University employers today said they were "deeply disappointed" with the Association of University Teachers' decision to ballot for strike action after yesterday's pay talks collapsed.
But they refused to be drawn on how the last-ditch talks fell apart after accusations from the AUT that the Universities and Colleges Employers Association had abruptly withdrawn an offer to renegotiate. UCEA had, the AUT claimed, "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory".
Today UCEA would say only that the talks had concluded with the agreement of new job evaluation guidance with all unions except the AUT.
In a statement Geoffrey Copland, the chair of the UCEA board and vice-chancellor of the University of Westminster, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the AUT has declared a dispute. The framework is the result of two years of negotiations and we remain convinced it is the best opportunity for possible change in pay arrangements for decades."
Jocelyn Prudence, the chief executive of the UCEA, said: "We acknowledge that the change is challenging and we are delighted that all other unions have either signed up to working in partnership to take forward this change. We are working to achieve acceptance, hopefully by February 2004."
Should the AUT refuse to sign up to a deal, the pre-1992 universities with a majority of AUT members could remain out of the national framework.
The AUT is refusing to sign up to a new university pay structure. It says many academic-related members of staff - such as librarians, administrators and computing staff - as well as some researchers and lecturers stand to lose thousands of pounds in wages as a result.
UCEA is backing its deal which offers modest rises and the modernisation of the pay scale along the lines of the chancellor Gordon Brown's "something for something" public expenditure policy.
The strike ballot of the AUT's 47,000 members will take place between January 13 and February 11 in the new year. Action would involve an initial walk-out of universities in the new year followed boycotts of assessment activity, call-out cover, job evaluation exercises and the staff appraisal schemes that are essential to the remodelling of the academic contract.
