Author: Carlo Morelli

Posted on

The Second Joint Expert Panel Report: Could try harder?

UCU London Demonstration (Pic: Guy Smallman)

The Joint Expert Panel: Could try harder?

The long awaited second Joint Expert Panel (JEP) report on USS was released on Friday 13th December.

The Joint Expert Panel was the outcome of the 2018 industrial action by UCU in response to the attempt by Universities UK (UUK) and the USS pension scheme Trustee Board and management executive to replace the Defined Benefit scheme with a wholly Defined Contribution scheme. The 14 days of strike action led to a compromise settlement, the withdrawal of the 100% DC proposal and creation of the JEP by UUK and UCU, chaired by Joanne Segers.

The first JEP report was widely recognised as a scathing criticism of the mismanagement of the USS scheme. The blame for the 2017 valuation and the largest strike in UK Higher Education’s history, which it generated, was placed squarely at the door of the USS Trustee Board and executive management, UUK and the Pension Regulator (tPR). The details of the crisis within USS have been debated widely within UCU by Sam Marsh, Mike Otsuka, Sean Wallis and the current author along with notable reporting by the Financial Times journalist Josephine Cumbo. This piece does not seek to rehearse these debates and any reader unfamiliar with the detail can look at a variety of sources to examine this history. Some useful starting points include:

https://uculeft.org/2019/01/ucu-left-uss-and-the-importance-of-elected-rank-and-file-leadership/

https://uculeft.org/2018/09/jep-reports-what-next/

https://uculeft.org/2018/03/uss-fight-for-nodetriment/

https://heconvention2.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/made-in-westminster/

https://medium.com/ussbriefs/the-2018-uss-valuation-a-wholesale-rejection-of-the-joint-expert-panels-report-ed5241f4a153

https://medium.com/@mikeotsuka/oxfords-and-cambridge-s-role-in-the-demise-of-uss-a3034b62c033

In summary, the proposals in the First JEP Report provided a means to complete the 2017 valuation and reduce total contribution rates to a level below 30%. However, its most significant findings were rejected by USS’s Trustee Board and executive resulting in a contribution rate from employers and employees well above that identified by the first JEP report. This has led to a resumption of struggle: a second large strike ballot, renewed industrial action in November 2019, with more to come. The Second JEP Report slams the failure to adopt their proposals in full saying it represented ‘a missed opportunity to resolve the dispute and provide room for a discussion of the longer-term issues facing the Scheme’ (JEP, 2019, p.4)

The Second JEP Report, focusing upon the valuation methodology and scheme governance was expected to be as analytical in its findings, and in some ways it appears to be. However, in other areas the Second JEP Report seems to have failed to openly address the key barriers to change which could ensure that a stable, financially-secure pension scheme emerges in which the interests of the beneficiaries of the pension scheme, current and future pensioners’ and their dependents are foremost.

In the brief commentary that follows the key positive and negative points of the Second JEP Report are examined. All references, unless otherwise stated relate to this report.

https://ussjep.org.uk/files/2019/12/JEP2-Final-Report.pdf

Collectivity and Mutuality – A unique aspect of USS

JEP places a strong reliance upon the collective nature of the scheme. While the scheme has grown in terms of the number of employer bodies as members, the vast majority of the assets and liabilities continue to derive from a smaller group of pre-92 HE institutions. The expansion of membership while resulting in a more diverse membership body is not considered to be a risk to the sustainability of the scheme. Some 84% of the scheme liabilities are concentrated on the pre-92 sector (JEP, p.25). With this high concentration of liabilities comes a high concentration of contributions into the scheme. As a consequence there is a high level of confidence that the sector will, and should, continue for the foreseeable future as a primarily pre-92 pension scheme. In conclusion JEP strongly identifies the collective covenant and the insurance this mutuality provides as a major unique strength of the scheme.

Employer led proposals for ‘sectionalisation’ of the scheme are extensively examined in the JEP report (see chapter 10). Despite the benign name ‘sectionalisation’ is a means to break apart the scheme into a variety of independent schemes with differing contribution rates and member benefits. Sectionalisation could be at the level of groups of institutions or at the individual institution level. This would break up the core principal of mutuality and sharing of risks, it would increase costs, and it would fragment the sector. Why then is it even being considered? This is driven by larger employers identifying opportunities for more rapid expansion with greater debt financing in an environment where pension liabilities are reduced on their balance sheets. It reflects the increasing tendency of each university senior management team to see themselves as in cut-throat competition with other employers. JEP rightly rejects such proposals stating it ‘would have serious concerns were sectionalisation to be pursued.’ (p.92). Mutuality, and the associated collective covenant, is essential not only for the long-term stability of the scheme but also for member confidence that their pension contributions will lead to a future pension on retirement.

Affordability and Intergenerational Fairness

Member benefits and the affordability of the scheme is looked at within chapter 9. USS faces a relatively high drop-out rate from new members, ranging from 15-20 per cent of new entrants per annum (Fig 12). These members are disproportionately younger, with higher levels of existing debt and on insecure contracts. JEP tentatively examines alternative approaches to differential contribution rates ‘Tiered Contributions’ and reduced benefits for reduced contributions.

The continuation of the scheme with a positive cash flow is dependent upon the scheme remaining open to new entrants and the contribution rates being affordable to newer members of the sector. Current contributions can then be used to pay for existing pensions and additionally build up assets. These assets represent the intergenerational guarantee that future pensions can be paid for today’s active members. Thus, retaining the scheme as an ‘open’ scheme for new entrants is crucial to this approach. Making contribution rates more progressive towards lower paid staff has attractions in addressing affordability but not if it is at the expense of other members of the scheme. JEP assumes any reduction of contribution rates for low paid members must result in increases for other members. Thus JEP fails to recognise a key feature of the scheme – that it is currently not only cash flow positive but on USS’s own evidence in surplus. JEP does not come to a judgement about the current state of the scheme and instead states that;

‘It has been suggested by some commentators that by applying those same adjustments [contained in the first JEP report ed. note] to the 2018 valuation it would be possible to reach a combined contribution level of 26% with the deficit eliminated. The Panel has not undertaken such an assessment itself and cannot comment on the accuracy of this claim.’ (p.22).

Yet JEP has had access to the USS Joint Negotiating Committee papers which, in November 2018, showed that implementing the first JEP report in full on the 2018 valuation would result in a £0.6b surplus and a total contribution rate of 25.5%. That USS is in surplus is not a suggestion of ‘some commentators’ but the confirmed result of a valuation undertaken by USS based upon JEP’s own suggested valuation proposals in the First Report. Under these circumstances lower contribution rates for low paid members are feasible without increasing contribution rates for those higher up the pay scales.

JEP also examines proposals for members reducing their benefits for a reduced contribution rate, a so called ‘50:50 option’. Such an option is not a progressive change, rather a response to the lack of affordability of pensions for low paid, often women in HE. A 50 per cent contribution rate for a 100% benefit accrual should be made available for all staff members for a limited time in their career history to prevent groups, such as those with caring responsibilities, facing discrimination in pension entitlement. In a career average pension scheme, such as USS, any discrimination during a working lifetime is transferred into a discrimination in pension entitlement. USS should be looking toward progressivity not only in contribution rates but also pension outcomes if it is to protect intergenerational fairness.

Governance and Democracy

The report identifies a range of areas where the structure of the USS governance and the Scheme Rules ‘do not foster a cooperative environment within which the Stakeholders [UUK and UCU ed. note] can work well together’ (JEP, 2019, p.4). While the JEP report damningly shares the view that the valuation governance is ‘not fit for purpose’ (p.38) this is in many ways the weakest area of the JEP report. JEP fails to accurately locate the governance crisis within USS and instead seeks to suggest failure is simply a general inability of the mechanism of governance to reach a consensus. The JEP’s starting point of avoiding being ‘critical of any of the organisations involved’ (p.6) means that it’s conclusions occasionally reduce to superficial platitudes rather than guides to long-term change. Still worse there is an encouragement to a reduction, rather than an increase, in democratic control over USS.

USS are reported in 2019 to have identified ‘members and their families’ as the key mission of the pension scheme and JEP strongly support a more ‘member-centric’ move. However, statements without actions of intent are simply examples of what might be termed ‘pensioner-washing’ by the pension scheme. The representative voice of current and future pensioner interest within the governance of the scheme comes from the involvement of UCU as a stakeholder organisation. Yet far from this voice being given greater influence USS has acted to weaken members’ voices. The development of the scheme into a Master Trust, an organisation governed by regulations for a Defined Contribution pension scheme rather than Defined Benefit as USS, is designed in part to minimise member involvement. Master Trust regulations allow UCU to recommend, but not appoint, a Trustee. Similarly, the dismissal of the UCU appointed Trustee Prof. Jane Hutton is not commented upon in the JEP report. Jane provided the only critical testing of the USS executive and was a genuine independent voice on the Trustee Board. Her removal was a direct consequence of her independence and willingness to challenge the USS management executive.

JEP’s primary solution of a set of ‘Shared Valuation Principles’ is insufficient if the USS Trustee Board and its management executive, UUK or tPR intent continues to be to place pensioners interests last. Indeed, the setting out of the Shared Valuation Principles, (fig 7, p.36) itself doesn’t mention pensioner interests only scheme sustainability. Closing the scheme leads to a sustainable outcome not in pensioners’ interests, but this is not ruled out of these proposals.

A final concern is the implication that a consensus failed to emerge simply due to the composition of the JNC. A proposal for a sub-set ‘senior’ stakeholder representatives (pp.50-51) to meet separately would seek to remove those elected UCU members who have fought hardest to retain the union’s policy of no-detriment. Increasing democratic oversight of USS would be a worthy aim but it is only UCU which provides an open democratic mechanism for scheme member involvement in stakeholder policy making.

Conclusion

JEP emerged in 2018 as an independent attempt to resolve the most significant industrial dispute Higher Education has seen in the UK. The attempt to find a technical solution to a valuation in its First JEP Report failed, not due to the inability to introduce JEP’s proposed changes to a valuation but rather a deliberate unwillingness of USS, UUK and tPR to agree to this settlement. As a result a second wave of strike action began in November 2019. The difference this time is that UCU members no longer have trust in a negotiated settlement which fails to recognise the aim of their adversaries in the dispute; namely the theft of their pensions and the undermining of any right to retirement staff may have.

Trust is at an all-time low in the sector as the debt driven neo-liberal marketisation of the sector deepens. The Second JEP Report again provides ample examples of the failures of the USS management of the Scheme and the employers’ intent on breaking apart the arguably most successful collective private sector pension scheme to have emerged post-war. However, it has not recognised the divisions between the differing parties involved for what they are; a struggle over the existence of a collective higher education system, fought out on campuses and picket lines, as well as on the terrain of pension assets and liabilities.

Carlo Morelli

UCU Scotland President, NEC and past UCU USS negotiator

Posted on

Can we resolve the Gender Pay Gap (and the race, disability and LGBT+ Pay Gaps)?

 

End the Gender Pay Gap - protest in London, HE strike 2016

Can we resolve the Gender Pay Gap (and the race, disability and LGBT+ Pay Gaps)?

The UCU website notes that ‘although equal pay legislation has been in place for over 40 years, the gender pay gap in Britain remains the highest in the EU at over 18%. In HE for all academics the gender pay gap is 12%.

It is worth noting that it is nearly 50 years since the Equal Pay Act 1970 and that in many Universities, the gender pay gap is more like 20%.

The most recent data (2016/17) suggests this is still the case. So we have a big problem to challenge. Our current strong collective action gives our members the chance to bridge this huge gap.

3 years ago in 2016, a number of UCU regional briefings were held on this topic by union officials to branch officers and reps. Now in 2019/20 we are nowhere further forward. The suggestion made by the officials was that equality reps and branch negotiators meet with HR departments, look at data and come up with an action plan. How many have achieved this? How many have actually resolved the gender pay gap (and other pay gaps such as BAME, disability and LGBT+)? Very few if any.

We cannot detach this area of discrimination from the context and influences around us. We are talking about the movements against sexual harassment and sexual assault such as #MeToo and #TimesUp on the streets. Women today are just not prepared to wait for years to achieve equality. So long detailed action plans are just not working. We need much faster action to resolve the gender pay gap (and other pay gaps).

An obvious solution is to have a clear career progression scheme. Let’s take, for example, a Lecturer on a grade which runs from £30,942 pa to £40,322 pa with discretionary points to £44,045 pa. Rather than have to submit to a time consuming and discriminatory application process to be promoted to Senior Lecturer why not progress automatically through from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer. Indeed we need to extend normal progression to the higher scales for all academic, academic-related and research staff. For the (few) women at the higher ends of the salary scale they also need parity in regards to bonus payments etc. however our main focus is having a fair and equitable career scheme and this dispute is our opportunity to get this sorted now rather than sit through slow and laborious meetings with HR departments

We must link the fight for gender pay with the fight against casualization. Inevitably once data is acquired on those on precarious contracts we will see that it is invariably women, BAME disabled and LGBT+ staff who are on these contracts in the majority. Our dispute is about equality as well as pensions, pay, workload and casualization.

Only a clearly defined career progression scheme will resolve the gender pay gap and other pay gaps. The pay gap has a lasting effect on current pay but also on past pay and future pension. Therefore clearly defined career progression should also be applied retrospectively as women, BAME, disabled and LGBT+ staff have been held back for far too long.

Dr Sue Abbott

NEC and Chair of Equality Committee (pc)

Posted on

Fighting two disputes together has united our sector

At UCU Congress in 2019 we proposed running the ballots for our two disputes together and combining our strike action for both disputes as a means to maximise the unity of our union. However, there is still disquiet in some parts of our union about the strategy of running the USS dispute and the pay and equality dispute concurrently.

As the proposers of the motion to the HEC which committed the union to this strategy, we feel this strategy has been spectacularly successful. Here’s why.

Fighting over pay

In the first place, if we had not proposed this strategy there would have been no fight over the pay claim this year. The USS dispute would have taken precedence, and once that had run its course there would have been no time, resources or fighting spirit left for a pay fight. Nothing on pay equality, or casualisation or workloads.

That would also have meant another year of the post-92 membership watching a major fight from the sidelines and those in pre-92s with little or no benefits in USS, tending to confirm the view of many that only a section of the membership in the ‘old’ universities are the union’s priority. It would also have allowed pre-92 employers to claw back concessions over pensions with stagnant pay, casualisation and excessive workloads. Criticism of the ‘two disputes in one’ strategy is not prevalent among post-92 activists or on pre-92 picket lines. Staff everywhere are demanding pay equality, securing casualised members’ rights, and curbing high workloads.

Maximising the ballot results

We were told that balloting over two legally distinct disputes would cause confusion among pre-92 members, to the detriment of both. In fact, the reverse was the case. Our view that having the two ballot papers arrive in one envelope would enhance the votes in each was spectacularly confirmed.

In pre-92, branches faced two problems in crossing the Tory 50% threshold compared to the original USS dispute. The union had grown by 50% during the strike. And the USS dispute is more complicated this time around – we are not facing the imposition of 100% Defined Contribution. But these factors were more than compensated for by the union’s highest results over pay in its history. The strategy has brought the best organised post-92 branches into serious national action for the first time, uniting the sector at precisely the moment that marketisation threatens to pull it apart.

One set of bosses

Some doubters have continued to argue that it is impossible to resolve two disputes simultaneously when they involve two different groups of employers. What incentive is there, they ask, for one group of employers to offer concessions if industrial action over the other dispute will continue?

But we should not get sidetracked by the acronyms UUK or UCEA. Behind each of them lie the university managements, our bosses. They are separate in name only. UUK simply represents a subset of the total represented by UCEA.

There was no clearer demonstration of that when UUK and UCEA issued a joint open letter on both disputes last week. This piece of propaganda was concrete proof that behind the legal framing that stipulates that there are two distinct groups of employers, in reality we are fighting our bosses as a whole. They are determined to impose the logic of marketisation on us, and we are fighting to resist its effects on our pensions, pay, job security, equality, and workloads.

Indeed the quickest route to resolving both disputes would be if the USS employers (UUK) were to concede the principle that USS should not be valued as if it were necessary to ‘de-risk’ the scheme. That would immediately release 3.1% of salary costs in those institutions that could be spent towards a settlement on the other issues.

The simple fact is that if our action is strong enough, we can bring our employers to their knees over all these issues. But that will require maximum unity on our side, a commitment to bring more branches into the action by reballoting them promptly, and a determination to launch a second wave of hard-hitting action next term.

Julie Hearn, Lancaster University

Mark Abel, University of Brighton

Posted on

Mandy Brown Thank You

lambeth-college-strike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UCU Left Steering Committee would like to notify supporters and members that Mandy Brown (Lambeth College) has stepped down from Secretary of UCU Left following her movement back into higher education as a student. Mandy has been a stalwart and formidable fighter for workers’ rights throughout her time as a lecturer in FE.

Mandy played a leading role in transforming our union into one that is prepared to fight back against austerity, injustice and for education for all. From Action for ESOL, contract and pay strikes at Lambeth College to the role she played as London Region UCU Secretary working to build action across both FE and HE on pay and on pensions, she has been the central organiser. People will remember the demonstrations in London during the great USS strike, in snow, sleet and freezing weather. Mandy was instrumental in ensuring the fight for migrant rights was, and remains, at the heart of UCU’s agenda. The union’s affiliation to Care4Calais was built through the solidarity visits to the refugee camps, meetings and actions that she helped to instigate alongside NUT activists.

Jo McNeill (Liverpool) and Mark Abel (Brighton) will attempt to fill her shoes. Mandy will be sorely missed by her friends and comrades for her tireless hard work and political organising and will be missed by members across the sector. Whatever she does in the future we know she will continue the fight for socialism.

We all wish Mandy well in her future studies and send her our very great thanks. Send her your own message: Mandy on twitter @BelleTolls

Jo McNeill

Mark Abel

 

Posted on

Higher Education Committee Report 28th June 2019

Snow picket

HEC report 28th June 2019: One small step for HEC: One giant step for UCU.

Jo McNeil and Mark Abel were elected as Vice Chairs of the HEC for pre and post 92 sectors respectively. The overwhelming support they received (in the case of Jo the vote was 20:11 while for Mark it was 18:7) is testimony to the success in elections last February for the left. While a small decision in and of itself the influence of the Vice Chairs is important for the way the HEC runs.

The elected HEC chair participated in the meeting by telephone owing to a prior volunteering commitment. The meeting was therefore chaired by the newly elected Vice Chairs. Immediately motions brought by members were placed within the agenda paper so that important issues could be debated fully. As a result a thorough discussion on pensions took place which then led onto the debates over pay. Time was not wasted with filibustering and instead plans for the defence of members were laid.

TPS and Public Sector Pensions

The FBU’s victory in the courts on pension rights, over age discrimination, is a major victory. It has major implications for all public sector workers, including our members in the various Teachers Pensions schemes, preventing the worsening of pensions for younger workers due to scheme changes. Employers and government will no doubt seek to undermine this victory but we now have an opportunity to build a wider defence of pensions across the whole of the public sector. The TUC have since 2011 abandoned defending pension rights for millions of low paid workers leading to the ending of retirement for many. Now there is an opportunity to rollback this defeatism. With UCU preparing a new ballot on USS (see below) we could quickly become part of a much wider and more powerful wave of resistance against austerity.

Pay and USS Pensions

HEC agreed to ensure that we do not develop a trading off between pay and pensions. UCU will now seek to replicate the successful initiative in Bradford College which combined two separate ballots on pay and jobs, successfully exceeding the 50% threshold in both ballots. This is important because we will now seek to ensure that casualization and pay inequalities campaign across the whole of the HE sector is linked to our USS pension campaign in a simultaneous ballot in the pre-92 sector. In doing so it demonstrates that UCU’s new leadership is rejecting the compartmentalisation and sectionalism of the sector which on occasions leads younger workers to blame older workers, casusalised workers to blame permanent workers or women workers to blame male workers. When we strike together we win together. That must be our message to all members.

The two ballots will run for seven weeks, starting from 9th September and run until 30th October. The ballots will run on a disaggregated basis allowing branches to add local claims on casualisation and gender pay to the national pay and pension issues. Industrial action will then take place before the end of the first semester if employers do not address all of our pay and pension demands. Pensions are our deferred pay and we must not allow penury in retirement to occur due to falling real wages. There was no plan at all for industrial action brought to the meeting or mentioned in the campaign plan. It was the Vice Chairs who started to put a plan in place, proposed it from the floor and got agreement from HEC. Otherwise there would have been no industrial action strategy in place for the USS dispute.

UCU activists in London Region, USS briefs, Branch Solidarity Network, UCU Left and others are committing to organising a #UCUTransformed conference, provisionally planned for 2nd November, to plan the industrial action. Anyone who wants to get involved should get in contact as planning meetings will begin shortly.

There were other important motions on USS passed particularly critical of the governance failure and changes to the rules of the scheme.

Post 92 Contract

The undermining of contractual status in post-92 institutions was raised and the development of a campaign in defence of the post 92 contract in England and Wales was recognised. Two motions defending the contract and challenging the ever rising number of contact hours is central to a defence of the post-92 sector. UCU’s own advice to branches, failing to recognise the importance of defending scholarship, is being used by employers to ride rough shod over the contract.

Boycott of Senate House over outsourcing of cleaners

Outsourced cleaners at Senate House, University of London, have organised a boycott in their campaign to force Senate House management to bring them back into direct employment with access to sick pay and pensions. This campaign has already been victorious in many of the other London University colleges. While some of our members within Senate House UCU have raised fears over their own position as a result of the effectiveness of the boycott we, as a union, must defend the cleaners. We must also defend our members if management seek to make cuts in response. UCU members have nothing to gain by accepting management lies and instead should demand the solution lies in the hands of Senate House management. Namely, negotiate with the cleaners union, the IWGB, and bring the cleaners in house now.

Finally, the new found atmosphere in this HEC must now lead to a thorough going transformation of the operation of UCU at a national level. We must ensure #UCUTransformed continues at all levels of the union and the branches understand that the national organisation will pull out all the stops to not simply defend their jobs, pay and pensions but push back the marketisation destroying higher education. The radicalisation of members from last year’s strikes continues to find its way into the structures of UCU. We cannot squander these opportunities and the left therefore has a responsibility to work together in delivering for members. We will continue to have plenty of disagreements amongst ourselves but those disagreements cannot lead to division over delivering action. Many have talked about a member-led union. Now we’ve a responsibility to deliver it.

 

Posted on

NEC report: The General Secretary Must Be Accountable To Members

UCU Congress 2018 Voting

Emergency National Executive Report 1 March 2019

The General Secretary Must Be Accountable To Members

UCU National Executive Committee (NEC) met on Friday 1 March as an extra-ordinary meeting due to the resignation of the General Secretary, Sally Hunt, on health grounds. NEC unanimously thanked Sally for her leadership in both the formation of the union and its development over the past thirteen years. NEC also wished her well with her illness and hoped she would be able to manage her health to ensure she retained a high quality of life. It is very fortunate that we live in a society which benefits from a fantastic National Health Service.

UCU Left wishes to see a united single left candidate stand for election. We welcome discussions with all members interesting in standing for the GS position with a genuine desire to ensure the agreed left candidate has a maximum chance of winning this most important seat in the union.

Winning the seat for the left is a key part of creating a transparent, accessible, accountable leadership which will bring about the member led, campaigning union we all want.

We have an opportunity to transform our UCU. We have to rise to the challenge.

Timetable

NEC was presented with a set of proposals on the process and timetable for the election of a new GS. Rules of UCU permit any UCU member or employed staff member of UCU to nominate themselves for election. These will be the same rules used for the previous three elections in UCU.

More problematic, however, is the timetable for the election. The timetable presented was to ensure a new candidate is elected prior to Congress in May 2019. However, the most significant argument over the accountability of officials and officers the union has ever had has been ongoing since the walkout of staff and the IBL majority on the NEC at Congress 2018. Since then, the Democracy Commission (created by Congress in response to the crisis) has included discussions of how we can formulate mechanisms for the recall of the General Secretary to ensure member-led democracy is strengthened within the union.

The timetable proposed at NEC circumvents and frustrates these discussions. A decision by a lay member to give up their job for five years is not one many can make on a whim. Yet the timetable ensures little time for any lesser mortal who has not known about this announcement weeks in advance to contemplate such a decision.

As a result, two sets of proposals were put forward to amend the regulations for the General Secretary elections. The first was to delay the election, and importantly the appointment, of the new General Secretary until a mechanism for recall had been passed at Congress. This matters because it has been previously argued by officials that any changes to the rules governing the accountability of the GS cannot apply to a sitting GS and will only apply to a future GS.

If this interpretation now was applied again to the future GS, protecting this person from recall, this would be an outrageous undermining of the Democracy Commission!

The Chair employed a classic, undemocratic manoeuvre by using her position as Chair to order business in a way which ensured that her supporters, i.e. the IBL, would not be seen to be voting against recall. This was done by taking the vote on the paper put forward by the bureaucracy first and then ruling that, if passed, the motions attempting to amend that paper would fall.

As a result both amending motions in this section fell without even being voted on.

The new GS’s contract and recall

The second set of proposals required that the GS’s contract of employment be modified to ensure that, if Congress agreed a rule for recall of the GS, it would apply to this new contract. Since the Democracy Commission is examining the potential for such a rule, which would go to Congress after the new GS had been elected, resolving this potential problem now was very important.

Without such a clause in the contract, the risk is that the new incumbent could potentially argue that the dismissal was unfair. Since candidates would sign up to this contract as part of the process of standing for election, it made sense for the NEC to ensure that all candidates agreed to the recall principle – even if there was no mechanism yet in the union’s rules.

The lead official advising the NEC reported legal advice stating that it was in fact possible to implement a recall mechanism using the existing contract.

Here again, the Chair refused to allow a vote on the proposals by suggesting that the passing of the unamended contract of employment meant the amendments fell. Again the vote to accept the unamended employment was 26 for and 21 against.

Let us be clear. This does not mean that the new UCU General Secretary will be protected from recall, but it does create ambiguity where none was needed.

Any ordinary member who was a fly on the wall in the meeting would have wondered why on earth did the Right of the NEC vote not to accept this motion as it cost nothing and would have simply confirmed the legal advice and protected the legal position of the union!

And it also means that all candidates for GS now need to be asked the following questions:

Do you accept that you should be accountable to members through a proper recall procedure in the union’s rules if Congress decides one is needed? Will you accept a change of terms of employment in your contract if this is said to be necessary, allowing for a recall mechanism to apply to you?

For all the claims that the IBL are not a faction they do indeed vote en-bloc remarkably consistently when directed by the chair!

Election conduct

It is to be expected that paid officials of the union and lay members of the union will stand. It is essential therefore that no candidate is given preferential treatment during the election.

In UNISON a major argument has broken out due to senior officials instructing employees of the union to campaign on their behalf.

Proposals to prevent this bullying of staff were also put forward by UCU Left members. Here the IBL voted with the UCU Left leading to a unanimous vote to prevent staff being disciplined if they refuse to act in a partisan way in the elections.

Similarly, candidates who are staff members or officers of the union will also be prevented from presenting UCU’s publicity in their name, with immediate effect.

Looking to the future

The next General Secretary will be crucially important to the future development of the union at a time when marketisation is fast progressing, when the membership of UCU has simultaneously grown and, crucially, at a time when a substantial minority of members indicates that a militant mood exists for action against marketisation.

The left in the union has a responsibility to ensure we have a candidate who can create a member-led union over the next five years. They need to be a candidate who can stand up to both the right wing of our union lay leadership and the trade union bureaucracy.

Motions text

On delaying the GS election

NEC thanks Sally Hunt for her service and sends best wishes.

NEC notes:

  1. The Democracy Commission was tasked by our sovereign body Congress (2018) with introducing recall mechanism and greater accountability of officials including the General Secretary
  2. The Commission is currently drawing up relevant recommendations and will be putting these to Congress 2019. The Commission was informed that the staff union UNITE would likely dispute changes to the current incumbent’s contract, and it was agreed therefore that a recall mechanism would come into effect at a change of contract.
  3. Holding an election on the current proposal would create a delay of five years in the introduction of recall.

NEC believes such a delay undermines the wishes of Congress 2018 and thus undermines our democracy which may create discord.

NEC resolves not to implement any election process that would undermine and render ineffective the introduction of recall mechanisms if voted for by Congress 2019.

On Democracy Commission and GS election

Noting:

  1. Democracy Commission’ specific, time-limited purview, mandated by Congress 2018 to make recommendations for branch delegates to decide at Congress 2019 and Special Congress (November 2019).
  2. DC is mandated to recommend changes including aspects of the GS role, such as an inter-election recall mechanism.
  3. DC may recommend shorter terms of office.
  4. Changes agreed by Congress/Special Congress must only effect subsequent GS contracts.
  5. Pursuing a GS election before Congress delays any agreed changes by 5 years.
  6. GS election rules Schedule B provide up to 12 months calling notice.

NEC agrees:

  1. Pre-empting outcomes of democratic debate at Congress would endanger confidence in UCU’s commitment to upholding sovereign Congress decisions.
  2. UCU should elect its GS after Congress 2019 votes upon DC recommendations regarding the role, terms and conditions.
  3. NEC should meet following Congress to agree finalised changes to the GS role.

Both motions fell by 26 to 21 with 1 abstention, following passage of section of report

Motion ensuring recall mechanism applies to incoming GS

NEC agrees to amend the new contract of the GS in NEC1215 to explicitly ensure that, should Congress agree a rule change that establishes a formal recall mechanism, this mechanism would trigger the issuing of notice by the President on behalf of the NEC, under clause (i) of the Termination of Employment section of the contract.

NEC further resolves that, should the above solution be not deemed workable, to add a new clause (iii) to the Termination of Employment section of the contract. This would clarify that, provided that a rule for the recall of GS were triggered under UCU rules, the GS would be suspended from office and given six months’ notice to allow the election to be conducted.

Motion fell 26 to 21, following passage of section of report

Amendments to GENERAL SECRETARY ELECTION 2019: GUIDANCE NOTES NEC1215.

Add new bullet points:

  1. UCU staff members involved in the administration of the General Secretary election will act in a non-partisan way to all candidates and must not be asked for preferential treatment by any candidate or their supporters. Any member of staff found to be electioneering or showing favour to one particular candidate in the course of their normal employment will face formal disciplinary action. Any staff member refusing to act in a partisan way will be protected from any disciplinary action.
  2. During the period of the election, starting with NEC 1st March 2019, UCU will ensure equal access to media and public pronouncements for all candidates. Any statement released by UCU in the name of any staff member standing as a candidate will count as one of their allocated emails.

Motion passed unanimously

Posted on

National Industrial Action: Developing a Strategy to Win

National Industrial Action: Developing a Strategy to Win

The result of UCU’s equalities and pay ballot is a contradictory and complex outcome. It is both disappointing when framed within the anti-trade union legislation and, if we didn’t have to jump this 50% Tory turnout hurdle, we would otherwise be celebrating this result and would be preparing to take industrial action.

Screen Shot 2019-02-15 at 15.40.09

Both Friday’s result (40.96%) and the earlier ballot result in October 2018 (41.65%) are the highest turnout results this union has ever seen in postal pay ballots and shows a significant increase on past pay ballot turnouts with a consistent 70% voting for strike action. This tells us a solid section of our membership are voting repeatedly to fight for fair pay and against the increase in casualisation, the gender and BAME pay gap and unreasonable workloads. They clearly understand, and want action over, these issues. Outside of anti-TU legislation, this result demonstrates a very strong mandate for action.

Yet we are currently operating in the context of the anti-union laws. HESC in November voted for an aggregated ballot. This was a major mistake. Whereas in October we had six branches over the threshold it is likely a similar number were successful this time around. This would have given us an opportunity to ensure a sizeable minority of branches could have taken action on a national claim in which others subsequently followed. This is exactly what has happened successfully in FE. We need to emulate FE and disaggregate the next pay ballot. We then need a strategy to take effective, sustained action in the branches where the Tory threshold is met while re-balloting with increased support and resource from UCU in the branches who just miss the 50%. This can work in waves until all branches can take action.

At November’s HESC members also called on UCU to re-position the ballot to raise the profile of the equalities issues detailed in the claim as a means to more directly address the consequences of marketisation in the sector. Voting members know how bad it is for our casualised members. There is no evidence of a split in effort between casualised and non-casualised workers as some have claimed on Twitter.  Instead we have to look at more complex reasons why members don’t vote in postal ballots. The anti-union laws imposition of postal ballots is designed to reduce turnout. Workload is definitely a factor. Our members are completely overworked at all levels. There is an irony in the fact that members regularly tell us they can’t find ballot papers under their never decreasing mounds of work. Again simply emailing adds still further to the deluge of emails members struggle to cope with.

The fact that the outcome of the USS dispute is still unresolved meant some thought we couldn’t take action over pay at the same time. Then there is also past history. UCU have had some woefully bad industrial action strategies in past pay disputes and many members disengage because they don’t think UCU can win over pay. Despite the calls for a higher profile for inequalities in the ballot this didn’t happen effectively. Repeated demands for NEC members to be organised and co-ordinated to speak to branches, in order to motivate members, wasn’t acted upon. At a local level many of us drove the narrative towards the hardships experienced by so many of our casualised members and that is where I believe the increase on past turnouts came from.

Given the current political context, with many of our members extremely worried about Brexit and its impact on their lives in the UK, this result actually shows a level of resilience in our membership. The same members turned out twice with almost identical results.

Future Strategy

What should we do now? We are seeing some employers open local discussions on pay, this is a very dangerous move. We need to push to ensure we maintain national bargaining on pay in HE and we need to ensure casualisation, Gender and BAME pay gaps and workload have equal priority in the pay claim and in the narrative around future disputes. These important issues should not be peripheral.

We need victories to re-engage members over pay and it will take a lot of hard work to do that but the alternative is unacceptable. Every trade union must be able to fight for fair pay and equality for its members. We have to find ways to beat the anti-TU legislation. We should support calls for a General Election and a Corbyn led government committed to scrapping the anti-TU legislation. In the meantime, we need to strengthen our rank and file organisation. We need to know our members, to understand why they are not voting and we need to organise and mobilise based on this knowledge.

I don’t believe the pay ballot is an indication to employers that UCU is in any way weaker now than we were during the USS dispute. Members are voting in ballots in record numbers. An indicative local ballot over REF at my branch, The University of Liverpool, recently came in with a 58% turnout and we’re seeing far higher turnouts in smaller branches like QMU.

The sector can afford to give our members fair pay, employers can end casualisation, look at the recent Open University victories where 4000 casualised members were moved onto permanent contracts, they can close the gender and BAME pay gaps and they can give us reasonable workloads.  UCU needs a more effective strategy, strong leadership and we need more resources to support activists.

 

Jo McNeill

Posted on

HEC report 15th February

UCU HEC 15th February 2019

Equality and respect

HEC on 15th February has met a new low. And it has had some real lows at times. UCU Left members walked out following patronising sexist behaviour towards an NEC member, Vicky Blake, for submitting a motion facilitating the working of the National Disputes Committee.

Jo McNeill complained that the description of Vicky Blake’s motion as ‘incompetent’ and ‘incoherent’ were clearly focused at the author of the motion not the motion itself. While a political discussion debating the issues, eventually leaving HEC to pass three of the four elements of the motion, was constructive a walkout took place before lunchtime as a result of the chair’s offensive and sexist comments. After lunch a refusal to even acknowledge the problem chairing had caused led to a motion of no confidence in the chair. This behaviour ‘has no place in our union’ stated Pura Ariza, NEC women’s rep, when proposing no confidence in the chair and calls were made for a new chair to complete the meeting. The vote 13 for a vote of no confidence and 15 against with one abstention raises an important question about how activists should respond when oppressive behaviour takes place.

Chairing a meeting can be a difficult task but when offence is taken it is a simple task to apologise and move on. However, such chairing has taken place before with complaints asking for the chair to ‘reflect on their behaviour’. The arguments involve a much wider issue of how UCU is run. UCU’s transformation wasn’t simply about a large number of new members joining the union for the first time. It was a process of change in the union that led to a whole new generation of new activists demanding control over THEIR union. Many of the officers running the committees simply react with hostility and bullying to the voices of activists reflecting and supporting these new views.

On more positive areas of discussion Jo McNeill raised a motion, passed unanimously, calling for the abolition of REF and opposing the recent REF guidance suggesting outputs from staff made redundant could be submitted by universities in their units of assessment.

The National Disputes Committee is also to be facilitated with bringing motions to Congress and will be expanded to include pre-92 reps when discussions over the pay equality, casualization and workloads campaign begins. This is all dependent upon the on-going ballot being successful. We have a week to ensure the ballot papers are returned and a successful vote for action takes place.

The pay inequality, casualisation and workloads ballot continues until 22nd February. Strike action is now being planned if the vote goes in favour of action and the threshold met. USS and TPS pension disputes could emerge if no agreement is made on contribution rates and benefits in both pension schemes. Motions from UCU Left members focused upon the need to ready members for ballots for industrial action of the pension schemes face cuts. This year’s pay and equality claim is still under discussion with the other unions.  Input from members included strengthening the equality pay gap element to include action to fully close the ethnicity, disability and intersectionality (multiple discrimination) pay gaps in addition to that on gender and strengthen the measures to move to fractional employment, including by ensuring that this does not lead to a loss of pay or jobs of currently hourly paid workers.

In combination with the delays resulting from this incident of patronising behaviour, poor chairing led to even more business than usual falling off the agenda.  This included motions from members on USS and emergency motions about protecting post-92 pensions, the financial improprieties and financial crisis at De-Montford University and supporting school students walking out against climate change.  These are all important issues.  The timing out of discussion of implementation of HE Sector Conference motions means that this issue has not yet been discussed by HEC and that elected members have been unable to fulfill their role of oversight of the implementation of motions from the union’s highest decision making body.  Important papers on anti-casualisation and academic-related professional staff could not be presented and one of pensions was rushed through in about three minutes.  This is not fair to the members of staff who have put a lot of time into compiling these papers and leads to the loss of input from elected members and the opportunity of discussion and answering questions.

HEC congratulated Queen Margaret University UCU on winning its dispute and defeating proposals for compulsory redundancies after one day of strike action.  Hopefully, this and other successes, including those in FE on pay, will be well publicised and encourage UCU members to take action where necessary and discourage and defeat management.

Posted on

UCU Left, USS and the importance of elected rank and file leadership

SuUCU London Demonstration (Pic: Guy Smallman)ccess has a thousand parents, failure is an orphan. That the 2018 USS dispute transformed UCU everyone in the union accepts. Similarly, it was the members – their enthusiasm and determination, and their knowledge that USS was a touchstone of the wider political problems arising from the gung ho tuition fee market in HE – that lead this transformation.

However, while no serious analysis of UCU’s historic strike dissents from these conclusions, there is less understanding of how this transformation was built in advance. The movement did not spontaneously erupt. It required leadership, perspective and organisation.

What was the role of leadership in UCU that created the circumstances for this transformation? “Leadership” is often a multifaceted and ambiguous concept, referring to official individual national leaders and those rank and file collectives within branches whose names and contribution are all too often ignored and forgotten. The latter are always the most important in the creation of a new transformative movement, but the role played by the former can – and in the USS case did – play a crucial role in the emergence of the movement prior to the rank and file gaining influence.

Similarly, while social media played a key mobilising and representation role once the dispute was up and running, social media was not a key feature in the origins of the strike. Again the role of rank and file activists at branch level needs to be emphasised.

Thus, while the most successful and influential social media platform USS Briefs began after the strike started, providing an important forum for critical discussion over the ideological questions determining the pension scheme valuation, day-to-day mobilisations arose from rank and file initiatives, and were championed by the existing rank and file network of UCU Left activists. As the strike developed, of course the doors opened and we saw networks and groups explode into action, from #NoCapitulation, #OurUCU and Branch Solidarity Network.

Yet “leadership” in the sense of a national leadership also played a crucially important role in the construction and development of the strike. The ballot for strike action was successful because of the role of activists, in UCU Left although often not under some ‘party banner’, carrying out a systematic agitational, educational and ideological campaign before, during and after the ballot.

Most of this was in the many dozens of talks and meetings organised by branches in which UCU Left USS negotiators spoke. But other examples include UCU Left NEC member Sean Wallis’ Made in Westminster piece for the HE Convention website, which first spelled out a perspective that is now universally accepted: that the origins of USS’s self-appointed ‘crisis’ lay in the war-of-all-against-all that is the HE marketplace, triggered, of course, by changes in Government Policy.

UCU Left consciously connected with activists amongst a much broader layer of the union in order to mobilise the membership for industrial action. But crucial to understanding this process was the central role played by UCU Left in acting as a catalyst around the attacks on the USS pension scheme. UCU Left members were negotiators, UCU Left NEC members and UCU Left branch activists who challenged the pessimism of those on the Right of the union. The Right’s views were and are characterised by a fatalism over their inability to prevent changes to the pension scheme and their rejection of industrial action as a mechanism for the mobilisation of the membership.

The politics of the Right can best be described as a kind of “partnership unionism”. This assumes that employers are prepared to genuinely negotiate, consult and change their mind even as they wield an axe over pay, jobs and pensions. Yet every activist in every university realises that such a perspective is frankly naive in the context of Higher Education marketisation and an assault on our members’ rights. Unless we mobilise our members to resist, our rights are forfeit.

UCU Left members had to develop an industrial action strategy that not only unified members but could provide the plausible route to win an industrial dispute of magnitude required to prevent the destruction of a UK wide pension scheme whilst challenging the hitherto dominant right wing’s approach.

In order to win the union to a proposal for serious escalating and sustained industrial action required an ideological argument within UCU among activists at Congress and branches which rejected the bureaucratically-controlled, tokenistic, and low-level industrial action which had been characteristic of previous UCU strikes. UCU Left members had to alert members early on about the risks to the pension scheme and in a piecemeal manner deconstruct the employers and USS political justification for a deficit. ‘No Detriment’ and  Made in Westminster reflected a culmination of a series of earlier debates linking the attempted deconstruction of a pension scheme to a political destruction of a public, collective higher education system and its replacement with a marketised, individualised, debt funded provision of services for fee-paying customers.

This was not easy. UCU Left members faced an onslaught of criticism aimed at undermining the chance to win a ballot and had to patiently but relentlessly challenge these right wing criticisms. Some of the most disgraceful troll-like behaviours of some on the Right were evident on union email lists and at every stage of the debate. ‘Inevitability’ and ‘unaffordability’ was the position posed by those who rejected industrial action as a means to defend the scheme. The divisions between the Right who control the union, and the Left who represented rank and file activists in branches, in the union started to reveal itself for the first time to wide layers of members in the union.

The divisions between the left and the right in the union did not end once a successful ballot vote was won. Instead these divisions were also reflected and intensified in the strike movement. While the strike is rightly remembered by those who took part with affection as a jubilant, inspirational time of their lives, it also proved to be stressful, as a rank and file leadership emerged struggling to challenge moves to undermine the strike! This was most evident in the two national meetings of branch delegates, the first of which on March 13 threw out the ACAS agreement, and the second on March 21, when the majority of the elected HEC leadership ignored the delegate’s meeting discussion and voted by ten to eight with one abstention to call off the action, and put the proposal for a Joint Expert Panel (JEP) to the membership.

At that second delegates meeting, #ReviseandResubmit was the activists’ will, not because proposals for a JEP were a “sellout”, but because the initiative driving a settlement came from the picket line. Wide layers of activists recognised that continuing the strike for any further length of time would have forced employers to collapse for fear of students being unable to take final exams.

But the Right on the HEC blinked first. HEC’s decision to ignore delegates’ views rescued employers from a humilating defeat and propelled the anger of branches into the UCU Congress. The bureaucratic manipulation of that Congress in May 2018 then laid out starkly the difference between the left and right in the union.

Where does this assessment leave us?

Abstention in these debates is not an option. These debates are at the heart of our ‘member-led union’. When a key decision has to be made in our union, we need a leadership in our union capable of taking hard decisions and backing the membership in action. UCU Left members on the HEC agreed to vote together in a disciplined manner throughout the dispute, but in particular at the most significant HEC in the USS strike’s history: to continue with the industrial action and #ReviseandResubmit the proposal for a JEP rather than end our dispute and cross our collective fingers. Just as the Right agreed to vote on bloc to halt the strike, a leadership willing to stand up for members is necessary to build a democractic, member-led union.

The vote at the specially-convened 21 March HEC (10 for ending the strikes, 8 against and 1 abstention) is illustrative of the balance of political forces in the national leadership of our union. Without an organised Left, willing to discuss positions, come to a collective view and vote accordingly to implement it, the dominance of the Right would have not simply ended the USS strike but would have prevented it in the first place.

Indeed, to Sally Hunt’s credit it was she who leaned on the Right of the HEC to make it clear she wanted the strikes to take place, pressuring them into voting for hard-hitting industrial action and opposing any watering down of the union’s demands on the employers. Of course, later on she was personally involved in negotiating the JEP and ending the dispute, but her initial intervention in favour of action should not be forgotten.

What the union needs is clear and consistent leadership not a vacillating bureaucracy. Voting for Jo McNeill in the election for Vice President is not just about voting for an individual. It is about voting for a different strategy than that offered by the trade union bureaucracy and its supporters, and a rank and file leadership that fights to take action in order to win. UCU Left members are activists who have openly declared their position for action, and crucially to coordinate to win key votes to ensure action goes ahead. This vote for Jo is a key vote for the democratic, member-led voices in UCU. Without activists such as Jo the USS strike would not have taken place.

Carlo Morelli USS negotiator and NEC

Posted on

NEC and HEC report November 2018

Corbyn speaking at final rally

The UCU NEC met last week on the run up to important pay strikes in six English FE colleges taking place this week, a successful Love FE demonstration at parliament, a major victory over pay in a merged London FE college and on the back of two important conferences in HE.

The NEC was thus meeting in the face of a series of important actual and potential disputes pushing back against the neo-liberal marketisation agenda of the Tories. It is clear that the transformation in UCU highlighted by the USS strikes is not confined to pre-92 HE. While there is no simplistic reading across from one dispute to another the underlying alienation and frustration across post-16 education is evident throughout the membership of the union. For the union leadership the key question is ‘how does it build the confidence and self-activity of the membership that can turn the frustration into a movement for change?’

A specially convened HEC was also held to discuss the votes for re-balloting of the membership in Higher Education in the New Year over casualisation, equal pay and workloads. UCU won a record turnout and record vote for industrial action in the recent ballot but was insufficient to beat the new Tory anti-union laws, but delegates at the special HE Sector Conference clearly understood the need to maintain the pressure and re-ballot members, after a sustained campaign over casualisation, equal pay and workloads. While proposals for balloting in March, meaning no action could take place during the Spring teaching semester UCU Left members argued to bring forward the ballot to allow for industrial action which could unite the union before teaching had finished. The UCU Left proposal was won by majority vote and HEC committed to launch a re-ballot from the 14th January to the 22nd February to allow for strike action through March.

However, elsewhere the weakness and self-defeatism of too many in the leadership is still far too evident. When the Tories are in self-flagellation mode it was quite remarkable that a minority of the NEC were not willing to vote for two motions, which reasserted UCU Congress policy, calling for a General Election. Fortunately, this minority represents little in our union and were a small voice on the NEC against the clear majority who voted to endorse calls for an immediate general election. Unfortunately, these views are still able to maintain a majority when it comes to other political questions within the union. Thus, while Matthew Hedges, a Durham University PhD student languished in a jail in UAE after being jailed for life, the majority of the NEC felt it acceptable to vote down an emergency motion to support his release for ‘procedural’ reasons. Why his jailers didn’t know the intricacies of the UCU Standing Orders is a mystery. Fortunately, for Matthew Hedges his pardon occurred despite the absurd behaviour of the majority of the NEC. The majority of the NEC’s behaviour would be a joke except that campaigns, such as Matthew’s and many others, need the backing of national trade unions and should not be stifled by ‘procedure’.

Jo McNeil, UCU Left candidate for Vice President in the forthcoming elections, won support for the dispute over performance management erupting at Liverpool University. This is now a dispute of national significance and in the run up to REF will act as a key testbed of industrial relations over the next few years.

Carlo Morelli