Anger intensifies as Thrift receives five percent pay rise

The vice-chancellor of Warwick University, Nigel Thrift, has benefited from a pay increase of five percent, taking his six-figure salary to £332,000.

The £16,000 increase on his salary for last year, £316,000, comes in the wake of widespread protests among Warwick lecturers and university staff concerning their own pay levels in November last year.

Staff were incensed by a pay offer of one percent, with annual pay falling 13 percent behind living costs since 2008 after a series of below-inflation pay rises.

Spokesman for Warwick University, Peter Dunn, defended Professor Thrift’s pay rise, and said: “Warwick is in the top ten in most university league tables but professor Thrift’s pay is only in the top thirty.”

Mr Dunn went on to note that the vice-chancellor had his pay frozen in 2009 and 2010.

Second-year History student Harry Haslam agreed with Mr Dunn, commenting: “If you look at the salaries of vice-chancellors from top universities around the country, Mr Thrift’s freezing of his salary followed by raising it seems far less outrageous than it may at first appear. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is a good thing.

“However, considering that in 50 years Warwick has gone from nothing to a world leader, it’s hardly surprising the vice-chancellor has a high salary, given universities are being run more and more like a business.”

Second-year English Literature and Creative Writing undergraduate Andreas Avraam disagreed: “It’s a disgrace that Mr Thrift is receiving a pay increase while the University’s position in league tables is declining, and students are paying more and more for their education.”

Warwick University  Students’ Union have also condemned the pay rise: “We believe it is both wrong and completely insensitive at this time for the vice-chancellor to have been given a rise to what is already a very substantial salary.”

Haydn Morris, chairman of the Unite national education committee said: “On the day that the cost of living crisis has again been highlighted by the leap in rail fares, the university bosses are lining their own substantial pockets, while those staff that keep Britain in the top ten world university league table struggle to make ends meet.

“The ‘them and us’ situation is made worse as the cumulative operating surplus in the higher education sector is now over £1 billion.

“Cash rich universities could well afford to be more generous than the one per cent offer currently on the table.”