK) ‘front’ – the position on USS held in common by Vice-Chancellors – is breaking. The University of Warwick VC has broken ranks to criticise ‘the “conservative approach” adopted by USS’.
University of Bristol management, however, are with the UUK hawks. Senior management have supported and pushed for the Defined Contribution (DC) change that is likely to damage significantly the future pensions of hard-working USS members.
As revealed in Bristol UCU’s FOI request, in response to ‘does your institution prefer maintaining a level of DB accrual for future service at this valuation or moving to a DC-only solution (either temporarily or permanently)?’, the University answered ‘moving to DC’.
This is more pithily put than the statement in the recent ‘USS pensions update’ from the Chief Financial Officer where he stated: ‘the provision of defined benefit pension schemes is challenging’.
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3) Write to the VC
We would like you to write to the VC, asking:
Under the UUK proposals can you tell me what my retirement income will be?
Under the UUK proposals will my pension benefits now be significantly worse than those in post-92 universities?