UCU submitted our gender pay claim in August 2018. For background information see leedsucu.org.uk/genderpaygap

In the gender pay claim we asked the university senior management to share with us the detailed information behind the headline figures, to provide us with more detailed information – some of which already exists – including intersectional data on ethnicity, age group and disability, so we can work with them to show where the problems are and make effective plans to end the gender pay gap.

We asked the university to produce this information within 4 months.

The university met with UCU negotiating team on 20 February 2019. They have not provided us with the detailed information we asked for in advance or at the meeting, and instead talked us through the actions they have taken to reduce the gender pay gap from 22.5% to 20.1%. (Which includes recruiting more men into relatively lower paid roles, which improves the mean average, which would not have been our priority!)

The university has proposed to meet us again for further talks in two months.

We welcome any progress so far but have impressed upon university management that we want to end the gender pay gap and they will need to share information with us and work with us to find effective solutions to end it. We look forward to doing that work in a collaborative and open way with them.