UCOL offer staff a pay rise

UCOL has finally offered its staff a pay rise, and TEU negotiators believe it will be enough to end a months' long employment dispute.

Yesterday UCOL's chief executive Paul McElroy personally joined the employment negotiations. After that his team offered polytechnic staff two pay raises over two years of 1.25 percent each year.

"We were pleased that Mr McElroy joined us and listened," said TEU branch president Tina Smith.

"He also responded to many of the points we raised."

After that presentation, UCOL put an offer on the table.

While some technical details of the offer are still to be finalised, the main points are:

1.25 percent payable from 30 May 2014
1.25 percent payable from 30 May 2015
an extra day of annual leave for General staff
A two-year collective agreement to June 2016
Union members will hold meetings next week on each of the polytechnic's three campuses (Palmerston North, Wanganui and Masterton) to discuss both the offer and the process for ratifying.

Tina Smith says staff have had to campaign for a long time for this pay rise.

"At the beginning of the negotiations UCOL put up a claim that attempted to remove or modify work conditions with a nil pay offer. We needed a lot of support from students and the community to get us to this point today."

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