I'm striking for the first time because government scientists are so poorly paid
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Version 0 of 1. This week, on 14 September, I walked out of my job for a half-day of strike action, alongside my colleagues at the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). I’ve worked within the council and its precursors for 23 years and this is the first time we’ve ever balloted members about taking action on pay. It’s not something that’s generally a big motivator. NERC members – scientists and researchers – enjoy their work and are proud to contribute to the likes of the British Antarctic Survey, the Geological Survey, the National Oceanography Centre, the Sea Mammal Research Unit. My colleagues do their jobs because it is important to plan for natural disasters, predict the health risks posed by new species or provide geological mapping for crime investigations. But many staff feel they cannot afford to keep doing their jobs. Until 2010, we negotiated our pay directly with the NERC. But in 2010 we were officially reclassified as part of the public sector, had a pay freeze imposed and then a 1% pay cap, as well as an increase in the cost of our pension contributions. The result is a significant number of staff now taking home less than they did four or five years ago – despite all the bills going up. Meanwhile, I share a building with colleagues from the University of Southampton and over the same period of time, their pay has gone up significantly. People notice that. Many of our staff know they could walk out of this job and get a significantly higher salary if they joined a commercial company. Seagoing staff, for example, who have to spend three or four months at a time at sea, away from their families, are looking at the conditions and asking themselves why they are doing the job. All areas of our work for the government rely on having a huge amount of expertise. Over my career I’ve carried out a number of roles, including work on remote sensing data and observation data. I work alongside the ocean modellers – people doing climate prediction. We do the kind of research that takes many years: it doesn’t fit nicely into university grant schemes. The pay deal that has been offered has removed our entitlement to automatic, time-served pay progression. This was tangible recognition of the amount of effort, training and specialist knowledge staff were learning in their first few years, and the buyout option we now have is no way of compensating. We are concerned that new staff will have no idea how to get a pay increase. There’s no framework, no recognition of expertise and training – and we will get a situation where people working at the same grade will have their pay frozen at different levels. The changes to the promotion process, which used to be rigorous, have also made people feel there’s little point in putting in the extra effort because the pay rise would be so small. We saw no option but to arrange a formal strike ballot. We had a 57% turnout and 75% voted in favour of this half-day of action. We’re trying to make our action as visible as possible to show NERC that it needs to engage with us and look seriously at its pay structures. Our primary concern is that we have resources to do the science we want to do and carry out the research we think is important. Helen Snaith works at the British Oceanographic Data Centre and is a representative for trade union Prospect Sign up here for your free weekly Guardian Public Leaders newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Thursday. Follow us on Twitter via @Guardianpublic |