Hundreds of thousands of teachers strike: An excellent start to shaping the post-Brexit world

Front of NUT demo (1 of 1)

What a magnificent response to the Tory government’s attack on education!

Yesterday’s NUT strike, involving hundreds of thousands of teachers, was an inspirational day of action. UCU members in thirty-three universities, nearly a quarter of all universities, helped make this day an even more important one by taking strike action alongside the teachers.

The reports are still coming in. 10,000 marched in London, 3,000 in Bristol, 750 in Manchester and Birmingham, over 1500 in Brighton, up to 500 in Lancaster, 300 in Cambridge, and there were other big marches and rallies elsewhere. The NUT has also reported that since the strike action was announced the union has recruited over 6,000 new members.

I attended the London demonstration. The demonstrators were young, angry, diverse and determined. There were many funny moments, too. As one of the capital’s many homeless men walked past the demo, slightly worse off after a few drinks, he shouted at the demo, ‘Hey teacher’. Hundreds of teachers on my part of the demo all turned at the same time and spontaneously responded by singing, ‘leave those kids alone’!

On another part of the demo the Iceland football supporters’ chant, the slow build-up of ‘hoo’, was given a go too. It had even more of a threatening tone to it when chanted on a demo against cuts.

A symbolic moment for me came when a man driving a white van, with cropped hair and a flag of St George displayed in the back of his cabin leant out of his window and cheered and beeped his horn in support of the striking teachers as he slowly drove past the demo.

When the thousands of teachers marched into Parliament Square they listened and applauded the speeches enthusiastically. The biggest rounds of applause came at three moments. The first was when a junior doctor announced the result from their ballot – a 2:1 rejection of the government’s offer. The second was when Kevin Courtney, acting NUT General Secretary, argued that it was not immigrant children who were to blame for rising class sizes but government cuts in funding. The third was when John McDonnell announced that Jeremy Corbyn would not be resigning.

A significant strike

The teachers’ strike was over workload and funding, but is part of a dispute sited in the wider defence of education. Coming only a week and half after the Brexit vote the strike took on even more significance . The battle we have all been in since the vote was announced has been to try and ensure that our world is united and not divided by racial hatred, as well as to prepare the working class movement to fight further attacks on our services and communities.

It is very strange indeed to live in a society where all the main political parties are leaderless. The Tories are in a vicious leadership contest. Jeremy Corbyn is under immense pressure from Labour MPs to resign, the Greens are holding their own leadership contest and Farage has resigned as the leader of UKIP. Only the Liberal Democratic Party are not having a contest – but who cares….

What yesterday’s teachers’ strike showed is that there is not a crisis within the movement – we are united. The crisis is at the top of society, where there is a profound crisis of leadership.

It is in these moments in history, when the official leadership of a country is in disarray, that new spaces for real bottom-up forms of democracy, rooted in our workplaces and communities, can begin to develop.

This is why it is important that we do all we can to ensure that Jeremy Corbyn is not defeated in his battle to remain the leader of the Labour Party. His leadership symbolises for millions of working people the desire to take back control of their lives.

Next steps

We need to build a movement to defend education from the cradle to the grave.

NUT and UCU united (1 of 1)

Yesterday was an excellent start to building this movement.

NUT General Secretary Kevin Courtney made it clear to his members that more action will be necessary if they are to be successful.

Mark Campbell, Chair of London Metropolitan University UCU, got an enthusiastic response for calling for more coordinated action in the Autumn term. There is now a real possibility of coordinated strike action between junior doctors, teachers and university lecturers.

Yesterday the NUS and UCU called a national demonstration for Saturday 12th November. We need to make sure that hundreds of thousands turn out for this.

The first step to building for the action in the Autumn will be the People’s Assembly and Stand up to Racism national march in London on Saturday 16th July. The theme for this demo is ‘No to austerity – No to racism’.

There have been arguments, understandably, both within our own union, and within the NUT, about whether it was wise to take strike action when the country is in a political and economic crisis.

Yesterday’s strike was a clear illustration of why it was precisely the right thing to do. It demonstrated that there is a deep desire for unity within the working class and organised labour movement. It was an important first step to shaping the post-Brexit world in favour of working people.

To continue what the teachers have begun will take great determination and effort. But when did that ever stop us?

Game on.

 

Sean Vernell, UCU NEC

After working people vote to leave the EU let’s shape the future

Adult ed lobby - Liz L-1040412

There are moments in political life when those who rule society are exposed. These moments reveal how removed and disconnected they are from the mass of people who they seek to rule over. The outcome of the European Union (EU) referendum is one of them.

Fifty-two percent of the population voted to leave the EU. This is despite the vast majority of the employers, MPs and mainstream political parties campaigning to remain in the EU. Those who voted to remain are understandably fearful of the future as they see Farage being paraded around TV studios gloating over the result.

Cameron said that he would call the referendum in the run up to last year’s General Election as an attempt to keep his right flank in the Tory party on board. Probably not the wisest tactical move ever made! By calling the referendum not only has he opened up the old wounds within the Tory party to such an extent it is difficult to see, in the short to medium term, how they can be healed but also he has opened the door to the possible destruction of the European Union.

What the referendum campaign has also done is politicised society. 72% of the population, around 35 million people, voted. The establishment, who bemoan the fact that working class people do not bother to turn out to vote in general elections, are now castigating the working class for using the referendum to show their rage at an establishment that has wrecked their lives.

Corbyn, the Labour Party and working class resistance

It is a disgrace that the first thing that some Labour MPs have done after such a momentous event has been to turn their fire, not on the Tories, but on Jeremy Corbyn. The idea that Margaret Hodge, Yvette Cooper, Hillary Benn or any of the Blairites would be more able to reconnect the LP to its working class base is laughable.

Inside or outside the Labour Party we must do all we can to defend Corbyn from any attempt to oust him from the leadership of the Labour Party. The petition launched by twelve General Secretaries in support of Corbyn is one we should ensure is sent round to all our members. Corbyn must continue to throw his weight behind building the movements against austerity and he must call for a general election now.

Elsewhere I have argued that it was a serious mistake that Corbyn decided to join the Remain campaign. Some of us warned Corbyn that by failing to provide an independent left case for exit the working class in Labour’s heartlands would be left to the racist populism of Farage to give voice to their concerns. If Corbyn and McDonnell had spearheaded a left exit campaign, speaking at rallies up and down the country, tens of thousands would have joined, and we would be further down the road to providing a real alternative to the racist little Englanders.

A working class revolt

Let us not mistake the nature of what took place on Friday 24th June 2016; it was a revolt by the working class against an elite they perceive to be responsible for the destruction of their communities.

But like any political revolt that leads to a political crisis, it is never pure. It is not the case that one set of people line up on one side under the banner of ‘anti–corporate, anti-racism and for equality’ whilst the other side line up under the banner of ‘reaction’.

People entering into social movements against the system for the first time carry with them contradictory ideas; anti-corporate and anti-immigrant. As a leading Russian Revolutionary once warned, ‘Whoever expects a “pure” social revolution will never live to see it.’

Those of us who aim to build movements to defend our communities from the wrecking ball policies of government need to understand that people will hold contradictory ideas and that these contradictions have the potential to be overcome when working people continue to play an active part in shaping their destinies.

As financial markets collapse and there is panic and despair amongst the ruling elite sparked by the revolt of working people we must resist the lure of being pulled into this despair. We rightly, year after year, denounce a system that creates poverty and inequality. When it starts to fall to pieces, because ordinary people flex their muscles, it is not down to us to run to its aid to keep it alive so that we can continue to reform it.

Our task is to build a bigger and stronger movement that can provide an alternative to their divisive and destructive system of inequality and despair.

Was racism the reason why people voted to leave?

Already one of the central explanations that has been offered as to why working class people voted to leave the EU is because of their deep seated racism. The official Leave campaign led by Gove, Johnson and Farage, as well as the Remain campaign, used anti-immigrant racism to win people to their cause. But the majority of working class people who voted to leave are not racists.

The three towns outside of London where the “White British” population is a minority produced large Leave votes.

In Luton 45 percent of the population is “White British”—it voted Leave by 56.5 percent on a 66.2 percent turnout. In Slough 34.52 percent of the population is “White British”—people there also voted Leave by 54 percent on a 62.1 percent turnout. Similarly, in Leicester 45 percent of population are “White British”, and 48.9 percent voted for Leave on a 65 percent turnout.

Although people in London backed Remain more strongly, leave still had strong support among working class people in the capital.

For example, in Newham 47 percent of people voted Leave. The east London borough is one of the poorest and most multicultural boroughs in London, with only 17 percent of the population being “White British”.

The point here is not to ignore or deny the impact the official Remain and Leave campaigns of racism had on turning some people’s fears against immigrants, particularly Leave supporters. But to show that an explanation that starts from all those who voted to leave are racist bigots does not grasp the contradictory nature of the vote and the anti-austerity rage that lay at is heart.

 

Make our 5th July a day to remember

However we voted we now need to unite (see UCU NEC statement below) to continue to build a movement that offers hope. The first opportunity we have to do this is on the 5th July when hundreds of thousands of teachers will be taking strike action in defence of working class education. This strike takes on even more significance. It will be the first opportunity to demonstrate the unity and strength of the anti-austerity movement in the aftermath of the EU referendum vote.

UCU members in around twenty universities will also be taking strike action on that day. We need to drill this strike down into every community inviting parents and their families to join us on the rallies and demonstrations. At every rally a migrant worker should be invited to speak. Those in work who cannot make the lunchtime protest should organise their own one at work to demonstrate their solidarity with the defence of working class education.

Their system is in disarray. Neither side of the debate have answers to the poverty and pain that working people are suffering except to heap more pain and misery onto our communities. The best response to protect our futures is to do all we can to make sure that 5th July is a mass demonstration of working class unity that has at it’s core equality for all.

 

Sean Vernell UCU NEC ( PC)

 

 

 

 

UCU NEC statement:

 

The vote to leave the EU has created a political earthquake

The referendum was marred by disgraceful racism and scaremongering over immigration by figures on both sides of the official campaigns and of course by the tragic death of Jo Cox MP.
However millions of people have voted to leave the EU as a direct result of years of austerity and economic decline.

The UCU rejects any attempt to use the ‘Leave’ vote to impose further austerity measures. Post 16 education is already under attack, we will fight any attempt at further cuts as a result of the referendum.

We will determinedly oppose any attempt by politicians to use the vote to restrict the rights of migrant workers and refugees and reaffirm our Congress commitment to supporting EU students and staff in UK institutions.

On 5 July teachers will be striking against attacks on education and will be joined by our members in HE who have elected to strike on that day. We will mobilise as a union to back their strikes and protests on the day.

We support the mobilisation called by the People’s Assembly against austerity at the Tory Party conference on 2 October.

 

Below is a joint press statement from the leaders of the biggest trade unions in the UK backing Jeremy Corbyn. There is also a petition of confidence in him that already gained over 133,000 signatures within 24 hours of its launch.

 

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A statement from union leaders backing Jeremy Corbyn to continue as Labour leader.

The Prime Minister’s resignation has triggered a Tory leadership crisis. At the very time we need politicians to come together for the common good, the Tory party is plunging into a period of argument and infighting. In the absence of a government that puts the people first Labour must unite as a source of national stability and unity.

It should focus on speaking up for jobs and workers’ rights under threat, and on challenging any attempt to use the referendum result to introduce a more right-wing Tory government by the backdoor.

The last thing Labour needs is a manufactured leadership row of its own in the midst of this crisis and we call upon all Labour MPs not to engage in any such indulgence.

 

Len McCluskey, General Secretary, Unite the Union

Dave Prentis, General Secretary, UNISON

Tim Roache, General Secretary, GMB

Dave Ward, General Secretary, CWU

Brian Rye, Acting General Secretary, UCATT

Manuel Cortes, General Secretary, TSSA

Mick Whelan, General Secretary, ASLEF

Matt Wrack, General Secretary, FBU

John Smith, General Secretary, Musicians’ Union

Gerry Morrissey, General Secretary, BECTU

Ronnie Draper, General Secretary, BFAWU

Chris Kitchen, General Secretary, NUM

 

 

STAND STRONG TOGETHER DEFEND COMMUNITY EDUCATION FOR ALL!

https://uculondonmet.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/solidarity-to-londonmet/

#savelondonmet #saveourreps

Yesterday our branch chair Mark Campbell and secretary David Hardman were made redundant in what is an outrageous attack on their strenuous and tireless trade union activties defending jobs and education at London Met.

More information about the campaign will be posted soon. For the moment, please support us by taking a photo with this poster share it on social media and please send a copy to us uculondonmet@mail.com or post it on our FB page

Here is a message from Mark, 30 April 2016

When they knock you down – get back up and hit them harder

Dear comrades and friends,

On behalf of David Hardman and myself, many thanks for the very many messages we have already received from so many of you following yesterday’s notification (in my case by email as I’m currently off sick after a serious back injury) of our compulsory redundancy from London Met.

We, and our union branch, recognise this for exactly what it is. An attempt to victimise active trade unionists and intimidate other staff into silent acquiescence for whatever educational destructive measure management wish to pursue.

Well, neither David nor I have any intention of being cowed and intimidated by those that know the price of everything and the value of nothing. We have a duty to fight to defend our members and the interests of our students and will continue to do so with vigour and as loudly as we possibly can.

However, this fight is not just about us, we are but two of a number of excellent educators who are being targeted as being surplus to requirements, whether permanent or our essential HPL comrades who are battling against the appalling zero-hour contract at London Met and further reductions in their hours. Our fight is therefore for all those targeted with redundancy – both open and in shadows, not just ourselves.

Also, what is quickly becoming evident is almost all those selected for dismissal are committed UCU members and educators that have on many occasions had the courage and principles to stand up and be counted. Those members, and ourselves, are now what our current VC, John Raftery, describe as the ‘actively disengaged’ who need to be ‘managed out’ of the university. He also had previously had the gall to suggest this will be to improve and support the student experience! Yes, we are disengaged – but not from our students. We are disengaged from a management that puts its own wellbeing above the interests of our students and the working class communities we are proud to serve.

We will shortly be launching a significant campaign to defend the right to speak out, to support union organisation, and defend staff jobs, terms and conditions – the real root to improving the student experience. We are also very happy to suggest to senior management some very specific cost savings that won’t in the slightest damage the student experience – but then again, turkeys seldom vote for xmas!

In the meantime, we would be grateful if you could visit our blog at the following web address, download the A4 poster, take a photo with it in solidarity, and post it on social media (emailing us a copy).

In solidarity

Mark…

Mark Campbell, London Met UCU (Chair)

Industrial action ballot on pay begins on 14 April… Vote for strike action and action short of a strike

 

UCU Left HE Pay Leaflet


It is time to get organised to win the industrial action ballot:

  • This postal ballot opens on 14 April and runs until 4 May.
  • Members will be asked whether they are prepared to take strike action and action short of a strike.
  • We need to convince members to vote – we want a good turnout
  • We need to explain to members that they need to vote YES to both questions.

 

Why we need to fight

As we begin our ballot, the Government is weak, split and under attack from all sides.

David Cameron is floundering under allegations about his family’s tax avoidance schemes, Iain Duncan-Smith has resigned and the government has totally failed to respond to the steel crisis.

They face an industrial challenge from junior doctors over new contracts, and from our sister union, the NUT, over forced academies.

Our employers use the Government ‘austerity’ pay freeze to justify holding down our pay. Division at the top increases our chances of success. Opposition from below offers us opportunity for joint action.

Compared to what our salaries were worth in 2009, our pay has fallen by 14.5% in real terms. If we do not take action it will continue to decline.

From April, all members of USS will pay more and get a ‘career average revalued earnings’ (CARE) scheme. Members of the old Final Salary scheme will pay an additional 0.5% of pre-tax salary in contributions. Members of the old CARE scheme pay an additional 1.5%. TPS members were hit by big increases a year ago. Also from April, our National Insurance payments (NICs) increased – from 10.6% from 12%.

At the same time the value of our pensions (which is ‘deferred pay’), has been reduced. The only way we can make up the difference is if our salary increases. We need a pay increase or 2-3% (or, for some TPS members, a lot more) just to stand still!

The employers have offered us a grand total of 1% – a pay cut of between 1% and 4% depending on personal circumstances – before taking into account inflation, which will devalue it even further. Housing and travel costs are still going up, even if headline inflation is low.

The employers can afford to pay more. The Guardian recently exposed the fact that the HE employers are sitting on a £1.8bn surplus as a result of tuition fees. Indeed, whereas much of the public sector is being starved of cash by a Tory Austerity Government, Universities are not poor. Instead they are siphoning funds into speculative capital projects and increasing their reserves with annual surpluses.

staff-costs-hesa-graph

The pay squeeze

We face a group of intransigent employers who see systematically reducing expenditure on salaries (i.e., paying staff less) as a key strategic aim.

In the 1970s, around 70% of Universities’ total expenditure was spent on pay. Now the UK average is a shocking 55%.

These figures represent the total expenditure on staff costs – salaries, pensions, tax, etc.

Since 2008 the employers have complained that staff costs are going up. They even say that staff are not losing out from pay cuts because of pay progression (this is of course nonsense if you think about it).

This is untrue. The trend is downward, as the graph shows. Employers are spending less and less on their staff every year. (Indeed, privately, they even boast about this in their accounts.)

Far from staff becoming an expensive burden, the opposite is true. More and more of Universities’ expenditure is going in other directions – new buildings, new campuses, contractors paid out of capital budgets, and other dodgy practices.

Students are paying more for their education than ever before. But that money is not going to pay staff.

The pay claim

The joint trade union claim figure is for a modest 5%. A 5% increase would offset our losses from pension contributions and arrest the long-term decline in the value of our pay.

The employers have offered us a mere 1%. However, the fact that they started with 1% rather than a lower offer as in previous years shows that they are worried about us taking action. Indeed, institutions are internally budgeting for 2%, as anyone who has submitted a research grant recently would tell you.

What else are we fighting for?

The pay claim includes specific measures to tackle low pay, the gender pay gap and casualisation, as well as proposing a nationally-agreed minimum rate for external examiners.

Our demands are living wage and minimum rates of pay for all roles, including academic ones, action to close the gender pay gap by 2020, and nationally agreed action to reduce the proportion of staff on casual and zero-hours contracts (and to ensure that these staff are paid the same rates as permanent staff).

The pay of UCU members in HE varies greatly. Some members, particularly those on casualised contracts of different types, are extremely low paid. There are still significant gender and race pay gaps, some of which are tied to casualisation (i.e. that women tend to get more insecure jobs).

Do all staff need a pay rise?

Some colleagues may think they are personally well-paid. What do we say to them?

Some staff, particularly older staff, are on higher salaries. However, if you are significantly better paid than more junior staff then sooner or later the University will come looking to make you redundant! The graph above is the result of years of holding down pay and downgrading the profession. Thus many professors at University College London are finding themselves targeted for so-called ‘voluntary’ severance. If they leave, they are replaced with junior lecturers and teaching fellows on a third to half their salary. The bigger the gap, the bigger the incentive for management to pressure senior staff into retiring early.

In particularly impoverished areas of Britain, having a university job is relatively well-paid compared to other jobs available locally. But exactly the same squeeze is taking place in those institutions as elsewhere. It does not benefit the low paid in the region for university staff to accept a pay cut! The employers just pocket the difference. Lower paid staff in a local University means less money circulating in the local economy.

More generally, as the graph shows, if we don’t fight over pay, the employers get away with paying less overall, and take our ‘generosity’ for granted. The rate for the job falls and all staff lose out. If we do fight, we can raise everyone’s salaries, including the lowest paid.

A fight for the future

There is widespread resistance to the Tory Government’s ‘Austerity’ programme. Public pressure and campaigning by groups like Disabled People Against Cuts prevented the cuts to disability benefits. FE lecturers in Scotland won a significant victory after only a few days of industrial action.

There is huge support for the junior doctors. We need to relate to this growing sense of anger at the injustice of pay cuts and austerity. The junior doctors’ and teachers’ disputes in England, and the FE lecturers’ victory in Scotland, shows that there is support for a well-funded public sector.

We have an opportunity to join with doctors and teachers for a broad campaign in defence of pay and the public sector. Our case for a pay increase in HE is obvioiusly connected to the wider question of who should pay for austerity – tax dodging corporations, politicians and bankers – or the majority of the population compelled to work for a living.

We are the custodians for Higher Education for future generations. Fighting over pay means defending realistic job prospects for the next generation, one already burdened with student debt. Many of our students are our future colleagues. If we stand up and fight over pay we will be a force to be reckoned with over the Tories’ Green Paper and their forthcoming White Paper and HE Bill.

What you can do

We are fighting on pay, casualisation and equality. We are also fighting to defend and improve Higher Education in the interests of everyone in society. We need to make this argument publicly and confidently.

We can fight and win. To do so we need to organise. The first step is to Get the Vote Out.

  • Organise a meeting aimed at reps and activists. Advertise it across the membership on a broad basis, e.g. ‘Pay – what is at stake and why we need to fight’. Have a plan for all members who turn up. Each member can be asked to contact a small number of colleagues and put to them the arguments for voting for strike action and action short of a strike.
  • Organise a branch meeting, and invite speakers from the other unions and student union activists. Contact UCU HQ for a speaker.
  • Plaster the campus with posters publicising the ballot and get leaflets to all members.
  • Ensure that all members are contacted personally to encourage them to vote, and follow up by phone and emails.
  • Organise stalls and use the opportunity to recruit more members. Even if they will not be able to vote in the ballot they will be able to take part in the action.
  • Have meetings with students and ask them to pass a motion of support and solidarity.

Don’t get young in Third Millennium – Capitalism and the demonising of the young working class

Sean Vernell seven years ago wrote, Don’t get young in third millennium  – Capitalism and the demonising of the young working class, a pamphlet that explored the conditions of young peoples lives in Britain today.

Recent surveys reveal that the plight of the young working class is even worse in 2016 . UCU left has launched a timely e-version of the pamphlet: Don’t get young in the Third Millenium!

don't get young cover

Below Sean Vernell writes an afterword to the pamphlet.

 

 

Candi students 2-1010840

Afterword

The young working class is paying the price for austerity…

In the summer of 2009 I wrote a pamphlet called Don’t get young in the Third Millennium! -Capitalism and the demonising of the young working class as an attempt to challenge the pervading orthodoxies about young people. I did so because I was sick and tired of the continual tabloid attacks on young people as “feral” and “criminal”. I also believed that young people would be at the forefront of shaping their own and therefore the rest of society’s destiny.

The pamphlet provided evidence of the appalling conditions of the young working class. Seven years on a spate of reports reveal that these conditions have got worse.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission reported that those under 34 had suffered the biggest drop in income and employment since the coalition government took office in 2010. Young people under 34 have found their pay hit hardest and that they were the group that found it most difficult to find decent housing, employment and were more likely to experience poverty.

With the scrapping of the Educational Maintenance Allowance and the raising of university fees the young working class are more in debt than ever before.

A Guardian investigation into the impact of the global economic crisis on millennials  stated that;

‘It is likely to be the first time in industrialised history, save periods of war or natural disaster, that the incomes of young adults have fallen so far when compared to the rest of society.’

In 2015 the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Research found that 83,000 young people had been accommodated by local authorities and homeless services in 2014. A shocking 8% of 16-24 year olds said that they had experienced homelessness and in London homelessness had risen by 40%. This is before government plans to scrap housing benefit for the 18-21 year olds has been implemented. All housing charities expect this vicious attack on young people’s ability to claim housing benefits will lead to a further significant deterioration of housing conditions.

There has also been a significant deterioration of young people’s mental health. 150,000 young people attended accident and emergency departments last year. It is estimated that one in 12 young people are thought to have injured themselves…

… and sill get blamed for all the ills of society

The government and the right wing media continue to attack young people. They raise all the old clichés about the “criminal classes”, “parental discipline”, “greed” and “lack of “British values”. Michael Gove, when he was education minister, asked the question,

“Why has a culture of greed and instant gratification, rootless hedonism and amoral violence taken hold in parts of society?”

The breathtaking hypocrisy and stupidity of such a question beggars belief. Young people are shaped, as we all are, by the world in which we live; greedy bankers who wreck economies and then get wealthier, politicians on the take who don’t get arrested, police officers who beat and murder but rarely, if ever, get brought to justice. We live in a society where we are told that being rich and famous is the path to happiness and fulfillment. The survival of the fittest, get rich quick, dog eat dog morals that are drummed into our young, day in day out, are the ones that we are supposed to live by. They see the wealthy flaunt their riches ensuring their own children are secure and happy, whilst knowing that they will never have this for themselves or their families, no matter how long they work or how hard they study.

Surveillance of young people through government initiatives like the Prevent duty represent a significant attack. This attempt to divide our communities through Islamophopia and racism marks a new turn in the government’s attempts to control and marginalise the young working class.

The problem is not intergenerational – it’s capitalism

The cause of the plight of young people is too often explained as an intergenerational one. The greed and selfishness of the baby boomers of the 1950s we are told are to blame for the immiseration of the young today. The root of the problems that young people face, however, are not because one generation cleaned out the cupboard before anyone else could get there! The problem is a system that cannot deliver a better life for all those that live in it, a system that puts the pursuit of profit and individual greed above the rational planning and collective creativity of the young and old.

We continue to hear complaints about how the young are too apathetic. This is a superficial and impressionistic understanding of what informs the thinking of young people today. They are shaped by the experience of the growing inequality and the unjust nature of the political system that they have grown up in. Yes, they are alienated by plastic politicians who have dominated political life for so long. But they are very enthusiastic, inspired and energised by Bernie Saunders and Jeremy Corbyn, political leaders who put forward an alternative to the pro-austerity policies of the establishment politicians.

From the campaign for £10 per hour for fast food workers and the junior doctors to the mass mobilisations against austerity, racism and climate change the young working class are at the heart of the resistance to create a more equal and just society.

The Governments’ attempts to vilify and demonise the young working class reflect their fear of them. They are right to be fearful. It is their energy, dynamism and sense of injustice that will be able to unleash the forces that can bring about a new society that does not waste the potential collective capacity of all.

 

 

 

 

 

Apprenticeships, private providers and the Tories; they’re at it again!

Students-1010767

It would be naïve to think the government are pursuing an ambitious policy of creating three million apprenticeships by 2020 out of genuine concern for our young people’s futures. It may be more realistic to believe that they are doing so because of the needs of the economy.

However in an article in last week’s Private Eye (4.2.16) it was revealed that even this wholly inadequate employment policy is too generous a reason to understand the Tories’ motivation. The article revealed that one of the biggest providers Paragon has ‘historic links’ to the Tory party. This organisation runs apprenticeships for over 4,000 adults and young people and has been allocated more than £17m from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA).

The company is owned by a private equity firm called Sovereign Capital. This firm was founded in 1988 by Lord Nash. He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools in January 2013. He and his wife are regular donors to the Tory Party.

Although Nash cut his links with the firm on becoming a minister it seems ‘the old boy’ network that ensures that public money gets into the pockets of their close friend is alive and well.

It certainly doesn’t seem to be value for money according to Ofsted who have just inspected the organisation and awarded Paragon, one of the lowest grades that ‘requires improvement’. Ofsted concluded its report by saying that ‘too few learners have completed the qualifications because many learners have left their course’ and that few who had finished had found jobs.

Nothing new

The Tories have a history of awarding FE contracts to dodgy private firms. There have been three main stages of introducing private providers into FE. The first was in 1983 when the Thatcher government introduced YTS and private training schemes which quickly disappeared without trace.

The second phase was called ‘franchising’ after Incorporation in 1993, when government severed the links between colleges and local councils. This episode brought with it a series of high profile scandals involving several colleges. This was uncovered by NATFHE, led by Paul Mackney, who at the time was the West Midlands regional official.

Franchising meant allowing student numbers to expand through using private providers. For example, Bourneville College were caught out creating ‘phantom registers’. Out of their 4,500 franchised students 4,000 did not exist. In Handsworth College, in the West Midlands, a street near the college became known as the ‘Street of 1,000 registers’ because there were so many fake registers with false addresses. Paul Mackney describes how he used to go down the street looking for house numbers that either did not exist or were lock ups!

The College split the money raised between themselves and the franchisee.

The extent of this corruption was exposed when the Principal of Stoke on Trent College, whilst on leave facing disciplinary issues, was found to be running a pub in Mid Wales!

The third phase was ‘individual learning accounts’ introduced by the Labour government again leading to many dubious and fraudulent practises.

All these schemes have come and gone. All have left the sector’s reputation in tatters but more importantly all have spectacularly failed to resolve one of the enduring problems that has haunted British society for the last 35 years – the institutionalisation of youth unemployment.

It is clear we cannot rely on this government to resolve this issue. This is why we have organised the Defending Further and Adult Education; Shaping the future conference on the 5th March so that students, practitioners and educationalists can come together to work out a real alternative to the privatising agenda of the Tories and their corporate friends.

Register today click here https://www.eventbrite.com/e/defending-further-and-adult-education-shaping-the-future-tickets-20057125402

Sean Vernell, UCU City and Islington College Coordinating Secretary and National Negotiator

FE unites: UNISON and UCU to strike in defence of pay and education

Adult ed lobby - Liz L-1040412

UNISON members in FE have voted by a margin of 2:1 to strike against the imposition of the employers 0 percent pay ‘offer’. UCU have a live ballot and will be joining UNSION for the first time in ten years in a joint national strike across all English colleges on Wednesday February 24th to demand £1 per hour extra for all.

UNISON and UCU members who have seen their pay cut in real terms by 15 percent over the last five years are furious with the employers’ insulting offer. With thousands of job losses over the last few years staff who are left working in the sector are faced with spiralling workloads making their job nearly impossible to carry out effectively. But not everything in the sector is being cut. It is a common joke within the sector that only one thing in FE rises year on year – principals’ pay! Many earn five times that of main grade lecturer and seven times that of support staff.

A reflection of how angry people are about their pay is the fact that in just one day eleven thousand people clicked on to UCU’s new ‘Rate for the Job’ on line tool.

The strike will take place in the context of the biggest government offensive against Further and Adult Education since Incorporation in 1993. Adult Education has been hit with a 40 percent cut resulting in thousands of job losses last year and four hundred thousand student places disappearing. That is on top of the one million student places that have been lost since 2010.

Alongside these cuts the government have launched their Post 16 area reviews for ‘fewer but more resilient colleges’ – a rationalisation programme that some are predicting could see the sector shrink from three hundred colleges to one hundred.

At a time when there are eight hundred thousand 16-24 year olds without work, education or training and 15 percent of 16-65 year olds who have no qualifications whatsoever this is a national scandal.

The NUT are also set to ballot their members working in Sixth Form Centres against the government’s plans to shrink the sector. The next stage in our campaign to defend working class education must be to organise a programme of coordinated strike action uniting all three unions.

Campaigning works

Recently we have managed to get more sympathetic media coverage than ever before.

The last year has seen significant mobilisations against these attacks. There have been three parliamentary lobbies involving hundreds of students and staff, a fifteen hundred strong march on city hall as well as numerous days of action and Downing Street protests. One of the successes of the campaign so far has been to ensure more people know about what FE does. For example the fact that over three and half million people attend FE and the sector teaches more 16-18 year olds than any other sector, enrolling on a wide range of vocational and academic courses.

It is widely accepted that the government’s spending review did not cut the sector’s budget quite as deeply as everyone feared because of this campaign.

On the 5th March there is a major conference, Defend Further and Adult Education; shaping the future. This conference will bring together hundreds of practitioners, educationalists and students from across the country to discuss how we can develop an alternative to the government’s narrow educational agenda and to continue to build a movement to defend second chance education. Register now by clicking here  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/defending-further-and-adult-education-shaping-the-future-tickets-20057125402

Locating our fight to defend working class education in the battle against austerity.

Our fight to defend the sector takes place whilst millions of people are suffering the same attacks as we are. As more economic turmoil looks set to hit the global financial markets governments and employers once again are trying to blame immigrants and working people for their incompetence and greed. The introduction by the Tories of a new (anti) Trade Union Bill is their attempt to make it even more difficult for people to mobilise against their attacks on our services. This is why we should see our campaign as part of that wider battle against austerity.

Governments across Europe have increased their racist rhetoric in the past month chillingly reminiscent of the 1930s. Cameron’s threats to deport Muslin women if they refuse to learn English came in the same week as the press revealed that refugees were given wrist bands to identify them as migrants, were housed in homes with red doors and the Danish government passed a law that made it legal to confiscate refugees belongings to pay for their care.

We need to make sure that the fight against racism and for equality is at the heart of the resistance against austerity. UCU has called a day of action against racism in the workplace on 10th February and on the 19th March (as http://www.standuptoracism.org.uk/ ) part of the UN’s international week of action against racism have called a national demonstration.

One of the important changes that has taken place within the last six months has been the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. It is a breath of fresh air to see the leader of the Labour party supporting strikes, joining an anti-racist demonstration in Calais and making it clear that the next Labour government, if elected, would restore the EMA.

Adult ed lobby - Jeremy C-1040416

 

At the London UCU rally on our last strike day John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor, spoke in support of our strike and Gordon Marsden, shadow FE Minister, told the audience that he supported all the demands of UCU’s FE charter https://www.ucu.org.uk/fecharter

I would encourage all those who want to see Jeremy as Prime Minister in 2020 to support the Jeremy 4PM tour JC4PM Tour Facebook page taking place over the next couple of months. The tour is not only to build support for Corbyn’s campaign but also to build the demonstration called by the People’s Assembly on April 16th.

This is going to be an important mobilisation against austerity. It has been themed as a march for homes, health, jobs and education (national demonstration on Saturday 16 April.) On the day we need to ensure that UCU has its own contingent with the defence of Further and Adult Education at the centre of it.

It matters who leads our union

The NEC and Vice Presidential elections now taking place in UCU are not disconnected from the issues discussed above. There is a clear choice in the elections for these seats. There are those standing in this election who have been at the centre of organising resistance and action to defend FE/HE and those who have not. We have a choice between those who have been active in their branches, doing casework, leading campaigns and fighting redundancies and those who have not, and we have a choice between those who are building their regions through taking initiatives to ensure that the future of our students and members are secured and those who are not.

I know who I will be voting for (https://uculeft.org/2016/01/ucu-vice-president-and-nec-elections/)

 

Sean Vernell, UCU Coordinating Secretary City and Islington College and National negotiator.

 

What Rules the Campus: Academic Freedom or the Corporate Bottom Line?

We must debate and oppose the Green Paper

 

Download this article as a leaflet: UCULeft – green paper

The Conservative Government’s Green Paper, Fulfilling our Potential: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice, represents the Tory vision for Higher Education. It can be summed up in one word – privatisation.

It should not be a surprise that a Tory government is ideologically committed to privatisation. What is shocking is just how brazenly the Green Paper proposes a process to allow private companies to sell university degrees.
In the US, HE privatisation has been big business, worth billions of dollars. The ‘for-profit’ sector was hit by a series of scandals following an exposé by the PBS broadcaster in 2010. But it is still worth billions.
Many of the ideas in this Green Paper are a resurrection of elements from the HE White Paper that was abandoned in 2011. The Government has bided its time to allow the £9K tuition fee to ‘bed in’. Now it is proposing the next stage of privatisation.

The NHS: a model of privatisation
What has happened to the National Health Service is instructive for those of us in HE. During the period of the last government, there was a continual expansion in the number of private providers that set themselves up in competition with hospitals and PCTs, and which also made money from ‘the NHS market’ by tendering for profitable NHS services.
The picture is predictably complex, from the high-profile retreat of Circle Holdings from Hinchingbrooke Hospital NHS trust, to the less headline-grabbing cherry-picking of service contracts. The Kings’ Fund reports that private-sector mental health providers increased their income by 12% in just two years between 2010 and 2012, while mental health spending declined over the same period. The barriers to private companies making money from government-directed public-sector healthcare contracts have been dramatically reduced.

What does it mean for UK Higher Education to be ‘privatised’?
Until now, Higher Education has not been subject to the kind of serial market experimentation of the NHS. Universities have maintained an effective monopoly on government research and HE teaching funding. Universities are not parts of the State, but are various forms of not-for profit Chartered or Incorporated institutions. They are ‘private’ already. What is there to be concerned about?
There are well-established educational and social reasons for ensuring that research funding is allocated to publicly-accountable, if not publicly-owned, universities. Many scientists, in both the university and private sector, are well aware of the problem of commercial priorities taking precedence over scientific priorities. To take just one example, so-called ‘Big Pharma’ has a poor record in prioritising funding in science (spending twice their research investment in marketing) or sharing scientific breakthroughs with their potential competitors (actively blocking generic alternatives). The Green Paper does not remove the university monopoly on research funding, but it does undermine government protections for academic freedom in the name of ‘deregulation’. If private companies can become ‘universities’, then over time they will be permitted to bid for research funding.
Many of the same arguments apply to university teaching. What is at stake is the idea that a university undergraduate degree is intended to be a qualification that equips students to question received wisdom. It is not just that research should inform teaching. University students are critical learners. ‘Teaching to the test’ has had a hugely detrimental impact on secondary education. The Green Paper proposes, in however an occluded manner, to extend the same principle to higher education.

The Green Paper and the TEF
The Green Paper begins with a long section on the new proposed ‘Teaching Excellence Framework’ (TEF). The TEF first emerged as a proposal circulated by HEFCE in the summer of 2015. Without any debate or discussion with staff, many institutions’ Senior Management Teams are now treating the TEF as if it is ready to be implemented and ‘gamed’.
The Green Paper treats Higher Education teaching, not as a complex process with innumerable variations afforded by disciplinary requirements, but as a commodity which can be described in terms of a small number of dimensions (metrics), and the quality of which can be measured by each university’s ‘performance’. The Green Paper mentions ‘students’ and ‘teaching’ multiple times, but nothing in the Green Paper bears any relation to educational theory.
The key mechanism of the Green Paper is an external body (the Office for Students or ‘OfS’, a HE version of ‘Ofsted’) capable of running teaching assessment of all university degrees in order to create a set of market values which can be transposed into licences to raise tuition fees. Ofsted, as the model for this approach, spent many years at war with schools and educational professionals in the secondary sector. The metrics used were changed after intense opposition from the teachers’ unions and from parents.
Colleagues from the Campaign for the Public University have produced an excellent detailed analysis of the TEF, and we strongly recommend that colleagues circulate this document for debate. The question remains: what is the point of the TEF? What is ‘broken’ and why does it need ‘fixing’?
The answer, from the Government’s point of view, is that universities are the last bastion of public-sector monopoly. The TEF proposal accompanies two other chapters of the Green Paper. [1] Part A is the TEF; Part B sets out proposals to allow private companies to set themselves up as universities (including, revealingly, protection for providers to rapidly ‘exit’ the sector, when, as with Circle in Hinchingbrooke NHS Trust, expected profit margins do not materialise). Part C dismantles the regulatory system that protects universities and their staff. The Green Paper asserts that ‘The existing regulatory framework does not provide a level playing field for new providers.’ It claims that deregulation protects ‘institutional autonomy’, but it will be at the expense of staff rights and academic freedom.

Deregulation and the threat to academic freedom
The Green Paper’s premise is that market competition with new providers will trigger a series of restructuring and closures within the University sector. Indeed, even without wholesale competition from new providers, the existing tuition fee regime is already intensifying competition for students, and thus pressure to restructure provision and its administration, and to cut part of existing educational provision.
Noting that private-sector providers are not restricted by academic Statutes or articles of incorporation but may merely be limited companies, the Green Paper’s proposal is to remove regulations that limit the ability of existing universities to cut staff and to restructure in the manner of their competitors. Even though the numbers of private-sector universities are currently very small, and their market share insignificant, the Green Paper proposes extensive deregulation that would empower Senior Management Teams to engage in market competition, and to hire and fire staff accordingly.
Kings College London used to have an Academic Statute that was so restrictive that it ultimately took six years to make one academic redundant. Abolishing that statute allowed them to embark on a series of redundancy programmes of academic staff from 2010 onwards. On the other hand, in 2012, staff at University College London campaigned against the dilution of their Academic Statute and won, a victory that was helped in part by the fact that the University governing body was required to seek Privy Council approval for their removal. The Green Paper seeks to limit the role of the Privy Council.
The Government argues that academic freedom will be ‘protected’ by its new Office for Students quango. How exactly, the OfS will carry out this function is not explained, but since the Green Paper is premised on the aim that private companies should be entitled to call themselves ‘universities’ with limited regulation, the restrictions on existing universities that prevent management interference to direct programmes of study, interfere in curricula, redirect research foci, determine which research groups will exist, and to dismiss academic staff, will rapidly face challenge in the interests of a ‘level playing field’.
Entirely absent from the perspective of the Green Paper is any consideration of the purpose and role of academic freedom. UNESCO’s Recommendation concerning the state of Higher Education Teaching Personnel, states that ‘the right to education, teaching and research can only be fully enjoyed in an atmosphere of academic freedom and autonomy for institutions of higher education and that the open communication of findings, hypotheses and opinions lies at the very heart of higher education and provides the strongest guarantee of the accuracy and objectivity of scholarship and research.’
Public preparedness to fund the university sector depends on confidence that academic independence exists, and that expert opinion is not inflected by special pleading, corporate obligations and debts, or government whims and interests. Corporate scientific scandals, from Thalidomide to Volkswagen, ultimately depend for their exposure on publicly funded, independent researchers in our universities, and the training of specialists in engineering, law, culture and the mass media both in the technical  requirements of their professions, and in the social responsibilities that these entail. Just as the struggle by junior doctors to defend their contracts is also a defence of the NHS and of patient safety, the defence of academic freedom is central to what it is that defines a university. That is the sense in which the Green Paper constitutes the announcement of a systematic assault on what the idea of a university has come to mean.

What you can do
Members of UCU Left, and many others, are currently working with members of the Campaign for the Public University and the Council for the Defence of British Universities, and with the UCU nationally, to try to create the broadest possible opposition to the Green Paper.
The plan is to encourage colleagues to engage in developing critiques of the Green Paper, to promote debate and discussion within universities and among the wider public, and to pressure institutions to mount a critical opposition to the proposals.
The formal deadline for consultation on the Green Paper is 15 January 2016.

All UCU Left supporters are urged to do four things:

  • Campaign electronically. Circulate links to the Green Paper and critiques, and encourage colleagues to consider their own view.
  • Organise on YOUR campus. Organise open union meetings to discuss the Green Paper, the TEF and the privatisation agenda, before the end of this session.
  • Seek institutional opposition. Encourage academic boards to debate and oppose the Green Paper, and debate motions about it at all College or School or Faculty board meetings. In negotiations, but also publicly, call on the management team and the governing body of your HEI formally to oppose the Green Paper.
  • Coordinate national resistance. Come to the Second Convention for Higher Education which will take place at UCL, Central London in February 2016. See http://heconvention2.wordpress.com for up-to-date information and links to critiques of the Green Paper.

 

Notes
[1] Strictly, three others. Part D on Research proposes ‘simplification’ of the REF, but appears to be mostly consequential on the other proposals.

The government have no answers except bombing and austerity

As David Cameron pushes for MPs to support British air strikes on Syria Sean Vernell explains why young people see it differently.

young people-1000643

Last week the students in my GCSE English classes discussed what their thoughts were about the Paris shootings. They read two opposing views on what the British government’s response should be. One, from the Daily Express, argued that the British government should launch air strikes and close the borders. The other, from Stop the War Coalition, argued that there should not be any retaliatory airstrikes because it will continue the cycle of violence.

As usual, when young people are given the opportunity to discuss these kinds of issues they were fantastically articulate and well informed. They were shocked to find out after reading the Daily Express article that in 1939, at the outbreak of the WW2, 80,000 German people that were connected to Britain were rounded up and put into camps to ascertain their loyalty to Britain. The Express advocated closing the borders and rounding up refugees from areas where ISIS and other terrorist organisations operate from.

The students on the whole were very uncomfortable with the idea that refugees who are fleeing countries that have been continuously at war for over a decade should then be detained in camps to check if they were suitable to be granted asylum in the west. Especially when students raised the fact that most of those who carried out the killings in Paris were actually born in France or Belgium.

The majority of my students were opposed to launching air strikes on ISIS as a way forward after the Paris shootings. They could not understand why ordering more air strikes would help to stop more death and destruction.

 

‘ …war is a fact – peace isn’t’

They were also horrified to be shown pictures from the Metro newspaper, that a student had brought in, which showed graffiti on the sides of the bombs being loaded onto the jet fighters that said, ‘From Paris with love’. One asked ‘Surely this is not legal’. They could not comprehend why, despite such atrocities that took place in Paris, someone would be so callous as to write something like this on the side of a weapon that they know will kill more innocent civilians then the intended terrorist targets.

Not all were convinced that bombing shouldn’t happen, not because they thought that it would resolve anything but as one student said, ‘when I look around the world war is a fact – peace isn’t’. Most in my classes are between the ages of 16-18. It is a sad fact that this generation has grown up in a society that has been at war for the vast majority of their lives.

A young female student responded to her classmate’s pessimism by saying, ‘The way we make peace a fact is to think it ourselves and get someone else to think it and then peace can become a fact’.

 

Rage at a society that doesn’t listen to them

The discussion then moved on to why young people, in some cases as young as fifteen, get involved in such bloody killings. Again the students, whilst none of them condoned what took place in Paris, expressed articulately why some young vulnerable people fall prey to those who wish to enlist them to kill and maim.

They expressed the alienation they felt. The horrible frightening feeling of thinking about their futures where there is no security in meaningful employment. A future of living in overcrowded accommodation. Rage at a society that doesn’t listen to them or take them seriously. The racism and Islamophobia that they experience on a daily basis.

This is the context that many young working class people are brought up in. Some of the most vulnerable in this situation, when offered a fake way out dressed up as a heroic cause, tragically grasp it as a way to give their lives meaning. Of course it doesn’t, it just leads to young people’s lives being lost far too prematurely.

The government’s response to this situation will only perpetuate the causes of violence. Trust must be the central factor that cements the student/teacher relationship. If the student feels that their discussion will be reported back to the authorities and after which they are put on an ‘at risk’ list, because of what they had said in that discussion did not support the government’s view, then the opportunity to have an open discussion about how they feel about certain issues will disappear and with it any possibility to inspire hope and understanding.

This is what the government’s Prevent duty is doing and why it is so dangerous and must be resisted.

 

Cycle of poverty and dead end jobs

As young people feel that there is no way out of a cycle of poverty and dead end jobs or no jobs, communities risk turning in on themselves. Two months ago I watched helplessly from my ninth storey window as paramedics desperately tried to save the life of a seventeen year old boy called Marcel. He lay on the cold concrete path beneath me for an hour as the paramedics tried to resuscitate him, but died from his knife wounds.

A recent report the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) revealed that that young people suffered the biggest slide in income and employment and faced higher barriers to achieving economic independence and success than five years ago. This inequality, according to the report has worsened since the election of the Conservative-led coalition government in 2010.

What is the government response to this catastrophe? To bomb a country that has already been bombed backed to the Stone Age and to make it even more difficult for young people from working class backgrounds to access further and higher education. Both of which can lead, as has been shown in the past, to more terrorist attacks and violence on our streets.

However the government’s spending review also revealed that they are a weak government with a tiny majority. The movement against austerity and the election of an anti-austerity Labour leadership has forced the government to make U-turns on Working tax benefits and cuts in the NHS. Agreeing to protect FE funding for four years is another indication of their vulnerability.

But they will continue to cut where they think they can get away with it. We must not let them. They must be stopped before this generation is written off as another ‘lost generation’.

Luckily for us, many of my students are not people who just take things lying down. They will continue to resist.

 

 

 

Restructures and mergers in further and adult education – resisting cuts and rationalisation

‘Reviewing post 16-education and training institutions’ is the title of the government’s latest policy document for further and adult education. Needless to say it is a review that, if implemented, will drastically reduce the size of the sector and with it the future of millions of students.

The government argues that the sector needs to change to ensure that young people and adults have the necessary skills and education to enter/re-enter the workforce. However it doesn’t take much examination of these proposals to see what really lies behind them.

Click here for the UCU briefing on the background to the government review of FE, a critique of it and an alternative to it

Also click here for UCU’s guide to branches who face merger with another college