Register for UCU Congress 2025

Registration for UCU Congress 2025 closes in just over a week (23rd April), and this year it will feel quite different as it is the first hybrid Congress.

It is vital that we make sure as many members are registered as possible so they can participate in vital debates and votes on how UCU resists attacks on pay, jobs, funding, censorship and fights for equality, welfare not warfare and for climate action. A central debate will be whether UCU backs national action to defend the post 16 education sector – this is desperately needed in HE, FE and Adult Education. Every vote will matter, and every member who wants a progressive left union should be encouraged to stand as a delegate.

The calls for a hybrid Congress were in part to try and ensure Congress was more “open” to members. There were debates that it would enable more disabled members, neurodivergent members and those with caring duties a different way to participate, by participating online. Ensuring Congress is accessible is of course essential, however it is important to recognise that online attendance comes with its own barriers, from technology to simply being unable to step away from other responsibilities while participating remotely. It is vital that online participation does not exclude delegates from debates and networking opportunities, but it is not clear that the tech will offer seamless interaction between in person and online spaces.

UCU Left believes that Congress should be an open and welcoming place for all members to attend. The union must do everything possible to ensure the event, its timing, and the location that hosts it are accessible, and members are given sufficient accessibility and caregiver support. Congress is the sovereign decision making body of the union, the decisions taken will determine the future policy of the union, which will hopefully ensure we can turn the tide and ensure we resist the many crises facing us. 

There are important benefits of attending in person:

  1. Feeling part of a collective body. Attending Congress is an opportunity to be around other members who want to see change and resist the difficulties we are facing in our workplaces and society. There is a great sense of solidarity meeting other like minded people, which is a great antidote to what can often be quite isolated lives.
  2. Debate and discussion. Members may have certain ideas about motions and how they want to vote, but being in the Congress Hall listening to those speaking, and discussing the ideas with people in the breaks before and afterwards strengthens our collective decision making. Members may put things in a way that we haven’t thought of before, so those conversations off the congress floor can help develop our understanding of where motions and debates are coming from.
  3. Building networks. If you have been to Congress before, you will know that you meet many new people and reconnect with those you already know. It is an opportunity to share experiences and learn from each other about ways to tackle issues. Issues that seem too big to tackle, or if we feel overwhelmed or unable to make a difference, are shared with others and they will be able to put forward different ideas or agree to set up new networks to share ideas to resolve issues together.

We face high workloads and many of us have personal commitments, it can feel very challenging trying to balance our work, trade union activities and personal lives. However, being online and trying to balance these is even more demanding without the added benefits of the collectivism, solidarity and good chats you can have at Congress.

We therefore, urge all members to come to Congress and in person, and to encourage their colleagues to do the same.

The right win majority of seats in UCU NEC elections

This year’s UCU election is a setback for all those wanting to see a fighting and more democratic union. The elections saw the right-wing and their new allies the Commons faction win a majority on the NEC. The elections saw one of the lowest turnouts in UCU national elections. We hope this analysis is useful and provides some initial next steps needed in order to resist the crises facing post-16 education.

The challenges

The Vice President position was won by Dyfrig Jones, who saw fit to publish an article in the THES during the election which called for quiet words in government ears and undermined calls for industrial action to defend jobs. The NEC and trustee elections were marred by red-baiting and the strategic pessimism of the right in terms of what members can achieve. This plays into the hands of a Starmer government that refuses to provide the necessary funding to the post-16 education sector and the far right who are pursuing a divisive ‘war on woke’. 

The strengthening of the right and their allies will mean an emboldened resistance on the NEC to a UK-wide fight to defend jobs and pay across the sector. It will strengthen the GS’s attempts to impose depoliticised and localised battles to defend post-sixteen education. We can also expect hostility and reluctance to putting UCU at the forefront of international issues like Palestine and the fight to stop the growth of the far right.

Despite their pro-democracy rhetoric, the right will undermine the sovereign democratic decision-making bodies like sector conferences and congresses when votes don’t go their way.  They will focus on plebiscites where members are atomised and the collective strength of our union is not leveraged. They will continue to falsely counterpose branch decisions to UK-wide ones to ensure that policies in support of UK-wide action are not implemented.

UCU Left doesn’t believe that we should be focusing on more cosy chats and partnership with Starmer’s Labour government, or providing excuses for its warfare not welfare spending policies.

It is clear that the failure of the GS and her team in HE to implement decisions regarding pay and refusal to launch UK – wide fight over jobs has left many activists frustrated and demoralised. This allowed the right to play on the concerns of those more passive within the union about our ability to prosecute an effective campaign that can win.

In FE a strategy of localised battles has led to a significant decrease in branches participating in any organised campaigning. In fact, for the first time in many years there are no FE branches taking action over pay or any other issue whatsoever.

It is in this context, that those putting forward a positive case for taking England-wide action over pay has taken place. The lack of strikes and campaigning in general has left a more passive union in FE.  The pessimism of the UCU leadership about their inability to win members to England wide-action has badly weakened union organisation and a dwindling membership in the sector.

Members in FE are willing to fight – as shown by the example of a dozen or so branches which, in most cases, independently of regional offices, conducted indicative ballots and fought for a yes vote. In each case, members responded enthusiastically, with turnouts of 65% and more.

Members’ disenchantment with the union appears to have translated into a low turnout across both sectors in this election. UCU Left will be working to rebuild members’ engagement and provide strategies that build hope and confidence.

How to rebuild a union that fights for members

Winning seats on the NEC is important and it is a setback that the left fared poorly, albeit narrowly, in these elections. But this does not mean all is lost. We must and will continue to defend post-16 education collectively across FE and HE.

The key to achieving action that will be successful, make a difference to members’ lives and defend post 16 education is in branches building for UK-wide action.

In HE that means following the lead given by Newcastle, Dundee and Brunel. These examples demonstrate that when officers give a lead the membership responds brilliantly. The increases in memberships and record numbers of pickets in all these disputes shows the fighting spirit that exists to defend our universities.

But branches under attack must not be allowed to fight alone. We cannot stop 10,000 jobs disappearing from the sector by fighting university by university. Indeed this would defeat the very purpose of having a UK wide union – we need a UK-wide fight. This means inviting those on strike to your branches to speak, donating money to their strike funds and passing a motion demanding the union launch UK-wide action now.

FE, adult and prison education is in crisis. Further cuts in funding and a recruitment crisis means that localised action cannot succeed in pushing back further attacks.

The Further Education Committee met on Friday and passed motions calling for an indicative ballot of all members before the summer, and a motion to sector conference calling for UK action over pay, workload and national bargaining. Whilst there appears to be a change in mood amongst UCU HQ and the right on the FEC towards the ‘inevitability’ of England-wide action it did not stop them voting against motions calling to prepare for this.

Every branch needs to prepare for action over pay, workload and national bargaining by inviting striking HE staff to speak at your branch, organising lunch time protests and lobbies of your governing board.

The GS has agreed to implement congress policy and has called a UK-wide demo in defence of post 16 education on the 10th May. In every region there should be rallies in support of post 16 education with MPs, celebrities and strikers to highlight the crisis in HE, FE, Adult and Prison Education and to mobilise the UK-wide demo.

Only a nationwide strike can stem the carnage in UK higher education

Article by Rhiannon Lockley, candidate for UCU Vice President, in Times Higher Eduction on 13 February 2025

Limiting industrial action to defensive branch battles on redundancy is not enough. We need to politically challenge the HE funding model, says Rhiannon Lockley.

UK higher education’s funding crisis has been developing for 15 years. When the coalition government introduced £9,000 fees for home undergraduates at English universities and cut block grants for teaching in 2012, it turned the economics of student recruitment upside down. Stable finances, planning and regulation were lost in a scramble for bums on seats. 

This accelerated when student recruitment caps were abolished – partially in 2014, and then fully a year later. University managers realised that each home undergraduate earned them £2,000 more than they cost to teach, so they could make serious money via economies of scale. Thus began a splurge to invest in campuses, buildings and marketing departments. 

But as the value of England’s regulated undergraduate fees fell in real terms – alongside that of the government grants that remained, in various forms, elsewhere in the UK – universities increasingly relied on the subsidy provided by unregulated, exploitative international fees. 

It took only a decade for the system to go from boom to bust. Last year, vice-chancellors started announcing redundancies on a mass scale, reaching more than 10,000 in 2023-24. This year, the pace of announcements is only increasing. The scale of destruction hitting higher education is immense. The economic models behind UK higher education are imploding.

Clearly, members look to unions during times like these. Last May, members of the University and College Union voted at our UK higher education sector conference (our key higher education decision-making body) for a campaign to start building a UK-wide industrial response to the crisis.

Last December the UCU higher education committee voted to act on this resolution. Unfortunately, this decision hasn’t been implemented in a timely way to allow strategic action in advance of Labour taking decisions on higher education funding. Instead, we’ve seen repeated delegitimising of UCU members’ decisions.

We all get involved in unions to make a difference, and we won’t always agree on how to do that. This is why UCU strategy is led by conferences, to which all branches can send representatives and proposals. This gives everyone a hearing, making sure we assess different views fairly and take binding decisions together. Union democracy supports good decision-making. Sometimes union members are disappointed with those decisions, but we need to behave in a collegial fashion and respect democracy.

An ongoing approach of denouncing UK-wide action is not delivering sector security. Instead, the carnage is intensifying. UCU branches and the staff supporting them have shown huge resilience in local fights but members are being made redundant in droves.

If we understand that the UK’s various university funding models are all broken, dooming the sector to escalating decline until they are replaced, then there is an obvious problem with limiting industrial action to defensive branch battles on redundancy: the employer can wait out the branch. 

To meaningfully act in the interests of members moving forward, UCU must do two things: escalate beyond branches being hit and politically challenge the funding model. 

Even though the funding crisis is made in Westminster and the other national capitals, UK anti-union law stipulates that industrial activity must be tied to employment conditions. This means such a campaign has to be conducted over pay.

You don’t have to look far to see this in practice. After all, that’s what the National Education Union did in English schools, taking strike action on pay as part of a wider campaign for increased school funding. It’s also what our Unison colleagues in higher education are doing right now. UCU must not be misdirected into paralysis. Repeating the line that pay cuts save jobs just reinforces the logic leading the higher education sector to collapse; pay suppression and job cuts are both caused by failure to fund universities in a sustainable way.

If the UCU is united and confident, we can take on the challenges we face. At my branch, Birmingham City University (BCU), we’ve doubled our membership. BCU does not participate in national bargaining over pay and conditions, isolating us, but we’ve fought disputes on safety and pay, beating ballot turnout thresholds and establishing a BCU bargaining and negotiating body. Our members are engaged and ready to fight: they trust branch leaders. This comes from clear, consistent messaging on strategy, united leadership, and negotiators’ understanding of the importance of organised leverage.

It also comes from keeping members informed and in charge of decisions. I’ve used this approach at regional and UK level, winning me endorsements across the union for my commitment to building confidence through mutual respect and consensus. I strongly believe that for the UCU to respond credibly in the current crisis after a period of internal division, we need leaders who understand and will demonstrate commitment to a member-led approach.

I am standing for UCU vice-president, not because I have all the answers, but because I believe in our collective capacity to bring meaningful change. Democracy, integrity and unity are key to getting UK higher education through the storm.

The market system has set universities against each other in cut-throat competition. Our job as trade unionists is to resist division. We need to stand up and fight for the sector and for everyone who works and studies in it.

Rhiannon Lockley is a foundation year lecturer in the Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences at Birmingham City University, where she is UCU branch chair.

Welcome! (NEC Elections 2025)

NEC Elections 2025

Only a nationwide strike can stem the carnage in UK higher education
Read the article by UCU Left’s Vice Presidential candidate, Rhiannon Lockley, in the THE

Vice Presidential, Treasurer, Trustee & NEC Elections 2025 – Turn the tide on despair: Vote for hope – Vote for resistance

Our candidates 

Post Candidate
Vice President1Rhiannon Lockley
Honorary Treasurer1Deepa Driver
Trustee1
2
John Parrington
Mike Barton
President UCU Scotland1Grant Buttars
Honorary Secretary UCU Scotland1Carlo Morelli
UK Elected FE1
2
Sean Vernell
Saleem Rashid
UK Elected HE1
2
3
Richard Wild
Rob Macmaster
Michael Carley
North West FE1Nina Doran
North West HE1
2
Peta Bulmer
Bee Hughes
South FE1John Fones
South HE1
2
3
4
5
Aris Katzourakis
Ryan Burns
Ellen Owens
David Chivall
Michael Carley
Midlands FE1Dharminder Chuhan
Disabled HE1Roddy Slorach
LGBT+ Members1Bee Hughes
Migrant Members1Patricia Prieto Blanco
Black Members1Nitin Rajyaguru
Casually Employed1Cecily Blyther
Click on a candidate name to see their full election statement

Posts

November NEC: UCU Left Report

UCU’s National Executive Committee (NEC) met on Friday for the first time since the general election, in the midst of turmoil in UK and international politics and crises in post-16 education. This was the first time the union’s elected leadership has had an opportunity to focus upon strategies to defend post 16 education.

NEC was also meeting in the aftermath of the visible rise of the far right in the UK, from the explosion of racist violence over the summer and the general electoral success of Farage and Reform UK, through successful mobilisations of antiracists in pushing back the fascist right led by Tommy (Yaxley Lennon) Robinson, to recent Reform UK elections wins.

Internationally, the horror of genocide in Gaza and the global solidarity movement with Palestine continues while Trump’s success in the United States Presidential Election sends shivers down everyone’s spine.

A wave of redundancies has begun across Higher Education as the Hostile Environment racist immigration policies of recent Tory governments has led to a fall in international student applications, and falling student fee income is hitting University finances hard. At the same time, the Labour government has announced a £300m boost to FE funding, but failed to address falling pay in the sector.

Political campaigning

The General Secretary’s Report highlighted that the union has responded to international and political questions at home.

The Campus Voices for Palestine speaking tour, organised by University and College Workers for Palestine and BRICUP was supported by UCU, saw over 700 attend the meetings with Sundos Hammad from the Right to Education. The week of action “United Against Scholasticide” for Palestinian education from 23rd November culminating with the TUC backed Day of Action on the 28th is now a focus for activists.

The union has also moved to recognise the threat of the far right and to build anti-racist initiatives withing our membership, universities, colleges and prisons. A motion brought by UCU Left on opposing the far right was passed, which calls on the union to publicise protests against the far right and encourage branches to organise meetings and invite speakers from Stand Up To Racism, Black Members’ Standing Committee and local refugee and migrant speakers in. (The full wording of thiso motion is at the end of this report).

Where is the national fightback? 

It was clear from the GS report that she and her team have no appetite for national strike action. They provided a pessimistic outlook when it came to acting on the threats facing members in post-16 education, indeed despairing and bemoaning the lack of opportunity to influence the Starmer inner circle.

This pessimism is rooted in the strategy followed by the union in focusing upon local action as opposed to organising for co-ordinated UK-wide action. At a time when the Labour government is vulnerable to strikes and is looking to avoid confrontations with the unions, UCU has pulled back from mobilising members on a national level.  Our power is a collective power in which politicians, and our employers, have to act to answer our demands when our pressure becomes impossible to ignore any longer. It does not come from officials having access to political leaders for fireside chats.

The majority of the NEC recognise this, and repeatedly asked for an answer as to why the UK-wide demonstration in defence of post-16 education, voted for at Congress, has not been enacted?Indeed any mention of it was erased from the priorities set out for NEC. The motion called for a demonstration in the Autumn, yet 5 months later, it is unclear if any actions have happened to make this a reality.

A paper was brought to the NEC outlining the union’s priorities over 2024/25. The failure to provide a guarantee that the UK-wide demo would be a priority meant that this paper was not carried. Moreover, the priorities paper didn’t link these “priorities” to motions carried at Congress and sector conferences, which raised serious questions as to how these priorities had been created (and what was missing).

The lack of urgency by officials in HE is also evident by the lack of information available to NEC on the scale of redundancies. In the middle of a major crisis in HE funding, the union is not even able to produce a list of branches facing redundancies or identify the 40% of universities which reportedly have just one month’s cashflow to continue to pay wages!

Within FE, despite the £300m additional funding the Labour Government has committed for 2025/26 the union has no plan for a co-ordinated national plan of industrial action to get any of this funding ringfenced for pay. Neither does it have a plan on how to ensure that FE members get the 5.5% that was awarded to teachers for this year’s pay rise (2024/25).

FE members will be rightly confused and angered when NEU members in Sixth Form Colleges take strike action from the 28th November over securing a 5.5% pay increase for themselves but UCU is still sitting on its hands.

Flawed, undemocratic plans for a hybrid Congress

Unfortunately, due to the length of the GS Report, little time was spent discussing these crucial issues that confront our members.

Instead, NEC was presented with a long debate over how a hybrid Congress in 2025 could be organised. 

UCU Congress has never voted for a hybrid Congress, but it has been the goal of some on the NEC. Congress delegates have been far more cautious. There was a vote at Congress 2024 to create standing orders which allowed for a hybrid Congress. (These rely on electronic voting being used, rather than a show of hands or cards.) Following Congress, the NEC in June agreed in principle to move this work forward with a study of the mechanisms to facilitate this.

NEC members were presented with a set of proposals, many of which could have been circulated well in advance. This included a proposal that is not compatible with UCU rules – opening up Congress attendance to all union members as observers (currently a small number of observers are elected, like delegates). It appeared not to have crossed the minds of the authors of this proposal that this would mean that managers could join the union and attend online simply to spy on reps!

There was an almost unanimous rejection of this proposal.

The wider set of proposals that were put forward failed to get a majority. (They would have been voted down if it were not for an NEC member being ejected from the meeting, before the vote took place, resulting in a tied vote.) This means that the paper did not pass, and the ‘status-quo ante’ was the outcome. 

This should mean that right now these particular proposals are not agreed, and therefore we have no agreed mechanism for running a hybrid Congress in 2025. During the debate, this was stated by the secretariat when they were asked what would happen if NEC voted down the paper. Unfortunately, this interpretation was changed once the vote was taken, whereupon it was stated that a Congress 2025 would be hybrid!

Problems with a hybrid Congress still stand.

A ‘hybrid’ Congress is suggested to be more inclusive over a wholly in-person event. However, it has become clear that the practical problems of running a Congress meeting are more complex than was first thought. The proposals for a hybrid Congress put to the NEC do not deal with many of the concerns that were raised at Congress, and that NEC members have.

One of the major concerns is that remote participation would actually reduce access.

Many actions to supposedly increase access for some risks the exclusion of others. For example, many carers may find themselves both retaining their carer responsibilities while trying to participate in a three-day Congress online meeting, as they had when Congress was online-only. NEC members had called for proposals to actively engage members with caring responsibilities, to be part of the planning: this was minuted in the June NEC, yet this was absent from current plans.

As anyone who has tried this will know, attempting to participate in an intensive online meeting for three days is far from simple! NEC has been meeting in a hybrid form for over a year. It has seen many times that even a one-day meeting leads to frustration and anger being expressed by delegates on a scale greater than with in-person meetings.

There had been consultation with the Disabled Members’ Standing Committee, but not the other equality standing committees. NEC members raised concerns about how accessible the plans were to disabled and neurodivergent members particularly around how voting would work and the ability to follow debates.

UCU democracy would also be undermined by plans to change a core trade union principle of public voting to private secret anonymous voting. This was something that the elected UCU Democracy Commission spent 1.5 years examining closely. It found that voting anonymously disenfranchises members and branches’ ability to mandate delegates and hold them accountable. By contrast, voting by show of hands in a mass meeting is fundamentally a public shared act, where those who vote own the outcome. They know which way they voted, and which way others in the room voted. It can also mean that people are swayed by debate on the floor of Congress. At this year’s Congress there were debates where members changed their mind because of the way that voting was visibly going in the room. 

The paper stated that voting records would not be published. There was nothing in the proposals to deal with how private anonymous voting would allow delegates to ensure that their branch/region motions, which their members had voted for, were being voted on by their elected delegates. 

Failure to resolve this issue risks reducing Congress to a collection of individuals making policies rather than members elected by branches (supplemented by elected delegates from regions and committees of the union) making policy.

Similarly, permanent recording of electronic votes cannot be guaranteed to be secure, opening up delegates to potential victimisation at work.

We believe that working to address inclusivity for in-person events would be a far better focus for our union than believing technology is the way to resolve inclusivity.

Review of Racism

UCU is undertaking a review of anti-Black racism in the union in response to concerns by Black staff and members.  The paper indicated that the people carrying out the review had been appointed, but that further progress was dependent on the dispute between UCU staff and management being resolved.  There was no information about when this would happen.  The stalling of the race review is yet another reason to be concerned about how long it is taking to resolve the dispute.

Where do we go from here?

This was a frustrating NEC meeting. An important motion on defending free speech on campus was lost off the agenda due to the length of time debating the GS report and Congress preparations. 

Increasingly NEC members are finding  a lack of transparency and urgency in our national union’s actions to take on the issues facing the post-16 education sectors. We think reps will have to step up organising at branch and region/nation level and not waiting for HQ. 

 In FE and HE, UCU Left members are organising meetings to help connect branches and build momentum to ensure that we rise to the challenges facing us all.

Motion: Organising against the Far Right (CARRIED)

NEC deplores:

  1. Reform UK’s attempt to bring racist ideas into the mainstream.
  2. The racist riots following UK fascist Tommy Robinson’s summer demonstration.

NEC applauds the successful mobilisations against recent Far Right demonstrations – central London and Glasgow.

NEC affirms the importance of UCU being actively involved in the fightback against the Far Right.

NEC agrees to:

  1. Encourage branches to set up Anti-racist/anti-facist groups which work together with students, other trade unions, SUTR and local organisations supporting/of refugees and migrants.
  2. Circulate educational materials on dangers of Far Right to all members.
  3. Publicise mobilisations against the Far Right and encourage members and branches to attend with banners, as well as to attend organising meetings and other anti-Far Right events.
  4. Encourage branches to invite speakers from SUTR, Black Members’ Standing Committee and local organisations of/supporting refugees and migrants to speak at branch meetings.

Report from FEC 26th September 2024

The FEC met for the first time this academic year. The FEC considered how to advance the New Deal for FE as part of our England pay claim.

This follows the election of a Labour government in the General Election and the decision not to extend the 5.5% pay award for teachers to FE workers.

Staff unions will meet the AoC later this month at the National Joint Forum (NJF) where they are expected to make a formal recommendation on pay. As well as a special working group meeting to explore introducing binding national negotiations.

The UCU will roll out a series of briefing this month in light of those and outline the nature of our campaign.

We encourage reps and activists to join us at the Defend Post-16 Education under Labours Starmer conference on the 19th of October.

Register here and for updates.

One step forward

It is a step forward that in the committee secretary’s report to the FEC that the emphasis is on a national campaign and securing binding national bargaining. FE England is now the poorest relation of the UK education sector and the only part not covered by binding national sector bargaining. This was actually the rationale given by the government to decline to extend the pay award to FE workers.

It is right that the unions focus is now on securing binding national negotiations (BNN) not just local bargaining. But unfortunately that has not been the case up to now. At the Special Further Education Conference in April the conference was persuaded that now was not the time to prioritise winning national binding agreements. Some on the FEC leadership likened this to chasing unicorns!

Arguments against securing national binding agreements included:

  1. That the AoC has no power to implement a binding framework due to incorporation.
  2. The employers were not interested
  3. Even if those barriers were not there, we can’t take national action because it’s illegal.

Since then, the AoC have agreed to set up a working group to look at the feasibility of implementing a binding national bargaining framework. They are due to present an initial rough costing to staff unions at a meeting this October as a basis to make the case to Government to set up a funded sector bargaining framework. This could be a first step toward a broader aim of establishing national terms and conditions – the employers’ words.

We could have been positioned far better than we are and need to run to catch up to the possibilities of levelling up in England.

Whilst it is early days and not all employers share the same views there is clearly more scope for BNN among employers than some had argued. What is important is it is now recognised now that we need national binding not just going for local deals as the main lever to improve pay and conditions.

It is hoped there can be more traction with the DofE due to the change of government and that can help the union communicate our aims and objectives (a motion was carried to emphasise the need for this work to develop further).

None of this means we will necessarily achieve BNN. It is likely that some form of new bargaining arrangement could be introduced. But will it be favourable to us or the employers? It will be far easier to shape a new binding framework with action now, than try to unpick an unfavourable version later.

A series of campaign briefing this October will roll out the New Deal for FE campaign and report back from meeting with the AoC.

Anger

There is a great deal of anger that FE staff were not included in the 5.5% pay award to teachers.

A motion (below) was brought to the FEC calling for an indicative national ballot to take action if we were not offered the same pay award as teachers.

It was argued that this would take resources away from campaigns, that an indicative ballot must be a prelude to a national statutory ballot and this was not within policy set by the SFEC.

These arguments opposing an indicative ballot seem to miss the point that FE members want their voice heard. This would be complimentary to the New Deal for FE campaign and give us more leverage in talks. Members expect us to act on this outrageous decision.

It is therefore disappointing that the motion tied 9 in favour and 9 against. In such a case the status quo ante prevails and therefore the motion fell. An amendment linked to the motion emphasising our claim as part of an indicative ballot also fell.

As the Committee Secretary point made clear. It is not for us to simply describe the situation; we have to act if we want to change it. Unfortunately, half of the FEC members failed to rise to this challenge again.

Parliament lobby

A rescheduled lobby and MP briefing will take place on Wednesday 23 October 5-7pm. More details with be circulated.

The case for binding national negotiations and petition. For circulation to all members.

Campaign resources.

Adult Community Education (ACE)

A change in government policy for adult community education funding means that the Adult Education Budget (AEB) is now called Adult Skills Fund, published by the education and skills funding agency (ESFA). The focus will be a further shift on skills for jobs and a narrowing of funding for non – qualification learning.  UCU needs to defend a broad-based curriculum offer in ACE and in FE that meets the needs of everyone in our communities, not just those who are seeking and are ready for employment, but also for our pensioners and those with SEND needs. But also for the joy of learning for its own sake! The arts and humanities in ACE and FE as in higher education is under attack – we urgently need to defend arts education.

Conditions and pay for ACE staff since incorporation mean that ACE pay and conditions for ACE staff is chaotic with no nationally agreed binding arrangements. Some staff in local government are on the Green Book and some on the Pink book, some branches have no negotiations at all and no pay award.

For the last few years, we have put in motions to FEC and NEC arguing that this has to change.

We want consultation and a national set of demands such as starting pay to be the same as FE and transferring all staff in ACE on zero hours to decent contracts. As part of this campaign, we are drafting a template letter to all Regional UCU officers to send to the mayors of the devolved local authorities calling for the setting up of local mechanisms to make sure UCU ACE has a voice at the table when terms and conditions are set and a commitment to no zero hours contracts and good work standards

We are calling for all in ACE to attend the ACE meeting on the 6 November 4.00pm online to 5.15pm. Look out for email for a registration link and voice your views on pay and terms and conditions.

Motion 1: Indicative ballot on pay (Fell)

FEC notes:

  • The government is implementing the School Teachers’ Review Body of a fully funded 5.5% pay award for 2024/25, but have stated this will not be extended to FE teachers.
  • This will further widen the pay gap between schoolteachers and FE teachers.

FEC believes:

  • UCU must apply pressure on the government to increase funding for FE pay – this requires national action

FEC resolves:

  • To launch an indicative national ballot of England FE members, asking whether they are willing to take industrial action over pay, if the government refuses to implement the same pay award as offered to the teachers.

Amendment to Motion 1 (Fell)

From FEC resolves. Remove “if the government refuses to implement the same pay award as offered to the teachers” and insert “in pursuit of our pay claim as laid out in the new deal for FE.”

Motion 3: Towards a pay settlement for FE England (Carried)

FEC recognises:

  • UK/devolved governments settled the long-standing, pay-claims of workers who were loud and active in pursuing national campaigns and national action, notably train drivers, school teachers and FE in the rest of the UK
  • The government ignored FE claims in England
  • The AoC has taken no initiative in negotiations other than hiding behind the STRB and the lack of special funding from the government
  • The GS and her team have made strenuous efforts to engage with the SoS Education and have been rebuffed

FEC resolves:

  • UCU should enter an open dialogue with DfE, pressing and planning for new legislation to amend the relationship of Colleges with the DfE, promoting a National FE Service and a National FE Pay scale which Colleges implement as a result of BNN.
  • UCU will report to FEC on these talks with the DfE 

—-

A majority of the FEC united to oppose the far right. Calling on all members to take to the streets on October 26th and to encourage UCU branches to organise themed learning weeks to celebrate multiculturalism. 

Motion 2: Stop far right multiculturalism and themed learning week (Carried)
 

FEC notes:

  • The terrifying rise of racists and fascists on our streets with Tommy Robinson mobilising marches of thousands.
  • The racist riots over the summer and attempts to set hotels housing refugees on fire.
  • Anti-racists and anti-fascists successfully mobilised against them.
  • FE colleges teach many students who are refugees and migrants, with a large proportion of staff and students from ethnic minorities.

FEC believes:

  • Our colleges must be places that celebrate multiculturalism.
  • As educators within our community, we have an important role to play in stopping the growth of racism and fascism.

FEC resolves to:

  • Call on FE branches to organise a Themed Learning Week this term and to be sent this out in Friday emails.
  • UCU to facilitate the sharing of ideas and resources between FE branches.
  • Call on members to support the SuTR TUC backed counter demonstration on October 26th in Central London.

https://standuptoracism.org.uk

Stop the far right ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protests on Saturday 28th September London – stop the far right – no fascists in London
Stop the far right ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protests on Saturday 28th September London – stop the far right – no fascists in London

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Education and policy

The FEC heard from UCU policy unit on a range of policies. Labour have not made good on their earlier commitments to pause and review around the BTEC reforms. This is an area that urgently needs addressing with limited pause and review not sufficient to stop this disastrous policy.

The issue of GCSE resits for English and maths should also be front and centre of the unions campaigning. 30% of young people leave school without achieving maths and English. The outcomes for college students are at an all-time low. There are many voices now highlighting the harm this policy is doing to young people and the need for a genuine alternative to compulsory GCSE resits.

See here.

Notices

  • Defending Post-16 Education under Starmer’s Labour – a call for participation

Saturday October 19th.

UCU London Region initiated and supported by UCU branches at City and Islington College, Westminster Kingsway College, New City College Poplar branch, Merton College, Chichester College, Kingston College, York College, Lewisham College, Morley College, South & City Birmingham branch, Liverpool University, Liverpool John Moores University, London Metropolitan University, University College London, Imperial College London, Strathclyde University, University of Kent, York St John University, Newcastle University, Royal Holloway University of London, University of Greenwich, University of Dundee, University of Leicester, Brighton University, Royal College of Art, Y&H retired members and others tbc.

Click here for more details and to register.

  • National demonstration. One year on: stop the genocide in Gaza, hands off Lebanon October 5th

https://palestinecampaign.org/events/national-demo-for-palestine-5-october-2024/

  • Workplace day of action ceasefire now 10th October

The TUC conference voted to support a national day of action in workplaces in opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the spread of war.

Call a protest at your workplace.

See also UCU Ceasefire page: https://www.ucu.org.uk/CeasefireNow

  • Solidarity with 5 colleges in North East striking for a decent pay rise

UCU members at Bede Sixth Form College, NETA Training Group, Stockton Riverside College, The Skills Academy, and Redcar and Cleveland College will down tools on Thursday 10 October as part of a long running dispute over pay.

https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13736/New-strike-date-at-five-North-East-colleges

  • Annual Adult Community Education (ACE) conference

November 6th more details to follow

  • UCU Equality Groups conference

Thursday 28 November – Saturday 30 November

Click here for details and to register.

Peter Evans, Hammersmith, FE LGBT+ Rep
Safia Flissi, South & City College Birmingham FE Women’s Rep
Naina Kent, Hackey Ace, FE UK elected
Richard McEwan, New City College, FE London & East
Regine Pilling, Westminster Kingsway, FE London & East
Sean Vernell, City and Islington College, FE UK elected

Organising to win under a Labour government

Although the General Election was less than two months ago, it feels much longer since the Tories were decimated and Labour won a landslide election victory, albeit on a lower turnout than in 2019.

Within that period, we have seen a fascist and far right resurgence on our streets, the continuing slaughter of Palestinians and an assassination attempt on Trump that missed but, metaphorically speaking, hit Biden.

We are beginning to see, what many of us feared – a right-wing Labour government stubbornly sticking to the neoliberal consensus. Keir Starmer’s first act was to suspend seven Labour Party MPs, including former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell for daring to vote to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Yvette Cooper’s pledge to deport 14,000 refugees in attempt to prove that she is tougher on immigrants than the Tories will give succour to the far right and fascists.

There is not a cigarette paper between Starmer’s foreign policy and the Tories. The first world leader to contact Starmer to congratulate him on his victory was Biden who outlined all the areas of agreement they had between them which included – support for Israel, the Ukraine and the AUKUS agreement. This is a continuation of preparation for an escalation of military conflict across the globe.

But it has not all been one-way traffic. Whilst Labour under Starmer accept all the guiding principles of the market and competition, there are different pressures that he has to listen to because of Labour’s organic links to the working class via the trade union bureaucracy.

The right-wing media are full of articles about how Starmer is ‘caving in’ to the ‘union barons’ over pay, employment contracts and repealing some trade union laws – all leading to the ‘bad old days’ of the 1970s. Whilst, unfortunately, this is extremely exaggerated there are moves afoot that will open up space for organised labour to exert its influence more easily.

Repealing Trade Union laws

It looks likely that within the first hundred days the Labour government will repeal the minimum service anti strike legislation and the ballot thresholds. Both, of course, are welcome.

The Minimum Service Levels was never going to work in practice, so this was an easy one to repeal. The repealing of the Trade Union thresholds, perhaps was a little more of a surprise, considering how so many TU leaders, despite their public denunciation of the 2016 Act, in private have found the thresholds useful.

Governments’ pass trade union laws not simply to make it more difficult for legal working-class resistance but also to give the trade union bureaucracy more power over the rank and file.  Since the 2016 Act was passed TU leaders of all stripes have happily blamed the members for not reaching the thresholds and therefore not able to take national action because of members’ apathy.

Despite ballot after ballot showing 90% plus of members voting for action the focus was on the turnouts and not the vote for action. This became the test of appetite of members to fight. Often TU leaders went further to argue it would be dangerous to ballot members nationally because if the union did not reach the thresholds, it would expose the weakness of the union and give a green light to the employer to go on the offensive.

This would be true if members voted against action, however it is complete nonsense to argue this when members have voted by 90% to take action on a 45% turnout. Yes, action may not be able to go ahead legally but it is hardly a sign of weakness. In such circumstances, it is much more about the lack of leadership provided to motivate members to vote than any alleged apathy amongst members.

In the past few years as some unions have become successful in meeting the thresholds TU leaders have come up with a range of reasons why successful ballot results still can’t be implemented or only partially with limited action. Those excuses have ranged from ‘there was only a 51% turned out to vote’ or the turnout was ‘very uneven’ etc. etc… 

Don’t be surprised to find that after the 2016 Act is repealed that some unions attempt to continue their own internal thresholds to maintain this control over when action can be taken.

But for now, there should be no argument. The legal thresholds are going. Those who have previously argued that they would love to see national action but that the union was not yet ready to beat thresholds, should now sleep easily. Sustained by the knowledge that now we will be able to get the vast majority of members to take action, beginning a meaningful campaign capable of applying pressure on Starmer’s government.

But the trade union movement needs to go further and campaign to repeal all the anti TU legislation that were brought in by Thatcher and Blair.

It is clear that the so called ‘summer of love’ between Starmer and the unions will be a short-lived thing. One Tory complained to the FT recently that there has been a lot of ‘quid’ by no ‘quo’. In the same article the author reports that Starmer is strongly in favour of ‘reforming’ public services. The use of the term ‘reform’ means more privatization and productivity deals.

In short Starmer will be telling the unions that you can’t have your cake and eat it. For modest pay increases, that fail to restore wage levels to pre austerity and inflation period and the repealing of some TU laws they will be coming for our conditions. Work harder for less.

Striking pays

The announcement that the government will agree to the STRB 5.5% recommendation for schools and health workers and agree a 22% pay award over two years for junior doctors demonstrates that striking pays. The government has made it clear that they want to avoid more industrial action and the only way to do this is to meet workers’ demands, at least to some degree.

Clearly 5.5% will not make up for the earnings lost over the past number of years where inflation reached 16% and more. We should not accept the first offer that comes along. We need to continue to apply the pressure to force the Labour government to find more money for public sector pay through taxing the rich rather than attempting to create divisions by cutting benefits or pensions to pay for public sector pay.

In FE we are not even going to be offered the 5.5%. This will mean that we will fall behind teachers’ pay by £11k. 

This is clearly unacceptable and the union should be taken active steps to challenge this. Even the CEO’s/Principals at the 7 largest FE colleges recognize this to be “very unfair”, particularly as FE was reclassified into the public sector in 2022 and have written to the Secretary of State highlighting the disparity in funding.  

The union has, at last, launched a campaign over binding national bargaining (well, they have sent posters out…) that has been demanded by successive FE sector conferences. It is possible that the Labour government and AOC employers’ body move towards agreeing a new national bargaining framework. But without any national action any agreement is likely to be one that favours the employers.

UCU FE has no strategy other than battling it out at a local level college by college. This is a disaster. There is a reason why the teachers have been offered an above inflation pay rise and FE lecturers haven’t – they fought at a national level and we didn’t. We need to rectify this problem now if we are going to be able shape the Autumn budget. With colleges experiencing significant recruitment problems we are in a good position to win a significant pay rise so that the sector can attract desperately needed new staff.

Seizing the opportunities that will open up

After 14 years of Tory government Post 16 education has been desperately underfunded, the curriculum narrowed and the market allowed to let rip. In HE job loses already hit many Universities at the end of the summer term and look set for even a bigger funding crisis in the new academic year.

Labour under Starmer will not budge from this model by virtue of their own ideological values – because their values have grown from the same family tree. But workers expectations and confidence has risen – they expect a different way of government from what we have experienced over the last 14 years.

Mild reforms like repealing TU laws, offering above inflation pay awards or agreeing new collective bargaining frameworks will not meet these expectations but they will open up spaces for resistance to win back what we have lost over those years and go forward to tip the balance in favour of working people.

Our task is to be alert to these new openings and fill these spaces with resistance to fight over pay and collective bargaining agreements as well as for a post 16 education system based on planning and not the rigors of the market.

86 colleges and universities took part in the Stop the War and PSC workplace days of action. We will need to continue to campaign to end the genocide in Gaza. We will need to organise in our colleges and universities anti-racist themed learning weeks to celebrate multiculturalism and push back the rising tide of the fascist and far right.

To do all this and more we need to get organised and share our experiences about what has worked and what hasn’t. This is why London Region UCU has initiated a conference and supported by over 20 colleges and universities, so far, from across the UK to come together to discuss how we are going to win under a Labour government.

Get your branch to back the conference and send a delegation. Registration here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/defending-post-16-education-under-starmer-austerity-palestine-racism-and-climate-chaos-tickets-961668044007?aff=oddtdtcreator&utm_campaign=postpublish&utm_medium=sparkpost&utm_source=email

Sean Vernell UCU NEC

How we beat the fascists and the far right

After last night’s amazing counter protests by anti racists across the UK, Sean Vernell argues we need to continue the fight.

The scenes of fascist and far-right thugs attempting to burn down hotels that accommodate refugees and attacking anyone with a black or brown skin who happened to be walking by has horrified the majority of people in Britain. The far-right and fascist targeting of businesses owned by Muslims has echoes of Kristallnacht, the pogroms launched against Jews in 1938 in Germany by Hitler’s brown shirts.

The aim of the far-right is to scapegoat the most vulnerable in society for decades of poverty experienced in working class communities. They want to gain support from working class communities who have suffered the most from successive governments which have promised much but delivered nothing but further immiseration.

The obvious truth, which the liberal press seems unable to come to terms with, is that the fascists and far-right feel confident to launch such attacks because of the way mainstream political parties have fostered anti-immigrant sentiment. The Tories’ ‘stop the boats’ slogan, now echoed on many of the riots outside hotels accommodating refugees, was never challenged by Starmer. Instead, the leadership of the Labour Party attack the Tories for being ineffectual at stopping ‘illegal’ migration to Britain.

Labour and the Tories danced to the tune of the right-wing tabloid press who on a daily basis over many years used their papers to convince its readerships that migrants are to blame for the crisis in the NHS, the lack of affordable housing, poverty pay and foodbanks.

The starting point to assess how we defeat the fascists and the far-right is to remember that the anti-racists in Britain today are the majority.

A statement put out by hundreds of MPs, Trade Union leaders and celebrities calls upon the whole of the movement to unite to defeat the fascists and far-right. Sign it at bit.ly/unitystatement2024

Out of the blue?

For many of the liberal political commentators, the far-right mobilisations come out of nowhere. They have been taken by surprise by the level of support that the call to physically attack refugees and anyone of colour has had from within some working-class communities. Whilst they are aghast of what has taken place, they need to take account of their role in allowing the likes of Robinson and Farage to portray themselves as the ambassadors of the dispossessed.

These liberal commentators sneer at working class people, writing off everyone who voted for Brexit as a racist. They failed to understand the deep despair within working class communities whose lives have been impoverished after decades of austerity.

The failure of the Labour and Trade Union leaders to lead the fight to reverse these attacks has allowed right-wing populists and fascists to place themselves as anti-establishment leaders who will take on the corrupt establishment.

Learning the lessons of history

This is nothing new. In the 1930s Oswald Mosley, like Farage, came from an upper-class background and was supported, again like Farage, by the Daily Mail and other tabloid newspapers.

It is in deep economic and political crisis that fascist organisation emerges, and can do so very quickly. Fascism as a particular form of political organisation was first seen In Italy in the 1920s. Mussolini went from having no organisation to seizing power in two years. In Germany, Hitler’s Nazis, after the Wall Street crash in 1929, saw a big increase in votes winning the largest number of seats in the Reichstag. President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor in 1933 believing that the establishment could control Hitler.

Today the political and economic crisis is not as deep as the period that followed WWI. The failure of the hope of revolution in German led to counter-revolutionary despair. But it is sadly not far-fetched to foresee a situation where in France, Marine Le Pen’s Nazis may fail to win the Presidential election but could be offered a key place in government by Macron and others, out of fear of working-class resistance.

What makes fascist organisation different to other forms of far-right tyrannical government that have came to power on the back of a military coup is that they had a base within different sections of class society. First, the middle class and small businesses who were crushed by the economic crisis. Second, the unemployed. This then allowed the Nazis to win some support amongst the working class. It is at this point, when the Nazis have a serious political platform, that the employers, who have lost any idea as to how to end the economic crisis turn to fascism.

To get to this stage the fascists need to build a street movement which allows these different sections to express their rage to the establishment. Like Hitler and Mussolini, ‘Tommy Robinson’ (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) recognises that the key to the far-right becoming a real alternative is through building a street movement. He will be aided by far-right populist MPs from Reform UK who also recognise that they too need a street movement to survive.

Fascists use racism to achieve their aims by dividing working class opposition. The racist target changes depending on the context. In Germany it was the Jews. In the 1970’s in Britain the main targets for the Nazi National Front went from the Caribbean community to Ugandan Asians. In the 80s after Thatcher’s notorious ‘swamped’ speech, the Asian community became the target.

Today Robinson targets Muslims. Islamophobia is used to divide opposition to the fascists and the far-right, which opens the gate to attacks on all other communities. For fascists, racism is simply a tool to achieve their real goal – smashing independent working-class organisation that they rightly see as the key bulwark against everything they stand for.

Defeating them on the streets

This is why the key to defeating the fascists and their far-right supporters is by mobilising against them. There are some within the movement who argue that we should not confront the Nazis on the streets on the grounds that this plays into their hands by giving them publicity. If anything will play into the hands of the fascists and the far-right it will be pretending they will go away if we ignore them. They won’t. If there are not counter protests like the inspiring (and incredibly brave) ones we have seen so far, the fascists will grow in confidence.

This is how we defeated Mosley in the 30s, the NF in the 70’s, the BNP in the 90s and the EDL in the 2000s.

The millions of people who have marched week in week out on the streets of Britain in solidarity with Palestine demonstrate the potential power we have to build a street movement that dwarfs the fascist and far-right mobilisations.

We need to unite every part of the movement if we are to defeat the fascists and the far-right.

Starmer looks to stiff prison sentences to deter the far-right, as he did when he was Director of Public Prosecutions in 2011, when he locked up thousands of mainly black youth who were rightly protesting about the killing of Mark Duggan, another black man, by police in North London.

What Starmer won’t do is implement policies that will deal with the root causes of these horrendous attacks – racism , poverty and the lack of leadership from the top of the movement to coordinate generalised resistance to them.

This is why, alongside mobilising counter protests, we need an organised labour response that makes clear who the main enemy is.  We cannot have any more pandering to racists within trade unions that campaign around slogans like ‘British jobs for British workers.’  We need a Trade Union movement that says – not just in words but also in deeds – that workers must not pay the price for corporate greed and government corruption.

The lessons of history cannot be clearer on how to deal with the growth of the fascists and the far-right – the maximum amount of unity is needed to confront the Nazis on the streets. But also we need an organised Labour movement that deals with the root causes of working peoples’ despair, through mass mobilisations and strikes to prevent further attacks on our communities.

Sean Vernell, UCU NEC

Warning from France: How do we defeat the far right?

Thursday 11th July 6.30pm on Zoom
Register here: https://rb.gy/ta54h8 

Yesterday in France, Marine Le Pen’s fascist party were beaten back into third place. This is brilliant news, and millions will be relieved. However, the fascist RN still gained 142 seats (up from 88 seats), which is a warning for all anti-racists and anti-fascists.  

In the UK, Reform gained over 4 million votes. Nigel Farage and 4 other Reform UK candidates are now MPs. They are a racist party that seeks to divide people and whip up racism, homophobia and transphobia. 

The fascist Tommy Robinson plans to march in central London on the 27th July, with thousands of racists, football hooligans and neo-nazis. Racism and fascism are a serious threat to society: an attack on equality, academic freedom, democracy and trade union rights. 

Therefore, it is imperative that the whole trade union movement and wider anti-racist movement come together in unity to oppose the growth of fascist forces in Britain. We have a long, successful anti-fascist and anti-racist movement in the UK that has prevented the fascists building before. We must now come together to do this again. 

Speakers (TBC)
– Eyewitness from France, a French trade unionist 
– Weyman Bennett, Stand Up To Racism speaker 
– Maria Chondrogianni, UCU President-Elect

UCU Left report on Friday’s NEC

UNITE dispute means NEC is paralysed by its inability to instruct the General Secretary to settle the dispute and fails to look outwards. 

Unlike the first meeting of the HEC which dealt with all business, the first meeting of the NEC has been paralysed by its inability to hold the General Secretary to account. Unfortunately it was a very inward looking meeting and failed to orientate the union in a way that can meet the huge challenges facing the post-16 education sectors. 

The NEC by rule (28.2 and 29.2) has responsibility to instruct the General Secretary in relation to staff issues. The UNITE staff union’s dispute over racism, bullying and the breaking of the procedure agreement led to the abandonment of the second day of UCU Annual Congress and has now led to the halting of NEC members ability to instruct the GS to resolve the dispute.

A union that fails to have influence in the wider social and industrial environment it operates within, building confidence within its branches and the rank and file, inevitably begins to focus on control over internal structures. It is therefore no surprise  that the series of complaints that should have been resolved swiftly, robustly and internally in order to avoid a dispute, has now spread into the functioning and representation of the wider union.

Moreover, UCU’s retreat from UK coordinated industrial action over pay, jobs and conditions to a focus on local branch-level action will weaken rather than strengthen the national union. In doing so it leads to the General Secretary suggesting that an incoming Labour Government, under Starmer’s leadership, will repeal anti-union legislation in its first 100 days including the 50% threshold for ballots. It was optimistically suggested that this will open the door to a new era of industrial strength. We hope it does, but it only will if trade unions continue to fight for members – improved pay and conditions will not simply be granted from above.  

It was welcome to hear that the Labour Party has approached UCU to hear our solutions to the crises. We need to take any opportunities that we can to shape educational policy under the incoming government. In order to do this we need to build pressure on them to act, we cannot trust them to carry through on their words and platitudes. It was disappointing that the Congress decision to call a national demonstration in the Autumn term was not part of the GS report, and that that section was timed out before NEC members could ask about this. 

The right wing of our union places the paralysis of our union within a narrative of a dysfunctional NEC impeding the completion of ‘important’ union business. However, by ‘important’ they mean managing bureaucracy and avoiding urgent political questions, such as responding to racism in the forthcoming UK elections or motions from branches.

Very few decisions were taken on how UCU will take forward its important work. A motion was unanimously passed on organising against the CASS report by working with trans-led organisations and to pressure the government to improve trans healthcare. The second motion that was passed originally called to support the work of Stand Up To Racism in opposing the rise of the far-right in the UK. UCU is affiliated to Stand Up To Racism, the organisation that is at the heart of building opposition to the far right in the UK. However, the right in the union wants to over turn this affiliation through amending motions rather than taking the decision to Congress, and so the motion was amended which removed naming SUTR. Nevertheless, NEC did support that UCU members should campaign against the Reform Party and, importantly, to support, mobilise and publicise the counter demonstration against the nazi Tommy Robinson on 27th July. We hope this happens and that we see many UCU members with their banners alongside the rest of the trade union movement to oppose the far right. 

Many other motions fell due to time constraints – these covered issues such as defending the student protests. This was an important motion as we have seen hostile management actions and horrendous police aggression against student encampments, particularly at Oxford and Newcastle. 

There was very little discussion on Palestine, despite the overwhelming support at Congress for UCU to take action to provide solidarity and build the movement to oppose the war. 

Another decision that was taken was to move, in principle, to a hybrid Congress in 2025. At Congress 2024 a change in the standing orders was passed that enabled NEC to consider moving to hybrid Congress. We must ensure our democratic structures and conferences are open to all members, and for some, being able to join online will improve their ability to engage. However, the paper that was brought to NEC had very little detail on how a hybrid Congress would work. This is deeply concerning for issues of democracy and equality. 

Being part of a trade union is about feeling the sense of collectivity and solidarity. Attending in person meetings can enable members to meet others from across all our sectors and nations. For many, particularly women with caring responsibilities, it is very hard to take part in an online conference. If members are not encouraged to attend in person, it may seem an easy option to join online so they can continue with their day-to-day duties. However, this can lead to feeling isolated and disconnected. Moreover, disabled members at Congress and NEC spoke of the need to make Congress more accessible. We need to be finding ways to ensure people feel welcome and that Congress has an accessible and family friendly atmosphere, rather than feeling that Congress is not a space for them and that they need to join online. 

What is clear from Friday’s NEC is that the national leadership and the right in the union are unable to meet the challenges that we face. We must build a stronger rank and file movement within the union that can create the conditions to push back against this bureaucratic inertia.