Author: Carlo Morelli

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Build the HE Pay Dispute

Get the Vote Out: Unite the sectors, reverse the pay decline – and make the pre-92 employers pay for USS

UCU Pay, Equality and Workloads Ballot — 30 August to 19 October

 

Following the extraordinary End the Gender Pay Gap - protest in London, HE strike 2016USS dispute, our union now has an opportunity to unite the HE sector over pay. If activists get behind this fight in the way that we did around USS in Pre-92 we can build the union and show that we are a force to be reckoned with across both parts of the sector.

It may be old fashioned for some, but activists should be clear: our strikes are part of a class struggle over the future of Higher Education, and our members – and non-members around us, who joined to participate in it – recognise this basic fact. A recent survey of branches involved in the USS dispute found that those with the strongest left leadership that took the firmest position against retreat, were also the branches whose membership grew the most – in some cases by over 50% in three months.

A proper national pay fight would be unfinished business for the new young and older members, from PhD students to young administrators, researchers and teaching fellows, who joined UCU in their tens of thousands during the USS dispute. Close to the breadline and a long way from their pension, they staffed our picket lines from Day 1. A pay fight would also address the gender pay gap and the bitterness created by horrendous workloads which were highlighted in the USS strikes. Now is the time to take up their fight – over pay, casualisation, inequality and workload – and show that UCU is the union they deserve.

In Pre-92, with the USS pension debate closeted in the JEP over the summer, starting a pay campaign might appear a diversion. It is the opposite. If we take this opportunity seriously, a strong Get the Vote Out campaign over pay can do two things. It will make clear we expect the employers to pay any increased contributions to USS (rising to 3.7% by April 2020, i.e. a pay cut). It will be a dress rehearsal for Round 2 of USS campaign in the Autumn term should the JEP fail to move the position of the USS ‘deficit’.

In post-92 it can halt the crisis emerging over jobs and workloads arising from the market for student fees. There is a jobs massacre concentrated in Post-92 (London Met, Man Met, Westminster…) but also spreading to Pre-92 (Manchester, Liverpool…). Brexit looms over the market madness that sees superb Post-92 courses unfilled and lecturers sacked, while students flock to the Pre-92 down the road. This market madness means any grace is temporary, and no job is safe. The need for a pay fight that can unite the sector on our terms cannot be understated.

We must stand together, staff and students, to defend Higher Education as a public good, with staff paid properly, and pensions that won’t mean poverty in retirement.

Doorstep arguments for pay

  • We need to catch up. Our pay has fallen by some 14% against RPI since August 2008 – the last time we had a proper pay increase. Against CPI, which takes no account of housing costs – as if university staff did not pay rent or mortgages! – we have had a pay cut well over 10%. This is equivalent to working for free for more than a month. For the lowest paid, this scale of pay cut is the difference between making ends meet and living on credit and food banks.
  • We need to keep up. The present pay offer of 2% (with a slightly larger increase for the very lowest paid) represents a pay cut of between 0.2% and 1.2% against the ONS projections of inflation for August (CPI and RPI respectively).
  • In Pre-92, if USS cost-sharing is imposed, members of that scheme will be on a steep and costly slope to paying more. We will pay 0.8% more this April, rising to 2.4% in October 2019, and with 3.7% being paid from April 2020 onwards. A ‘mere’ 0.2% pay cut against CPI will be a 4% cut. Only if we fight over pay can we make the employers pay for their actions.
  • The employers can afford to pay up. For thirty years until 2008, universities paid ‘cost of living’ increases roughly coinciding with inflation. They recorded tiny surpluses – around £150m pa in total. After the government introduced £9K student fees, sector surpluses shot up, to the current £1-2bn pa. Using HESA figures for 2016/17, £1.1bn split equally between 420,000 staff is about £2.5K each. £2bn brings our pay back to 2008 levels. The money is there to meet the pay claim of 7.5% in full.
  • Not fighting over pay encourages market madness. The employers are spending their surpluses on speculative expansion in competition with each other. We are seeing the outcome of this speculation in the current crisis in post-92. Forcing them to pay staff properly would help curb this speculation – it would help us defend HE against the market madness.
  • Every vote counts. Whichever way members intend to vote, it is essential that every member participates. The Tories’ anti-democratic anti-union laws mean that 50% of members must vote for the ballot to have a legal effect. Even if members intend to vote No, make sure they vote.

Get the Vote Out, Starting Now

We need a ‘GTVO’ campaign in every branch to start as soon as possible. Start with a GTVO organising meeting for reps and members who want to get involved. Go through the arguments with members and plan a strategy. Ask members to focus on reminding colleagues in their own department. Ask members to inform the branch when they vote and keep an accurate list of who is still to vote. The main reason members don’t vote is simply because they forget to vote. So keep reminding them with regular communications. If they have lost their ballot paper they can ask for another one.

Get posters up everywhere across the college, and draft targeted messages to members – at least one a week reminding members to vote. Some teaching staff will get ballot papers sent to their department address, and may not pick them up until before the start of term. But they can vote earlier, if they ask for a replacement ballot paper sent to their home address.

Organise a branch meeting at the end of September at the start of the Autumn term, to prepare a Stage 2 mass campaign. Organise meetings in departments and buildings ensuring that members in off-site institutes are able to attend.

The vote closes on 19 October, which means paper ballots should be in the post by 16 October to be safe.

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Submission to Joint Expert Panel on USS by Carlo Morelli

European Pension Regulation: The ending of retirement and the political economy of USS

Dr. Carlo Morelli

Senior Lecturer Economics and UCU JNC negotiator, University of Dundee, Dundee,
Email: c.j.morelli@dundee.ac.uk

European Union and the end of Defined Benefit pension provision

The European Union, through the European Commission (COM), has created a framework to ensure the harmonising of retirement across the EU involving a levelling down of pension provision to deal with the low replacement rates of the working population. Rather than facilitate immigration into the EU the worsening of pension provision is explicitly identified as the means to address stagnating labour supplies in European economies. This has led to support for the raising the retirement age across the single market, restricting access to early retirement, supporting longer working lives and forcing women to work longer as a means to close the pension gap between men and women (COM, 2012, pp. 8-13). As the 2012 White Paper on pension reform An Agenda for Adequate, Safe and Sustainable Pensionsconcluded:

‘We need a more European approach to tackling challenges to pension systems, in line with successive conclusions of the European Council which have called for closer economic policy co- ordination. It is now time to act and to implement in a decisive manner the actions put forwardin this White Paper.’ (COM, 2012, p. 15).

As part of these changes to retirement a single market for Private Pension Plans (PPP) has been a stated goal in which pension provision can be made portable as labour moves across national boundaries. The development of a European market for non-guaranteed Defined Contribution (DC) pensions has therefore been progressed through the regulatory body the European Insurance and Occupation Pension Authority (EIOPA). The ending of guaranteed Defined Benefit (DB) pensions is an explicit requirement for this approach. Rather than encouraging guaranteed pensions as a means to secure a retirement free from poverty DB, guaranteed pensions, are in this view seen as an impediment to this new market for pensions. As made evident in the EIOPA 2013 report Towards an EU single market for personal pensions An EIOPA Preliminary Report to COM, on potential changes the ‘main rationale’ for launching the initiative on personal pensions included the need to ‘adapt the regulatory framework to the general shift towards individual responsibility for securing retirement income (DB to DC)’. (para 3,p.4). However, one of the main limitations was the continuation of guaranteed pensions. Thus: ‘Moststakeholders do not think that it is feasible to create a cross border framework for PPPs with guarantees (2013, para 205, p. 42 original emphasis). Differences in tax legislation and contract law across EU states involve higher costs, and hence lower profits, for pension companies engaging in insurance type guaranteed pension transfers and therefore make capital transfers a less desirable activity. As EIOPA note it is ‘costly for insurance companies and might in consequence hinder them from offering their products on a cross border basis’ (2013, para 16, p.33). In contrast however, for non- guaranteed DC pension provision EIOPA concluded that ‘EIOPA believes a strong case is made for afuture Directive that would establish a single market for PPPs inter alia through the alignment across theEU of PPP holder protection measures.’ (2013, para 221, p.45). For pension companies non-guaranteed, individual pension savings allow for capital transfers, across national boundaries between organisations, due to the lack of future risk to those institutions receiving the capital transfer. It also facilitates increases in profits for transfers through additional commissions and charges. In the single market for pensions under construction non-guaranteed pensions result in investment risk, higher charges and longevity risk all being borne by the individual not the pension company.

This evolving European framework for pension provision has therefore been a significant factor in the reinforcing of the drive towards the replacement of DB pensions with DC pensions. The DC pension market is a market where high commissions and profits can be created, at the expense of the individual seeking a secure future pension. In the UK this process has been underway for more than two decades and has been developed through the creation of artificial deficits. A key component in this process of constructing deficits has been through the choice of discount rates. In the UK particularly, conservative discount rates have been chosen to value long term pension sustainability as a means to motivate the change from DB to DC.

Discount rates

European Union regulations require pension schemes to undertake valuations with a long term horizon to assess their funding position. This includes ensuring remedial action is in place to resolve any funding shortfalls. However, the exact form which this valuation takes and specifically the choice of discount rate is nationally determined. As a result a range of methodologies for setting the discount rate is evident. The UK can be identified as an outlier in approach taken to discount rate determination for its pension scheme valuations, across the European Union, whose effect is to exaggerate the extent to which a notional deficit of liabilities over assets may exist. The UK has a strong bias towards valuations based upon risk free forms of asset (see figure 3.4 below).

page3image535361440

Source: European Insurance and Occupation Pension Authority (2017). Stress Test Report 2017, EIOPA- Bos-17/370, 13 December 2017 Frankfurt, Germany: EIOPA. Figure 3.4.

Decision on the discount rate is then the main driver of any surplus/deficits of assets over liabilities. Note again the UK with one of the highest deficits of assets to liabilities has amongst the most conservative discount rate in the EU (see figure 3.15 below). As EIOPA, note ‘this is mainly caused’(2017, p. 27) by changes in the discount rate and resulted in the UK having the third lowest number of open DB schemes in the EU, behind Italy and Ireland (2017, Figure 3.19, para 99, p. 29).

page3image535426448page3image535426720

page4image533901152

Source: European Insurance and Occupation Authority (2017). Stress Test Report 2017, EIOPA-Bos-17/370, 13 December 2017 Frankfurt, Germany: EIOPA. Figure 3.15. 

Summary

European Union regulation is a driving force for the closure of the DB schemes, not for financial reasons of sustainability or affordability but, for reasons of market accessibility by pension and insurance companies. European citizens’ security in retirement is being sacrificed for the interests of a Europeanwide insurance and pensions industry seeking to create an oligopolistic market structure and profit streams for the dominant firms that emerge. The UK, with a large private pensions plan industry, has been ahead of these developments leading the moves towards conservative discount rates, artificial deficits and closures of DB schemes.

USS choice of discount rates

Submissions to the JEP by UCU, Dennis Leech and others have all indicated the means by which the USS scheme has chosen specific discount rates which are legitimately suggested to be overly prudent. Again they have repeatedly demonstrated the durability of the DB scheme when using cash flow in an open scheme as a measure of its sustainability. As a result it is not necessary for this submission to the JEP to repeat those assessments. Except to say USS’s choice of assessment of Tests 1, 2 and 3, choice of negative real returns on investment and choice of valuing salary increases for liabilities at a higher level than salary increases for income (hence assets) into the scheme are all designed to present a picture of the long-term viability of the scheme in the worst possible light. These choices are, as described above, being determined not by issues of sustainability but of the institutional interests of insurance and pension companies in maximising potential opportunities for profits in new market environments as they emerge in the future. USS itself is not a small pension provider and instead is a one of the largest pension providers in the European Union. In acting to undermine its own DB scheme and replace it with a solely DC-based pension scheme it has an instrumental role in undermining guaranteed pension provision in the UK. As part of a wider European wide move to undermine retirement USS itself is well aware of the regulatory framework for European wide pension regulation. It is acting to facilitate the regulatory failure that will lead to impoverishment in retirement for pensioners generally and USS members specifically.

JEP

The Joint Expert Panel is being asked to consider the 2017 USS valuation. However, its deliberations have much wider political consequences than simply that of one pension scheme. UCU member’sindustrial action was aimed not simply at the defence of their own pensions but also a wider political defence of the higher education sector against the process of marketisation. Now JEP has an opportunity to similarly defend not simply the existence of one DB pension scheme but also influence the political debate over the future of DB schemes for many millions of workers across the European Union. This requires JEP to be bold in its defence of the future of DB schemes but starts with a small step – challenging the valuation approach taken by USS. I would urge JEP to ensure it takes this step and clearly places itself in defence of European workers not of European bankers, insurance and pension scheme managers.

Bibliography:

COM, (2012). An Agenda for Adequate, Safe and Sustainable Pensions, February Brussels, European Commission, 55 final. Available at European Insurance and Occupation Pension Authority, (2013). Towards an EU single market for personal pensions An EIOPA Preliminary Report to COM, Frankfurt, Germany. 

European Insurance and Occupation Pension Authority, (2017). Stress Test Report 2017, EIOPA-Bos- 17/370, 13 December 2017 Frankfurt, Germany: EIOPA. Figure 3.4.

Submission to JEP Carlo Morelli

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Calling all Conference Delegates in pre-92… USS National Dispute Committee election

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Calling all Conference Delegates in pre-92… USS National Dispute Committee election

UCU Left is encouraging people to vote for the following candidates for USS Dispute Committee

  1. Tim Wilson (University of Dundee)
  2. Gholam Khiabany (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  3. Karen Evans (University of Liverpool)
  4. Jo Grady (University of Sheffield)

The deadline is 12 noon on 6 September.  All delegates from pre-92 branches to Congress and the June special HE sector conference are entitled to vote.

*Look for the email from Kay Metcalfe through ‘surveygizmo’with the subject line “Ballot: USS National Dispute Committee”. If you attended Congress, are from a pre-92 university and have not received your ballot please let Kay know by emailing her directly (kmetcalfe@ucu.org.uk).

What is the USS National DIspute Committee?

During the USS strikes, UCU called ‘branch delegate meetings’. But members who attended could not vote and the status of these meetings was extremely opaque. Real decisions were made by the HEC. This led to a serious crisis of accountability for UCU.

The aim of the original USS Strike (now ‘Dispute’) Committee motion was simply to put branch delegate meetings on a constitutional footing, as a type of Special HE Sector Conference (HESC). This would mean that they could take binding decisions. However, the Right on the HEC voted to interpret the motion, one that stipulated that the Dispute Committee would be made up of all members of HESC, as one that would be made up of a small subset of elected members of HESC!

Hence these elections.

This is not an election process that the supporters of the motion (UCL, Goldsmiths and Sheffield among others) sought. The structure of the Committee in future could be revised by a motion heard at the next HESC.

But this ballot is important nonetheless.

Please circulate this email to your Congress and HESC branch delegates.

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Higher Education Committee (HEC) report of meeting 29th June 2018

 

UCU Congress 2018 Voting

Pay

The successful consultative pay ballot of members demonstrated 82% rejection on a 48% turnout and 65% for extended strike action. HEC voted to initiate an industrial action ballot from August through September ending in early October. A pay campaign over pay casualisation, pay inequality and workloads has the potential to galvanise the membership across both pre- and post-92 universities. This is a record turnout for an e-consultation on pay for the union. The strength of feeling over these issues can be gauged by the report that only one branch in the whole of the UK (a very small branch in a university where UCU does not have recognition agreement) voted to accept the offer.

While real ballots result in higher turnouts, and despite such a high vote in the e-consultation, there is a need to avoid complacency and instead work to ensure branches mobilise around the Get the Vote Out Campaign. Debate at HEC ensured that the ballot will not start until the end of August and continue into October with escalating and sustained strike action in November unless there is a major improvement in the pay offer being made. Pay briefing meetings in the devolved nations and regions with a Special HE Sector Conference in September are also being planned.

Pensions

UCU has agreed to timetable a Special HESC when the JEP reports, which will be empowered to take the dispute forwards. It is possible that not a lot will happen over the summer. And in practice the Special HESC can vote to reinstate a proper dispute committee (see section on democracy below), composed proportionate to branch size and with voting and decision-making capacities, at that time. The latest statement from the JEP can be found here.

Casualisation

A motion on casualised pension rights was discussed by HEC. The discussion reflected the increasing profile of casualised issues within UCU.  The success of the USS dispute particularly helped to raise the wider issues of marketisation, equalities, and casualisation and to galvanise members on picket lines and in teach outs. An obvious disparity highlighted by the USS fight is that many casualised members and lower paid permanent members cannot access pension rights or cannot afford to pay for pensions.  Added to this their contributions are often recorded inaccurately or there are gaps. They often work in two or more institutions across the sectors and can rarely afford to retire. Yet they stood in solidarity with their permanent colleagues fighting for a different kind of higher education system.

Now casualised members are calling for union wide solidarity and a resolve from their UCU brothers and sisters to fight for pension rights for workers on all types of contracts in both sectors. This motion sought to get this issue on the table and for a union wide conversation to be had on pension rights for casualised workers. Though it was agreed that welfare benefits are also an important issue we resolved to focus on pension rights. HEC agreed to ask the Education committee to table a speaker on casualisation and pensions at the Cradle to Grave conference; that there would be a meeting held  ACC would discuss pension provision across HE and that we would do some work, with resources, to enable UCU to provide specialist guidance to branches. This was supported by the whole HEC and passed unanimously.

Now for the less good parts of the HEC

Motions not discussed

A number of important motions were not discussed due to running out of time:

  1. Business School workloads, partly motivated by a tragic death due to overwork
  2. Practical proposals for implementing a sector conference motion on military and industrial research: there is increasing pressure to get research funding and concerns by many members about ethical issues.
  3. Victimisation of striking members in the USS dispute; one of the remitted motions from the recent sector conference and there is great concern by the branch. UCU has transformed.  We cannot allow victimisation.
  4. Resisting the far right and supporting Black and ethnic minority students, motivated by a Black member pointing out the serious discrimination experienced by Black PhD students.
  5. UUK visit to Egypt, motivated by discussion on the activists’ list and concern that links with other countries need to be ethical and UUK did nothing when Guilio Regeni was tortured and murdered.
  6. Funding UCU casualised workers to attend a joint union training and funding a banner and placards for a joint union anti-casualisation march. This is motivated by the experiences of casualised workers and would be important in supporting our pay campaign and making other unions aware of the particular experiences of casualised workers in HE and FE.

Papers

Important papers on precarious work and workload were presented, but there was no time for discussion.  Equally important papers on the rate for the job and how sector conference motions will be implemented were not even presented.

Improved organisation of meetings

Both HEC and NEC are experiencing serious problems in getting through the agenda.  Members’ motions regularly fall of the agenda.  As indicated above, these are often vitally important issues which are brought by NEC members, often in response to concerns from branches.  They are therefore part of how elected members are accountable and respond to grassroots concerns.  There are views that this is deliberate.  Whether or not this is the case, it is of the utmost importance to ensure this does not happen in the future.  Positive changes could include moving members’ motions much earlier in the agenda, limiting the number of speakers on an issue (on a for and against basis, as at Congress, and possibly also neither) and providing a written list of the items motions are assigned to rather than spend half an hour discussing this.

UCU Democracy

Another frustrating day saw the dead weight of the majority HEC members around the so-called ‘Independent Broad Left’ (IBL) and bureaucracy trying to overturn Higher Education Sector Conference (HESC) decisions on transparency and democracy. The right wing of the HEC (IBL) decided that the HESC motion which called for the setting up of a national strike/dispute committee with representatives elected on the same basis as the HESC formula (so retaining proportionality to branch size) really meant that HESC delegates should elect a subset of their number as the dispute committee.

The entire motion was written because of defects of Branch Consultation Meetings which had no standing in the union rules, and no voting powers. These defects were made explicit for the entire union to see on March 23rd 2018, when infamously no vote was taken on putting the UUK offer to members. As a result members are still arguing about what different branches’ positions were on that day.

The solution, enshrined in motion HE13 (copied in the Appendix below), was a voting assembly of members proportionate to branch size. This is the same method for electing delegates to the Higher Education Sector Conference, which is enshrined in rules. The idea was to duplicate that structure, but eliminate some of the bureaucractic encumberances.

The IBL voted against this and argued that “composed of” did not mean “composed of all”. The IBL did this because the last two HESCs have voted overwhelmingly for motions that the IBL do not approve of. Members voted for transparency and accountability of the JEP, but also of the union’s structures. They argued for more democracy not less.

Appendix

HE13  Composite: USS dispute: national dispute committee – University College London, Goldsmiths University of London. 

HESC notes:

  1. the reaction of USS branches to the March 12 ‘agreement’ demonstrated that members want a resolution which protects Defined Benefit pensions now and in the future
  2. concerns from many branches and members about the processes concerning the consultative ballot on the USS offer of 23rd March
  3. the lack of transparency about the role of UCU negotiators in the USS negotiations and the lack of opportunities to hold union representatives to account
  4. members feel disempowered nationally, compared to the high level of ownership they feel in relation to the dispute locally
  5. while some aspects of negotiations are confidential, to maintain a sense of ownership of the dispute among the membership and to maintain members’ resolve to take industrial action, members must know how negotiations are progressing.

HESC resolves to establish a national USS dispute committee composed of HESC delegates (or substitutes) from USS branches, to which national negotiators and UCU Independent Expert Panel members will report. This committee will meet at regular intervals until the dispute is officially terminated and will give a representative steer to the dispute for the current valuation round, including during any suspension or re-ballot.

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USS: Keep Up the Pressure

#UCUtransformed meeting (1 of 1)

USS: Keep Up the Pressure

Don’t give the JEP wriggle-room to impose cuts. Don’t let UCU leaders grab defeat from the jaws of victory

Today’s Special Higher Education Sector Conference represents a watershed moment for UCU in a dispute that has transformed our union. Nearly half of all USS branches passed calling motions for today’s conference in order to hold our leadership to account. Why did the USS dispute end the way it did? How do we prepare to restart it if the current settlement reached unravels?

But first we have to note the success we have achieved to date. The USS strike was caused by the employers and USS seeking to drive through the marketisation of HE by ripping up of the USS covenant and shifting future pension risk onto employees. They wanted to abolish the principle of mutual sharing of pension risk, which individual VCs and Finance Managers perceive as an important ‘competitive restriction’ to the breakup of a collective HE sector.

That attempt has been defeated by our strike action. The USS covenant remains one of the major impediments to runaway privatisation and fragmentation of HE. Universities will continue to be limited in their ability to raise debt on their balance sheets. The greatest legacy of our strike is likely to be the protection of a relatively unified HE sector, at the very least, impeding the rise of the market for university education in the UK.

#UCUTransformed

Everyone in the union also knows about the transformation of UCU, even if the IBL-controlled NEC and General Secretary don’t welcome the vibrancy of the union that comes with it. In the USS pension scheme, we have not simply protected our benefits until April 2019 but, with USS resisting any further changes until April 2020, our benefits (but not our contributions) will probably be protected for two years at least. Similarly, the Joint Expert Panel (JEP) and the employers are fully aware that any final settlement must be ‘equivalent’ to our existing pension. The infamous March 19 ACAS ‘deal’, with a salary cap of £42K with CPI inflation limited to 2.5% is far from that.

The major lesson of all of this is that escalating, sustained national strike action succeeds because members can be mobilised to defend their pensions as part of a wider fight for equality and education.

The battle we face

While the Defined Contribution scheme is now formally withdrawn, other ‘risk-sharing options’ can come back in other forms. Meanwhile USS are insisting that if we want our Defined Benefit pension scheme to remain we will have to pay large increases in contributions: 3.7% for us and 6.7% for our employers.

We could have got much more and won this strike completely. Instead we now have a JEP, whose outcome is ill-defined, with USS and UUK still seeking to bring in cost increases or cuts to benefits through the back door.

USS and UUK are now seeking to ensure discussions are behind closed doors and remain confidential. JEP members have signed non-disclosure agreements and the UCU USS negotiators are going to be asked to do the same. Let us be clear: confidentiality is not to protect commercial secrets it’s a method to allow the JEP to concoct a further dreadful settlement as a fait accompli. We’ve been here before, and members aren’t willing to accept it. It is no accident that so many of today’s motions cover the issue of transparency.

During the strikes, USS’s secrecy has worked in our favour – members have learned not to trust USS apparatchiks and their press releases about the so-called ‘deficit’. But now members reasonably expect the JEP to represent a new era of transparency and accountability for USS decision-making. If they are disappointed, it should be despite the efforts of UCU representatives. And it should be a further reason to strike in the Autumn to defend USS if this proves necessary.

Commentary on motions

Most of the motions are positive and should be supported. For example Motion 16 seeks to increase accessibility and maintenance of benefits to casualised staff. There are a number of motions on the transparency of the JEP and to support the opportunity for members to make submissions to it. This reflects a groundswell towards the presumption of transparency. Motion 15 calls for the CEO of USS Bill Galvin to resign.

Some motions are more problematic. Motion 10 should be taken in parts. Asking for a breakdown of the vote is to provide ammunition to the employers. Motion 1 should be opposed and Motion 12 supported instead. While the idea behind Motion 1 is fair, Sector Conference in May voted for regular reporting to a national dispute committee constituted from HESC delegations from USS branches, which Motion 12 seeks to refine. Motion 19 weakens recent Congress policy on status quo so is unhelpful.

Finally there are motions on the role of post-92 reps and members in the USS dispute. There is a ‘convention’, the premise of which is that reps do not vote on disputes they would not be lawfully balloted for in an industrial action ballot. So the convention is important, and it is Right retired members that have ignored it in the past. That said, there is a strong moral case for staff with a stake in the scheme to have some say, especially casualised and hourly paid staff who may be compelled to move between pre and post 92 sectors.

Motion 14 from Brighton should be supported, but motion 13 just overturning the convention should be opposed. As written, this would permit FE branches with a single ex-university staff member to vote! Nationally-elected NEC officers (including from FE) would be entitled to vote. This motion should be opposed.

Congress Motions 10 and 11

The elephant in the room is the failure of Congress to discuss motions 10 and 11, on no-confidence and censure of the General Secretary. With UCU JEP members signing NDAs and pressure on SWG representatives to do likewise, some of the motions we discuss risk being undermined by secret negotiations. Accountability is an essential principle for UCU to be able to lead members out on strike in the Autumn if this proves necessary.

We need a democratic and transparent union not just because democracy and transparency are essential qualities in themselves, but because a leadership that does not maintain the trust of members cannot lead.

 

Open Meeting for delegates – called by UCU Left

Join the debate – where next for the USS dispute – how do we keep up the pressure?

Thursday 11:30am, Kings House Conference Centre, Seminar Room 5

 

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Another Education is Possible, Spring 2018: The casualised – at the heart of the union

The Casualised – at the heart of the Union.

Christina Paine

UCU is in transformation through grassroots organisation for the USS and FE strikes. We saw an unprecedented mobilisation of precariously employed workers on those snow-bound picket lines, leading teach-outs and debates about democracy and representation through tweets and Facebook posts. Most of these hourly paid lecturers, researchers or GTA’s have little pension to depend on or fight for. They risk losing teaching next year simply for taking strike action or holding union office.

Yet, in 2018 these workers, following several years of sustained activism and publicity by activists in UCU, were fighting for something bigger. The USS dispute – where the younger workers clearly have the most to lose – has mobilised a new generation buoyed up by collective fights against the rampant marketization of the sector, the TEF and REF and the contempt shown for academic and related staff through the systemic devaluing of pensions and job security.

Why have the voices of the casualised become louder on UCU committees and picket lines? Have casualised staff only just gained consciousness of their exploitation? Do they only feel now they can have a voice that can be meaningfully exercised? Has UCU only recently started to recognise the mechanisms which enforce the two-tier system in our institutions, significantly propped up by the oppression of the young and female and black workers on low pay and precarious conditions? All these reasons are somewhat accurate. But what has changed is that the UCU membership has realised anew that our strength is always in our capacity for collective action. An important tide has turned in UCU. Now, more than ever, casualised workers say they want to see a collective fight over their working conditions by all UCU members; a fight for decent secure jobs and pensions for all.

The problem

54% of HE academic staff and 30% of FE staff are employed on insecure contracts. Fixed-term contracts are the predominant form of employment for early to mid-career staff in higher education. The increase in precarious work drives down pay and conditions for all staff. No wonder UCEA, the national negotiating body for employers in HE, refuses to commit to action on the precariat. Remedying the conditions of these workers would require fundamental overhaul of the system, one maintained on inequality and exploitation, poverty and worsening mental health. But, worse than poor working conditions is the reality of broken careers and lives. Many highly qualified lecturers struggle to stay in their chosen profession while others leave and seek alternative careers. Being casualised can make you feel undeserving and worthless. After all we ask – why can’t I get that career break that everyone else gets?

Providing casualised work is a political choice and cannot be divorced from other detriments to workers under capitalism. Invisible labour, such as marking, preparation, meetings and pastoral work exacerbates exploitation. Central too is the heavy concentration of women and black workers in the lower quartiles of pay and on casualised contracts. This exacerbates the gender pay gap and affects choices about whether to have children. It also fuels the silence over the high incidence of sexual harassment in our institutions as casualised women fear losing work for speaking out.

UCU in Transformation

UCU cannot go back to what it was. With 24,000 new members, many of them young PhD students, new questions are being asked about our democratic processes, representation of members and the accountability of the NEC.

Following the USS strike action, what can we do to support newer casualised members to take a full role in the union? Clearly, we need all members to work together to step up the fight. The voices of the casualised must be heard and acted upon.

It is about equality and fairness. Casualised reps are calling for a more progressive subs system where those who earn more pay more, thus decreasing the burden on lower paid members. Lack of facility time is a massive issue. It impedes self-determined representation of casualised staff.  We call for decent facility time for all reps.

Language matters. Casualised workers need to be central to the struggle to reframe our colleges and universities. Language should include us:  Indeed even the term ‘casualisation’ does not really describe the multiple kinds of workers propping up our colleges and universities rather ‘precarious workers’ best describes the multiple forms of worker involved in post 16 education. It is also essential that we involve all university workers in disputes and make adjustments of hardship finances so they can do so without poverty and losing their future work. We need to build solidarity between all university workers, including cleaners and security guards, and we need to be more inclusive in our publicity and conferences and give all members a representative voice in our campaigns.

Communication mechanisms should allow NEC casualised reps to communicate with their specific constituencies. Training and mentorship for new reps built from successful local campaigns can help to overcome some of the inherent difficulties precarious staff face often through simply not being included in departmental activities or in the structures of our Union. Claims for fractional contracts need to be tabled in all branches and led by casualised workers and we need to build strong local action in branches to galvanise a national dispute on pay and conditions of work.

The time is now! We can use open days to publicise the impact of casualisation on our students. We can shame institutions in the press. We can table anti-casualisation claims in our institutions. But, above all we need to galvanize members to take industrial action supported by our permanent colleagues. We need a national strike to challenge the scandal of precarious labour. As we move into the new HE pay claim landscape, we must use the momentum and militancy we have built in recent disputes, to create strong branches and local campaigns which will feed into the national pay dispute. We want permanent staff to put their significant weight behind their casualised brothers and sisters collectively to take industrial action to end casualisation.

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Another Education is Possible, Spring 2018, How the USS negotiations and dispute developed

Hoe the USS negotiations and dispute developed 

Marion Hersh

Is there a deficit?

Think of a pension scheme with an enormous black hole deficit.  Of course, USS.   But wait a moment,  USS assets increased 12.2% from £60 to £67 billion last year, whereas its liabilities only went up by 2.4%. The deficit is supposed to be 7.1 billion, So, hasn’t this massive increase in assets wiped out the deficit?  But what about the increase in the cost of future contributions and short term reliance and …  Something strange is happening here.  By any real standards USS is doing really well – it has a positive cash flow, very high rates of return and a growing membership, with over 190 thousand active members paying money into the scheme.  However, the USS Executive seems determined to show that there is enormous deficit which will require draconian measures and the poverty of many members into old age in order to eradicate it.

The Valuation

USS is legally required to carry out a valuation every three years.  This involves a snapshot of the situation on 31 March 2018 with a statutory requirement to complete the valuation process and the associated decisions on benefits and contributions within 15 months i.e. by 30 June 2018.  This is a mathematical modelling process involving considerably uncertainty.  The choice of assumptions and model is critical and political and ideological factors as well as technical ones affect the decisions made (Meadows et al., 1972).

Unfortunately, the implicit aim of the USS valuation seems to be based on showing that a profitable and successful scheme is experiencing serious problems and requires drastic measures to resolve them.  The approach is designed for a single employer which could go bankrupt tomorrow rather than large stable and financially and otherwise well-established sector comprising 68 universities, some of which are very large, several hundred small employers and 190 thousand active members paying money into the scheme.  The issue of all these employers simultaneously withdrawing from the scheme is not really relevant.  Similarly, bankruptcy is unlikely other than in the case of total economic collapse, for instance due to catastrophic climate change, yet  here USS has not accepted the need for an ethical investment policy.  Finally, large numbers of employers withdrawing simultaneously other than due to bankruptcy is unlikely, as this would require them to make large payments to USS to cover their liabilities, not to mention  the impact on their prestige and positions in league tables etc.

Everything we do involves risk.  Many universities are involved in a number of large and relatively risky construction projects.  Therefore, there is a certain amount of real risk associated with USS, however, this risk is relatively small.   In contrast there is also an excessive amount of risk associated with USS’s model and this is leading to very reduced estimates of assets and inflated estimates of liabilities.  This reckless prudence has also led to proposals for derisking, or investment in gilts (government bonds), which are allegedly very stable and low risk (this is highly questionable), but have very low rates of return.  Thus instead of a potential rate of return of probably in excess of 12.2%, income would artificially be driven down to CPI–0.5% (currently about 2.9%).  It should be noted that the 9% difference in rates of return is close to the estimate additional costs that members and employers allegedly need to pay to maintain current benefits?  Would it not be more sensible to allow the very highly expert and exorbitantly paid investment managers time to do their best work rather than artificially reduce revenue through derisking?  Another area needlessly affected by reckless prudence is Deficit Recovery Contributions (DRCs).  It is generally accepted, including by USS Executive, that derisking increases the deficit and therefore also deficit recovery contributions.  Getting rid of derisking could also remove the need for DRCs.  On the other hand, deriskiing and high DRCs lead to an increase in deficit, resulting in a need for even higher DRCs and more derisking, resulting in a negative spiral and destruction of a successful pension scheme.

Time Line in the USS dispute

September Technical Provisions released showing £5.3b deficit

19 October 2018: result of consultative ballot – 55.8% turnout, 86.6% prepared to take industrial action.

November Technical Provisions released showing £7.5b deficit

14th December:  Employers table proposals to move to 100% DC

18 and 19 December: minor victory for UCU – employers agree not to table DC proposal; UCU agree not to table an alternative proposal for £50 K threshold and 1/80 accrual rate.

22 January:  UCU industrial action ballot result – we have beaten the thresholds.

23 January:  Independent’ chair votes in favour of UUK DC proposal

5 February: First USS JNC after vote for UUK proposals

22 February: First day of 14-day strike action – mass pickets!!!

27 February: Informal talks with employers, UCU presents 10-point proposal for settling the dispute – UUK positive response to last 5 points about the future, not very willing to look at 5 points on present valuation.

5-12 March:  ACAS Talks with UUK

12 March: proposal 42K, 1/85 accrual, 2.5% inflation capping, proposal for expert panel to look at valuation issues

13 March: branch meeting followed by HEC, mass lobby of HEC.  Branch meeting very strongly rejects the ACAS proposal; HEC agrees to continue the action and contact branches about best dates for further industrial action to affect exams and marking prior to notifying employers.

UUK agrees to suspend consultation on DC proposal.

16 March: Last day of main period of 14 day UCU strike action – mass pickets, support from students, leadings role of GTAs and casualised staff throughout.

23 March: UUK proposal presented to SWG as a possible way of resolving the dispute.  This has been discussed by officials with UK.  It  involves an expert panel to evaluate and make proposals on the valuation.  It initially looks good, but on reflection is a rewrite of the rejected proposal without the £42K part.

23 March UUK proposal made public

28 March branch meeting followed by HEC:  Agreement that the approach involving an expert panel has potential, but concerns about the details have not be specified and could therefore go majorly wrong.  No vote on outcome.  Probably the majority feeling was to revise or clarify and resubmit, but HEC agreed to an immediate ballot.

19 April  E-ballot agreed to accept the UUK proposal and to suspend, but not end industrial action.

27 April: HEC agreed that the JEP should have three UCU (and three UUK) members and that SWG should be responsible for choosing UUC members and agreeing the chair.

27 April:  JNC unanimously agreed to withdraw DC proposal – major victory for UCU, as a result of industrial action, but still a lot of work to do.

The Different Proposals

  Defined Benefit cap £ Accrual Inflation capping Valuation
Employers DC 0K n/a n/a n/a
UCU £50K 50K 1/80 10% n/a
ACAS 42K 1/85 2.5% Independent valuation review by expert panel with independent chair – inform next valuation
UUK JEP n/a n/a n/a Joint expert panel, non-voting chair evaluate valuation, change the result of this valuation
USS rule 76.4 55.5K 75th 5% and half increase of any further inflation from 5-15% upto 10% max November valuation and cost sharing increases in contributions

Current benefits are based on a hybrid scheme with defined benefits (DB) up to a threshold of £55,500 and defined contributions (DC) beyond that.  Inflation proofing increases as CPI up to 5% and then 0.5% for each 1% increase up to 10% for 15% inflation.   The table above summarises the main features of the various proposals made to date.  Reductions in accrual rate affect all members, particularly lower paid members, whereas reductions in threshold only affect higher paid members.  Inflation is already above 2.5%.  Since the effect of inflation capping is multiplicative over a number of years, the effect of further inflation capping could prove disastrous if, as is likely, inflation remains above 2.5%.

The employers DC proposal is clearly the worst. Its disadvantages including significant reductions in benefits.  In addition, DB makes it much easier to plan for retirement, as you know high much pension you will be getting.  This is not possible with DC, as the pension you receive is dependent on the market.  This becomes particularly problematical with derisking, which artificially reduces rates of return.  Therefore, members could potentially put off retirement for several years in the hope of market improvement.  A move from DB to DC also transfers the risk from employers to members and while doing so makes model risk into real risk.  Therefore, rather than employers facing minimal risks, probably lower than those associated with their other financial activities, due to the size of the scheme, members have individual investment pots and therefore face very real risks of a significant reduction in pensions.

Despite the significant disadvantages in reduced benefits and increased contributions of the £50K UCU offer, making an offer within the November technical provisions was the right move in December and January, as it showed willingness to negotiate.  It was also a means to hold the UCU side with its different perspectives on what was achievable together and definitely much better than the £30K threshold and 1/80 or 1/85 accrual rate that some of negotiators considered the likely outcome.  In the event of this proposal receiving the chair’s casting vote, the employers would have been very eager to reduce their contributions to the current 18% through changes to the valuation framework.

However, the successful strike action with mass pickets changed the situation and meant that we were in a position to demand something better.  In addition, the UCU proposal had been rejected by UUK, so we were not tied to it, just because we had already presented it once.  Unfortunately, not all the negotiating team agree with this perspective and there were subsequent references to reintroducing this proposal.

The ACAS proposal was somewhere between the UCU 50 K and UUK DC proposals and so probably seemed a reasonable outcome to ACAS.  However, this ignores the facts that the 50 K proposal is already a significant reduction from the status quo and that the only reason for making changes is the flawed valuation approach.

The Joint Expert Panel for revising the valuation is potentially useful.  However, there are various potential weaknesses which led to the call for revise or clarify and resubmit.  In particular, the commitment to maintaining current DB benefits is not spelt out,

Negotiations

Negotiations are generally a team effort and to some extent we were able to use this to combine skills, maximise strengths and minimise weaknesses.  However, one of our major differences was on differing political/ideological views on whether we should be aiming at maintaining the status quo through attacks on the deficit, making the employers pay more (which would mean us also pay more) or reduce our expectations as to what was feasible.  We managed to maintain unity in the face of the employers, but doing this made it difficult to find a united position.   The strike action totally changed the dynamic of the negotiations and changed what was achievable and what we should be aiming for.  Unfortunately, this view was not shared by the whole team.

However, it is difficult to evaluate the impact of these factors on the outcome of the ACAS negotiations.  It is open to question what the outcome would have been if the whole negotiation team had been committed to no detriment and submitted a proposal showing how this could be achieved early in the ACAS process.

Industrial Action

The strength and unity of members as demonstrated in the strike action was the crucial factor.  Whatever we win will be as a result of it.  The strikes served as a focus for member anger and frustration, about the proposed slashing of their pensions, but not just on pensions.  The USS dispute also focused members’ rage at other linked issues, including marketisation, casualisation, equality, workload and bullying.

The picket lines saw many new members and first time pickets, given confidence to take action.  GTAs and other members on casualised contracts played a central role, though in may cases their abysmal pay meant that they themselves were not in receipt of a USS (or other) pension.  The support, particularly from students was amazing.

This action has transformed the union and we will continue to see the impacts.

Openness, Transparency and Accountability

There was an agreement with UUK and in SWG that negotiations would be totally confidentiality.  To this end the negotiators agreed not to post on the UCU activitists list and not to reveal the location of the ACAS talks.  A well-attended lobby of earlier informal talks had upset the employers.  However, there has been no real discussion of whether total confidentiality is really necessary for negotiations.  The employers’ reaction to the UCU lobby indicates that member awareness of what is going on and a member presence could change the dynamics of negotiation.  This would also make it clearer to negotiators what is and is not acceptable to members and could possibly put pressure on the employers to respond more in line with member expectations.

Until the rejection of the £42K offer by members there was at least transparency within the SWG and involvement of all available negotiators.  Following this rejection the process was taken over by the General Secretary.  While there is a role for informal discussions being initiated by the General Secretary, at some point, preferably early on, negotiators need to take over.  The UUK JEP proposal was presented to members without any involvement of negotiators with UUK.  The negotiators saw the proposal for the first after the end of the informal talks with UUK and a few minutes before the start of a conference call to agree putting it to HEC.  Similarly there was no negotiator or wider Superannuation Working Group (SWG) involvement in drawing up the terms of reference of the JEP.  This is problematical.  The process for electing negotiators was agreed by HE Sector Conference (HESC) and therefore negotiators are accountable to HESC and through it to the wider membership.  However, this accountability mechanism breaks down when negotiators are excluded from discussion and decision making.

A related issue is the pressure for immediate decisions.  While there are times in negotiation when rapid decision making is required, the pressures are often artificial and should be resisted.  Excessively fast decision making without an opportunity to consider or consult can lead to serious errors.

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Another Education is Possible, Spring 2018, Gender Equality: Time’s up and the #Me Too movement

Gender Equality: Time’s Up and the #Me Too movement

– A change in public attitudes and women’s resistance to sexual harassment

Sue Abbott

The Guardian (9 February 2018) highlighted that more than 3.4 million women in England and Wales had been sexually assaulted since the age of 16 according to recent figures. 3% of women aged 16-59 had been assaulted in the past year. The Guardian article noted that ‘the Office for National Statistics said the scale of sexual assaults against women had changed little since 2005 and that ‘more than 80% of victims did not report their experiences to the police’.

For many of us who have been involved in challenging sexism and sexual violence this is shocking but not surprising. But this year we have seen an increased awareness and a change in public attitudes to the topic of sexual harassment.

Since the Weinstein case many situations have come to our attention. For example, The University of Cambridge in February 2018 admitted that it had a ‘significant problem’ with sexual misconduct after it received 173 complaints in 9 months after launching an anonymous reporting system. The majority of these (119) involved student against student misconduct with 7 cases made by staff against colleagues and 2 cases by students against staff. The rest involved neither staff nor students. Other Universities have introduced similar anonymous reporting tools including Manchester but Cambridge was the first to publish such a report illustrating the problem that remains an issue.

Many of us had been well aware of the situation when we got involved in campaigns to tackle ‘lad culture’ in Higher Education during 2014/15. Following the ‘that’s what she said’ report (NUS, 2014) we could clearly see the need to take a preventative stance to changing the culture in many educational establishments. Universities were required to set up task groups to address the issues but bearing in mind recent events one wonders how effective these have actually been.

In 2016 UCU had published a survey that had taken 2 years to analyse such was the high response rate. In the same year 2016 the TUC published its survey that reiterated the scale of the problem. So when the Weinstein case hit the headlines in 2017/18 it only confirmed what many women activists had been campaigning against for many years. This was further emphasised by the scandal of the Presidents Club dinner. We saw rich men from business buying the services of young women employed by an agency for £175. These young women were at the beck and call of these drunken men.

This year at the 2018 Women’s TUC the key focus was the matter of sexual harassment and UCU’s motion was selected as that which would go forward to September’s TUC this year. In the motion we observed ‘that gender-based violence is endemic in society’ and can often be ‘an unspoken problem’. Our concern was that ‘companies treat sexual harassment and assault in the same way as other kinds of harassment lost within general harassment and bullying policies’. Various ideas are suggested such as working with the NUS and 1752 group, joint research and campaigns and promoting education programmes on this topic. Additionally more training for reps who support members having suffered this abuse. Indeed UCU produced a statement on sexual violence and harassment in November 2017. This promoted having a sexual harassment model policy in all UCU branches, encouraging reps to attend sexual harassment training, working with NUS,1752 and Universities UK, having a ‘16 days against gender based violence’ campaign and circulating information. But are fine words enough when the issue of sexual harassment are reaching such proportions? Do we really want to work hand in hand with UUK after what they have been promoting in the USS dispute?

With regard to sexual harassment it is worth considering the role of the ‘Me too #’ movement. It has been described as a ‘roar’ and ‘life affirming’ (Blasko, 2018). She goes on to say that the logo is about ‘power in words and although they can’t change everything they can alter the atmosphere’ .The movement started and spread virally in October 2017 as a hashtag used on social media to help demonstrate the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment especially in the workplace where it was first used in this context by Tarana Burke and popularised by Alyssa Milano when she encouraged women to tweet it to give ‘people a sense of magnitude of the problem’.

So where does this go now? How can this hashtag really change the culture of ‘everyday sexism’?

Context: the implications for challenging sexual harassment in post 16 education 

So we have a range of bureaucratic suggestions but how much are all these going to actually change what we have known for such a long time?

In UCU we have seen women members at the forefront of leading disputes. The most recent disputes in pre 92 Universities saw women Branch Chairs and Presidents leading the most amazing fightback against an attack on USS pensions. This gives us hope that challenges could be made on a wider scale to the predominant culture.

The context of increasing marketization of education and neo liberal policies cannot be ignored in this debate. The Government sees education as connected to the market and students are seen as ‘customers’. There seems to be no vision of how Higher Education could be and should be. Regular attempts to attack academic freedom are not encouraging. Modern day HE reinforces society’s inequalities and represents injustice to a whole new generation. The elements in new style Universities focus upon the essence of neo-liberal individualism and competition. This can be viewed in the performance management expectations such as NSS scores, REF, TEF and so on.

The Gender Pay Gap

Moore (2018) writing in the Guardian recently commented ‘equal pay for equal work seems such a stunningly fair concept, who could argue against it?’ She goes on to give examples of disregard for gender pay inequality. In particular she notes ‘every single University in the Russell group pays women less on a median hourly rate. Durham University has the biggest pay gap at 29%’. Attending a regional briefing on the subject in November 2016, the accompanying report we were required to read commented ‘there are plenty of fine words spoken at a national level (by the employers) about the need to investigate the issue but little meaningful action’. We were informed by the official giving the briefing that ‘equal pay is a subset of gender pay’ and were informed that a few Universities, had addressed the issue for women professors at LSE and Essex. Further advice suggested establishing dialogue with HR departments and using an equal pay checklist. Additionally it should be part of the Athena Swan dialogue. But how far have we got? Regularly enquiring at NEC we get told progress is happening by the officials but where and when? It should be much more than just looking at the pay of those at the top but also those further down the grading structure.

Casualization and women

Additionally it is worth noting the report produced in January 2016 by Healy and Bergfield for the TUC on the challenges presented by increased casualization of women’s work. Although this covers a wide span of casual women workers in different industries, they note that increased casualization has led to widespread insecurity for ‘both highly qualified and less qualified workers’ and that women are particularly disadvantaged in a variety of ways. For example they note that women are ‘losing out on sick pay and holiday pay, being refused work because they are pregnant or because they are returning from maternity leave, given the worst teaching or in the case of HE given extreme marking loads’. So the context of how women are being treated in education requires early attention.

Kelly’s theory of mobilisation

A key academic theory which is well worth relating to at the present time is John Kelly’s ‘mobilisation theory’. Bearing in mind the experiences we have just had in the USS dispute and the strong role of women leaders, this is a fantastic opportunity for us to improve areas of injustice and discontent.

Kelly’s theory drew upon Tilly (1978) and theory of collective action where ‘interests are the fulcrum of the model and the ways in which people (particularly members of subordinate groups) define them’. For example, leaders need to find issues to draw upon members’ sense of injustice. Injustice creates discontent and when this is shared it becomes collective. The matter of blame is important. This tends to be directed at the employers. Solidarity is key for successful mobilisation. So the aim should be to build solidarity and collective action. Some have criticised the theory because of its lack of focus upon gender. A variety of respected academics (for example, Ledwith and Colgan (2002)) have explored this and commented that issues such as sexism, inequality and discrimination are vital to generate activism.

So where now?

There exists a span of injustices for women in our union. These include particularly at the current time sexual harassment, casualization, and gender pay gap. Too long we have waited patiently for policies to be written, meetings with HR to be organised, conferences and briefings to be set up.

What we have learnt during the USS strikes and ‘teach ins’ is that we do have the power to change things and it is now that we must take these forward. In transforming UCU we need to build a movement based upon solidarity and mutuality rather than accepting a service union.

As a starting point lets learn from Audrey White who worked for a clothes store in Liverpool in 1983. She was sacked for complaining about the sexual harassment of four women in her team. She only got her job back after a five week picket supported by dockers, car workers and other trade unionists. This is the way to win. Let’s start organising now!!!

References

Blasko S (2018) #MeToo is not just a debate, or a whinge. It’s a reality, The Guardian 25th March

Healy G and Bergfeld M (2016) The Organising Challenges Presented by the Increasing Casualisation of Women’s Work, Report for the TUC, Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity, Queen Mary University

Kelly J (1998) Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves, London: Routledge

Ledwith S and Colgan F (2002) Gender, Diversity and Trade Unions, London: Routledge

Moore S (2018) Saying women don’t want the highest-paid jobs won’t wash any more, The Guardian 5th April

Tilly C (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution, McGraw-Hill

 

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Another Education is Possible, Editorial Spring 2018

UCU in Transformation?

The past twelve months have seen a transformation of the union. Free membership for hourly paid PhD students who teach, mass mobilisations around the USS dispute in HE and similarly in the pay strikes in FE have created a record increase in membership of 24,000, a figure of 16,000 net.

This needs to be understood as a straw in the wind not an end point for the union. The processes leading to these developments have not disappeared and we are potentially only scratching the surface of the discontent in post-16 education that is driving participation and support for industrial action. It is for this reason that we need to fully understand and embrace the changes that have taken place and are yet to emerge in our union.

The open hostility to the marketisation of education is itself a reflection of the wider alienation and hostility to austerity and neo-liberalism. The rise of Corbynism is evidence that the political base of society in the UK has shifted dramatically. Since the 2017 election the May government has failed to establish itself as anything other than a zombie government lurching from crisis to crisis and loosing ministers along the way. In the process the ability to maintain their neo-liberal, intolerant and scapegoating ideology is being undermined. The Windrush debacle is the most recent and arguably the most significant of these. The ‘hostile environment’ for immigration has been exposed as the racist victimisation of minority populations that it is. Attempts to separate off ‘legal’ immigrants from ‘illegal’ immigrants fell flat when it became clear that the Home Office under Rudd, and May before her, systematically developed targets for deportations at any price. Even Boris Johnson was forced to call for an amnesty for all immigrants! Donald Trump’s visit to the UK in July now provides a fantastic opportunity to mobilise that discontent.

When the disputes over USS in pre-92 universities and currently FE pay erupted it should have come as no surprise that the hostility to the Tories would feed into these disputes. The hypocrisy of Vice Chancellors pay rises while pay for the rest has been driven ever lower and casualization has spread deeper and deeper into our education system was exposed. The inequality of the gender, and other, pay gaps also became a clear focal point of anger when employers sought to engineer the destruction of the USS pension scheme.

A decent pension was understood to be crucial not only for those with ‘secure’ employment but crucial for those who put up with so much discrimination and casusalisation in the hope of finally getting their foot on the academic ladder. Now all of those aspirations were to be dashed.

What was a surprise however was the extent to which members and non-members recognised these connections and immediately generalised their discontent. This was not simply a dispute over pensions. The dispute created an army of pension experts campaigning against marketisation and an army of activists willing to fight for change through 14 days of strike action. FE pay strikes now hold the potential for these arguments to spread beyond HE. The strikes again go to the heart of the very same issues effecting HE and have the very same generalising capabilities.

For UCU there is an important lesson that needs to be learnt, and learnt fast. Democracy and transparency in our decision making is crucial for members to feel the union is truly representing and reflecting members’ concerns. It is clearly the case that too many in the old leadership of the union are not simply resistant to calls for greater democracy and accountability but are actively hostile to it.

There is a prize to win if UCU responds to the calls from the activists to make this a genuinely member-led union. Our pay negotiations in HE and FE have already begun and, as expected gone nowhere. Yet Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of PCS, has already called for national pay strikes in the autumn. Pay disputes can address the issues of casualisation and pay discrimination in a direct way in which pensions never could. If we succeed in delivering co-ordinated pay strikes across the public sector we can win the changes members are demanding and more. But to do so means members must be in charge of this union and the transformation we are seeing in UCU must be delivered.

 

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