Time for a verdict on the pay dispute

What a difference a week makes. The 13.1% pay offer over three years that was rejected last week by the two lecturers' unions, Natfhe and the Association of University Teachers,

has now been judged the "best that can be achieved within the current national negotiating environment".

Now the members of the merged University and College Union will get their say in a national ballot - as they catch up with a lot of marking.

Will they view the glass as half full? Months of tough negotiating by the AUT's Sally Hunt and Roger Kline of Natfhe have more than doubled the original offer from the Universities and Colleges Employers Association and on most calculations won at least the "promised" third of the new money going into the sector from student tuition fees and the government?

Or will they see yesterday's local offer of nearly 16% from the University of Ulster, as a sign that there was more to be squeezed out of the vice-chancellors?

Probably that phrase "national negotiating environment" is the key to the ULU's decision to put it to the ballot.

Some universities probably can afford more - but many can't and would have to pay for a further academic pay rise by cutting jobs (a threat which worried the support unions). Glasgow Caledonian last week announced potential redundancies to pay for the 13.1% deal.

The institutions least likely to be able afford more are the new universities in the Natfhe constituency and former Natfhe leaders are fiercely determined to keep national bargaining because in local deals they would fall behind.

They have the dismal record of further education colleges where national deals have been ignored to stiffen their resolve.

But there is still a lot of local wheeling and dealing to be done as the complex national framework agreement is worked out in each institution. And what happens to local deals like Ulster's. This morning both the union and the university were pondering that one.