Author: Sean Wallis

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The Cost Of Living Crisis is Biting Now – Escalate to Win

Lobby of UCEA employers during 30 November national demonstration.

#NoCapitulation

The General Secretary has followed up the video she released last week, in which she questioned the HEC’s decisions on industrial action, with a proposal of her own. In a glossy document, she sets out a timetable for limited strike action, a reballot and possible marking assessment boycott.

The General Secretary’s proposal

Having declared last week that a marking and assessment boycott would be organised for January, it is not included in this latest plan.

Worse, as an alternative to the indefinite action favoured by HEC, for the rest of our ballot mandate she proposes a ‘strategy’ of sporadic two- and three-day strikes in February and March.

The document claims this is a ‘professional’ strategy which is based on the ‘successful management of the RMT and CWU disputes.’ But those disputes have not broken through.

If this were agreed, it would squander the mandate for industrial action in 150 universities that we celebrated with much fanfare in October. Counting the three days we have already taken, Jo Grady is proposing a total of just 13 days across the entire six month period covered by the ballot, but in an on-off manner that loses momentum and the employers can easily manage as they have demonstrated since 2019.

This is nothing like the ‘shutting down of campuses’ that the General Secretary promised. It is not even an escalation.

It is a green light for the employers to sit tight and ride out the action, just as they did last year and just as employers and government are doing in the post, rail and NHS disputes.

Why did HEC vote for indefinite action?

The reason HEC voted for an early marking boycott and indefinite strike action was because we need to try and win the dispute early, ideally without having to reballot.

Going all-out in a sustained way with indefinite action run by the grassroots of the union means a hard-hitting shutdown of campus early in term that can win the dispute and limit the impact on students.

Not only have the post and rail disputes demonstrated that ‘playing the long game’ does not deliver results, but the rhythm of the academic year demands that we take action at every point where all institutions are teaching.

The negotiations are coming to a head now, and the time to escalate is now.

The reason why the employers were planning to table an early settlement on pay is that the period December to April is when universities know their tuition fee income and finally allocate their budgets for the year. If staff want a share of that budget, they need to apply industrial pressure over this period.

On USS, we have a real opportunity to recover members’ benefits. Two of our negotiators have outlined a credible proposal for reversing the theft of USS members’ benefits on 1st April 2023. But there is a short window for putting any such proposal into action.

We cannot afford to risk the momentum we built up by wasting two months of a six month window without taking action. That’s why a January marking boycott is important. But it must be followed up with meaningful strike action in order to defend members. The GS’s document spells out that there are seven weeks during February and March during which all universities are teaching. Calling an indefinite strike in February threatens the employers with up to 42 days of strike action which would shut down the campuses and take out Semester 2.

Democracy is not an added extra

There is a marked difference between the resources being put behind the communication of the General Secretary’s proposal compared to the HEC plan. HEC’s decisions were kept secret for more than a month by UCU, despite having been taken by elected lay members following democratic debate based on input from branches.

January’s Branch Delegate Meeting is being set up on the basis of a straight choice between the two proposals. In her determination to get the BDM to endorse it, the GS is incorrectly describing her proposed strategy as ‘escalating action from February through to April.’ But it does not escalate, and the last strike date she proposes is actually 22nd March. If she is successful in persuading the BDM, the pressure will be on HEC to reverse the decisions it took in November.

Branches should not rely on these questions. They should organise meetings for the BDM and express their views through motions. This is the tried and tested democratic process used in the trade union movement. Then we must demand that those views are discussed and debated at the BDM. In October HEC voted for BDMs to hear motions from branches, but this motion was ignored.

Democracy is not an added extra. Strike action of this scale needs an elected national strike committee that can coordinate between branches and can decide whether to pause or resume action.

Of course we all want coordination with other unions, and of course we have to take issues of hardship seriously. But coordination shouldn’t be used as a reason for individual unions to hold back action. While we need to raise solidarity across the movement, the best way to deal with the threat of hardship is to use the mandate we worked so hard for to win this dispute.

The General Secretary says that indefinite action has not been used by the ‘big battalions’ of the movement. That is true – but both CWU and RMT are now being forced to escalate their strikes because the employers are digging in and counter attacking. By contrast, an indefinite strike won barristers a hefty 15% pay rise.

Members have to take democratic control of this dispute, both at the BDM and in branches but also by the establishment of local and national strike committees to assess and develop action and involve the mass of members.

We need a proper debate in our union about the next steps in our dispute, not surveys with leading questions without a proper explanation of the merits and disadvantages of proposals.

We face the biggest attack on our living standards for generations.

We can’t just revert to the same old tired plan. We have to fight to win – and that means escalating as soon as possible.

UCU Left Open Meeting

Fighting the HE disputes
What strategy do we need and how should we decide it?

Wednesday 4th January, 7pm

The General Secretary has proposed an alternative to the strategy passed by the Higher Education Committee on November 3rd. Instead of a January marking and assessment boycott followed by an indefinite strike, she advocates ten days of strike action spread through February and March.

Ahead of the Branch Delegate Meeting, join this Q&A to find out why UCU Left members of HEC voted for a MAB and indefinite action, and why we need union democracy to win these disputes.

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For action that can win – shut down the campuses!

After weeks of silence and prevarication, the General Secretary has finally announced the decisions on industrial action taken by the Higher Education Committee (HEC).

We welcome the news that the marking and assessment boycott (MAB) is to be notified to start in January. But at the same time Jo Grady has undermined our unity by publicly declaring her opposition to all-out strike action just one hour before negotiations with the employers began!

Why did HEC take the decisions that it did?

HEC voted for an early marking boycott because, as twenty branches proved in the summer, it is a powerful weapon that needs to be used before our ballot mandate expires. At the time, the GS opposed that decision, telling us that the majority for a MAB at the Branch Delegate Meeting (BDM) was not big enough. We are glad she has changed her mind.

The decision for all-out indefinite strike action was taken because HEC members understand we are in the fight of our lives. We have taken blocks of action before and the employers have dug their heels in and waited it out. Members have watched the post and rail bosses do the same in response to the CWU’s and RMT’s action. The BDM was not allowed to consider all-out action, but this is how we carry out Jo Grady’s promise to ‘shut down the campuses in Semester 2.’

This is not ‘playing in the hands of our employers,’ but taking action that can win. Pacing ourselves by spreading out the action over months will not work in circumstances where the bosses and the Tories are determined to hold the line. The cost-of-living crisis has raised the stakes. If we fail to break through, our employers will have carte blanche not only to continue cutting our pay, but to impose mass sackings and contract changes. The future of our union is at stake.

Democracy

To win these disputes members need to be in control. They have to know that the union’s leaders are accountable and that the decisions of our elected bodies are not going to be ignored. We need strike committees in every institution with delegates empowered to make decisions on our disputes at a UK-wide level.

UCU Left members were among the majority at HEC that voted for a January marking boycott followed by all-out indefinite action. We were right to do so. We have a powerful mandate for action. We can’t afford to waste it.

If you support action that can win, vote for UCU Left candidates in the forthcoming NEC elections.

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Time to get organised to win the HE ballot!

UCU members will need to get organised to win the ballots in Higher Education. After the UCU Rising campaign on Wednesday 10th August, it’s all hands on deck to deliver the hard-hitting, ‘transformative’ campaign promised by UCU HQ.

We are in the middle of a huge fight over pay across every sector across the UK, from education and transport to communications. People are not falling for the lie that wage increases cause inflation. The government stood by and allowed oil giants to hype fuel costs, triggering price increases across the economy. Headline average inflation of more than 11% understates the impact on ordinary people, with up to 50% increases in supermarket prices for vegetables and staples.

RMT leaders Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey have become overnight celebrities for speaking the plain truth: workers have no choice but to fight for a pay increase that keeps up with inflation. Cuts in pay for skilled workers reverberate across the economy. If salaries fall, without workers’ spending, jobs and pay in service sectors will be trashed. The RMT and CWU are leading the fight, and millions can see it. 

But other unions need to organise to bring workers out on strike. Indeed, we cannot afford to ignore threats to the right to strike by Conservative Party leadership candidates. The Tories are gambling on taking on all the trade unions at the same time – something that even Margaret Thatcher never dared do. 

Alongside the other HE trade unions, UNISON, GMB, EIS and UNITE, UCU has rejected the paltry 3% pay offer from the HE employers. All bar one have declared a dispute, and UNISON has already begun to ballot for action in the autumn. 

Against RPI, this ‘increase’ is equivalent to permanently slashing pay by almost 3 grade points, or half a pay grade. We can’t afford to accept this.

Following robust campaigns and ballots, elsewhere workers have been winning higher increases. Leading the way is UNITE. Among other successes, UNITE was able to raise airport workers’ pay by 21% at Gatwick and 10% at Glasgow. In FE, UCU has won an uplift of £2,668 and a £500 one-off payment at Hugh Baird College in Liverpool after threatening strike action. So far some 35 FE branches have live mandates for industrial action after being offered increases around the 2.5% mark.

A series of unions have won ballots and are already taking action, including the RMT on rail and underground, train drivers in ASLEF, and the CWU communication workers. Even without a union, Amazon workers are staging wildcat walkouts over pay. Other unions, including the NEU schoolteachers, and UNISON in HE have announced ballots in the autumn. 

This is the context for the launch of the union’s ‘UCU Rising’ campaign. The UCU leadership has accepted something that union activists have been telling them for years: you have to campaign ahead of a ballot in order to win it. You also have to lead from the front to give members the confidence that you are serious. 

We have exceeded a 50% turnout in aggregated ballots in the past. In 2005, just before UCU was formed, General Secretaries Sally Hunt and Paul Mackney toured union branches to convince members and reps that their respective national unions wanted to win the ballot. The result was a turnout of around 54% in each union.

Similarly, the 2017-18 USS ballot in pre-92 reached a turnout of 56% overall. The key ingredient was a political campaign among members that mobilised reps and activists to win the argument that now was the time to fight – and vote.

So the fora and webinars with Jo Grady announced by UCU to launch the dispute are welcome. We need more than leaflets and posters when members are mainly working online. We need to create impetus over the summer even if many are on leave. The union needs to set the clear expectation that we intend to win this ballot.

One might think that given the scale of the attacks and this wider groundswell and enthusiasm for unions like the RMT, winning a ballot in HE would be straightforward. But there are underlying concerns among members. 

Strategy

First, there are unresolved questions about industrial strategy. Members need to know the union is serious about taking the kind of action required to force up offers over pay. 

Last year the union called strike action on dates which had limited impact on the employers, and did not increase pay offers at a national table. In some cases strikes were in Reading Weeks or out of term-time, meaning that no leverage was placed on the employers’ ability to access their primary source of income, students.

On the other hand, branches were able to deploy marking boycotts extremely effectively, but with a local impact. Organising on a rank and file basis, with no real support from the centre, union members learned they had real leverage over their employers, and displayed true grit in standing up to employers’ pay deduction threats. One after the next, the employers negotiated local agreements to end the action. But strong action in a minority of branches was insufficient to shift the employers nationally. 

It is clear that the UCU leadership expected the marking and assessment boycott campaign to fail, and understated its success because they stood aside. We all know its limitations. But we cannot ignore the fact that it exposed the weakness of the employers who annually threatened 100% pay deductions since 2006. With the exception of Queen Mary University of London, the employers did not impose 100% pay deductions: only at Goldsmiths and the RCA were any deductions for boycotts made.

A marking boycott is not a panacea, and we cannot afford to wait until critical marking periods next year to fight over pay. We will need to win a second autumn ballot in any case. But the lesson is clear: if we are prepared to take hard-hitting industrial action we can win. We need to apply this lesson to our strike action strategy.

Organisation

The second issue concerns our own organisation: we will need a serious effort to drive up the turnout.

The ballot will be aggregated across all employers, over seven weeks. 

The last time UCU ran an aggregated ballot in HE over pay, ending in February 2019, the turnout (41%) was an almost replica of the previous disaggregated turnout (average 42%). Then in the autumn of 2019, a return to disaggregated ballot and a combined ballot envelope (USS, pay) pushed up turnout to an average of 49%, and 57 branches were able to take action. In the last year, average turnouts were at, or just below, 50%. This is too close to call.

As we noted above, the last time we beat the 50% turnout by a comfortable margin across pre- and post-92 was in 2005-6, just before the merger. We know what we need to do: campaign across the entire union to increase participation.

Along with pay, the USS dispute is also clearly winnable. The changes railroaded through on 1 April cannot be justified. USS is taking ‘deficit recovery contributions’ amounting to one fifth of all payments into the scheme (over half a billion pounds a year) when their own monitoring assessment of the projected deficit says these contributions are no longer required. This is theft on a grand scale, and these payments should be paid into member benefits and the cuts reversed. 

Next steps

We need to rally members to get behind this campaign now. 

We can expect to get a clear timeline this week, so branch officers and reps know what they need to do when. The campaign should start now, well before ballot envelopes hit doormats and pigeon holes. 

There are a range of tasks to be worked through from ‘GTVO preparation’ to organising rallies to launch the ballot. Activists are asking what they can do to help. We should treat every member as a potential activist, asking them to call meetings in departments timed for when the ballot begins.

Members are extremely angry. They need to know that the union is serious about winning these parallel disputes. It is never more true to say that we are in the fight of our lives! 

It is time to get organised.

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HEC report 1 July 2022

HEC unites around a programme to rebuild the disputes

The Higher Education Committee met on Friday to discuss the state of the industrial action campaigns over Four Fights and USS. It was the first opportunity for HEC to meet since the HE Sector Conference and a Branch Delegate Meeting.

After some debate, HEC voted overwhelmingly (with only 6 votes against) to support a strategy involving updating the grounds of dispute, triggering dispute procedures, and building a serious campaign for action in the Autumn term, with a conjoined ballot if the employers do not move. 

HEC had been asked to address a complex picture. At Sector Conference on June 2 delegates had voted for motions calling for two long aggregated ballots over both disputes, one over the summer from early June (i.e. immediately) intended to provide a mandate for action in the Autumn term (HE6), and one from October to January for a mandate into June (HE7). These motions were agreed by Conference to be entirely compatible and if both were successful would put the union in a position to call action over these disputes at strategically key times over the academic year.

However Motion HE6 was not implemented and instead a Branch Delegate Meeting was called on Monday prior to HEC. Delegates were asked a series of questions that were only circulated the previous Wednesday. HE officers had no input into these questions, some of which directly contradicted the position of Sector Conference.

It had also been intimated to members that voting for a summer ballot would face legal challenges, and unsurprisingly that meant that the proposal for an already-delayed summer ballot was supported only by a minority, even though it had been supported by three sector conference votes. (This legal advice was never given to BDM delegates, HEC or HE officers.)

HEC was presented with the results of this consultation. The process was obviously democratically flawed, but HEC took the view that given the need to win an aggregated ballot it was essential to be mindful of the view of members.

Meanwhile, other trade unions have been gearing up to take action over pay and the Cost of Living crisis. With 3% likely to be imposed in August, and inflation at 11%, UNISON has said that they will ballot HE members over the 2022-23 pay claim over the summer from the end of July. The school teaching unions NEU and NASUWT intend to ballot in the early autumn.

Planning the disputes

HEC voted to establish updated grounds of dispute over Four Fights and USS and thereby avoid any risk of legal challenge.

HEC voted for a first ballot in early autumn which would permit UCU members to take action alongside UNISON and schoolteachers. There must be a campaign of action, led by the General Secretary, to build this ballot.

HEC also agreed to run a second ballot to end in early 2023 to ensure a marking and assessment boycott mandate into the exam period. Branches have been learning from the boycott campaign this year and a much bigger marking boycott may turn into a reality.

Making sure boycotting branches win

HEC also voted to call on UCU to actively and publicly support those branches currently engaged in a marking boycott right now.

HEC was told that Queen Mary UCU members are facing the threat of losing 42 days’ pay over two months. It is essential that the whole union rallies around.

Branches still in boycott include Queen Mary, RCA, Bournemouth and Goldsmiths.

HEC noted “the effectiveness of locally-organised marking and assessment boycotts, backed up by twinning campaigns to obtain USS statements and local demands under the Four Fights umbrella and defy pay docking — despite UCEA calling for 100% deductions since 2006.”

HEC made it clear that it is strategically imperative to ensure these disputes win and are seen to win.

HEC demanded that these disputes are prioritised internally within UCU and publicly, with publicity emphasising that UCU nationally stands behind branches and members facing pay-docking. As part of this the General Secretary was asked to make a declaration of unequivocal support for boycotting branches and to call on the whole union and wider trade union movement to offer solidarity.

Beyond this, boycotting branches must be consulted about next steps, including financial support for local hardship funds and potential legal action.

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How many times must members be surveyed before they are permitted to fight?

Branch reps in mandated UCU branches were astonished to read yet another email on Monday from HQ asking them whether or not members were ready to launch a marking and assessment boycott. They were asked to respond in 24 hours.

Branches had been told to expect an email of Frequently Asked Questions about the marking boycott. But in this email there was no statement about how the boycott would be actioned and members supported. Nothing about the mechanics of the marking boycott and how strike action might back up ASOS – only that deductions ‘would face the immediate threat of strike action’.

It is not surprising that ordinary branch activists, reps and members feel abandoned. From the very start of this dispute rank and file reps have had to fight to push it forward, and ever since the last ballot mandate, the General Secretary has made it clear she favours not using it. Branches feel surveyed to death!

After delayed SHESCs, branch delegate meetings and HECs, and delays in issuing the mandate so that in many branches marking has mostly been done, members can see that the GS does not want the marking boycott to go ahead.

Democracy in our dispute

Perhaps most shockingly, the message asked reps whether their branch would continue to fight if others dropped out, either because the timing was wrong or members did not feel supported. The email sought to undermine the very premise of trade union collective action in a national dispute. This is a profoundly anti-democratic proposal.

The democratic solution is to call an urgent branch delegate meeting for branch reps with a mandate, to thrash out what the union should do. That is precisely what Motion 6 at both SHESCs called for.

Until such time as branches collectively decide to stand down a marking boycott, it should go ahead. In the meantime, there is no time to lose. No action should be stood down, and HQ should get their FAQs out!

Twinning, solidarity and keeping up the fight

Branches currently without a mandate need to invite reps from branches with a mandate to ‘twin’ and raise funds to support whatever action they decide to take.

Members not taking action should be encouraged to think about serious donations, such as a day’s pay for every week that a branch is boycotting. This way we can ensure members who do face pay docking are supported.

And we need to start preparing the ground now for a long reballot over the summer, to bring as many branches out as possible together at the start of term.

The stakes are extremely high. On the one hand we can all see universities like De Montfort and Wolverhampton attempting to make cuts in Higher Education.

On the other, the employers can be forced to concede over Four Fights, pay and pensions. The employers are exposed over their complicity in making unnecessary USS cuts, and some are prepared to offer huge bribes to staff to break the strike. We can win, but we need to stand together.

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How do we build the Marking Boycott?

UCU members urgently need to discuss how to implement the marking and assessment boycott called by the union. The General Secretary wrote to reps in Four Fights branches with a mandate saying that the action would be called, and press releases have gone out from UCU. In this article we summarise the lessons of previous marking boycotts and set out a strategy for this phase of the action.

This is the first time that members have been called to boycott marking in a UK-wide dispute since 2006. There is huge political support for the action, with branches recording over 80% votes in favour, and only slightly lower figures for strike action. This is despite employers threatening 100% pay deductions for participants.

But we need to urgently work out, and coalesce behind, a clear action plan.

The first step must be for UCU to formally notify employers of the boycott. Under the anti-union laws, calls for strike action and ASOS must be pre-notified 14 days’ ahead of the start of the action. With marking already begun in many institutions there is no justification for any delay.

The second step is to call meetings in every branch with a live mandate to talk through what this means in practice.

The lessons of previous boycotts

One of the lessons of the 2006 dispute is that a small minority of members can completely disrupt marking, provided that they are supported. But since 2006 the employers have sought to construct ways to ‘mitigate the impact’. These range from draconian threats of disproportionate pay deductions to attempting to force marking processes quickly, dropping second marking requirements, and paying postgraduates to mark work set by other staff. However, these measures come up against the reality of the market system in Higher Education that they themselves have encouraged. Prompt organising can pay dividends.

Successful marking boycotts have now been held at a number of universities since 2006, including SOAS, Liverpool, the Royal College of Art (RCA) and Goldsmiths. Liverpool is probably the most directly comparable to the situation most branches are in. But the other disputes show that casually-employed staff can fight back effectively with the marking boycott.

Last year, Liverpool University tried to play hard-ball with 100% pay deductions. A high level of branch organising held the line. And then Liverpool students rebelled after the employer issued made-up marks, prevented students graduating, etc.

Liverpool members keep repeating one point however: their marking boycott did not succeed by the use of ASOS alone. It worked because the branch backed it up with, and eventually switched to, strike action. A similar strategy was used at the RCA.

Addressing pay deduction threats

This is probably the issue on most members’ minds right now, and quite rightly.

Firstly, we need to organise to ensure that members taking the action are supported financially by the entire union, and know they are being supported. UCU needs to launch twinning arrangements between university branches with a mandate and those without, invite speakers to general meetings and launch local fundraising drives. We all have a stake in winning this fight.

Secondly, UCU has called strike action. The principal purpose of these strikes (see below) should be to back up the marking boycott, by offering to stand down the action if the employer does not threaten high pay deductions. (NB. Legally, notice must be issued in advance due to the 14-day rule, but strikes can be stood down without notice.) In recent disputes, employers have made pay threats ranging from 40% in Leicester to 100% in Liverpool. What is considered ‘disproportionate’ is in the hands of the branch.

Thirdly, employers must be put on notice that if they escalate high pay docking threats it will have a big political effect in terms of the reputation of the university, and to when students can expect to receive their marks.

We should call staff-student assemblies in every university to talk through the action, why we are taking it and why we call on the university to mitigate the impact. The employers want to scrap pensions, undermine pay levels and increase workload and inequality. They want to create teaching factories, while at the same time reaping the benefits of high fees and lifetime student loans. This is an attack on current and future students.

Finally, the branch needs to organise! Nothing in the above can be done without regular members’ meetings. Liverpool UCU called daily online strike meetings at 9am where members could meet online to discuss the action.

Importantly, it is essential that meetings involve members taking part in the action and members who are not. Boycotting members must not be left to fend for themselves! This is a fight for everyone.

What about other mitigations employers might make?

The employers will be looking to other types of mitigation, from demanding marks are submitted early, reducing oversight and removing second marking requirements, and offering marking work to postgrads and other staff.

  • Preventing the speeding up of marking. Employers are not free to change marking timetables to rush marking through. A combination of the student-market ‘customer’ regime, and Covid and strike mitigation measures mean that students themselves are entitled to request extensions to delay submission. Last year saw record requests for ‘extenuating circumstances’ extensions. Any attempt to speed up submission or marking should be denounced publicly. Course leaders and heads of department should object in defence of their students! And of course we must insist that workload agreements are upheld where they exist, and that individuals’ workloads are not altered to undermine the boycott.
  • Defending second marking and other processes. Marking is rarely done once by staff working alone. Second marking, marking consolidation meetings, etc. are all points of pressure covered by the marking and assessment boycott. Specific instruction on ASOS and the processing of marks is likely to come from UCU, but in the past the ASOS has been interpreted to include not just the marking itself but all aspects of the assessment process. Again, this is a clear issue of quality assurance and control.
  • Recruiting postgraduate students and other staff. Anyone who is approached to mark must be encouraged to join UCU – and asked not to mark! Anyone performing work for the university is eligible to join UCU, and the low paid can join for free. Both existing marking and any ‘additional marking’ are covered by the marking boycott, whether this is paid by the hour or as part of contract. Casually-employed staff in SOAS and Goldsmiths have both won disputes by boycotting marking, and branches can be approached for speakers.

The basic legal position for external examiners is that they are not covered by the ballot (because they were not balloted in this employer), but are free to choose to resign out of solidarity.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the Liverpool dispute showed the power that members have over marking.

The quality of a degree is dependent on ensuring that staff expert in the subject teach and mark. The more specialised the question, the more difficult it is to find an alternative marker. Questions and answers are neither routine nor generic. Mark too low, and the university gets student complaints. Too high, and you discredit the degree and the university.

How can strikes back the boycott?

The UCU GS email announcing the action also said that a Branch Delegate Meeting would be called on May 10, with action called from May 12. It then asked branches to meet to decide what strike action they would like to call.  However, this risks sowing confusion, and does not reflect the motions passed at the Four Fights Sector Conference.

There are, in broad terms, three possible types of strike action that might be called alongside a marking boycott. These are:

  1. Strike action called to provide an alternative course of action from ASOS should the ASOS attract disproportionate pay deductions. This is what Motion 6, which was passed, explicitly called for. In Liverpool the employer threatened 100% pay deductions (a ‘lock out’) so the branch called strikes for the whole branch, replacing ASOS with strikes. That way the members taking the action were not left on their own, and the marking boycott continued to be effective. The employer was punished politically and industrially by its hardline approach bringing the whole union out on strike in solidarity.
  2. Strike action to be called on targeted days to be determined locally. Targeted strikes can be useful, but require some discussion. Targeting exam boards for example, might be possible, although of course the employer may circumvent this by delay. Where branches have had most of their marking already done, this type of action may be necessary. The earliest date offered of 6 June may well be far too late for some branches: they need to push hard for earlier dates.
  3. Strike action on UK-wide- or nationally/regionally-coordinated days. Motion 7 calls for occasional coordinated dates to boost the campaign over casualisation and workload, and the same principle would apply for the pay equality fight.

Note there are significant practical and policy limitations over the types of local settlement that UCU is in a position to reach (see below), and the motions that have been passed allowing for action to be stood down based on employer conduct should be understood as backing up ASOS, rather than opening the door to a local settlement of the dispute.

How can the whole union support branches with a mandate?

Employers settle disputes when the cost of continuing is greater than the cost of settlement. The fact that up until now the employers have set their public faces against reaching agreement over the Four Fights – or indeed over the USS pension – is because it suits them to do so. This does not mean that they will hold this position forever.

The action that is being taken forward now will be hard-hitting if we can implement and hold it. The employers fear ‘forty Liverpools’: branches that have learned their power.

But it also means that the whole union must urgently rally round, by fundraising and solidarity.

Not everyone in a branch with a mandate will be able to take part in the marking boycott. Some will have late deadlines or marks will have been submitted. Academic-related and professional services staff may be only tangentially involved and research staff do not (should not) have marking duties in their contract.

All members not taking part in the boycott should be called on to donate to members taking the action. In particular, members in branches without a mandate must be asked to donate a credible amount. If a substantial number pledge, say, one day’s pay a week for the duration of the boycott, then that would amount to two weeks’ pay over the course of ten weeks. A few members can contribute more; many will afford less. But this is a reasonable benchmark.

Alongside fundraising, members can take part in demonstrative action short of industrial action, including demonstrations and protests.

Finally, precisely because we are engaged in UK-wide disputes, all branches will need to ballot again in order to take action together at the start of the next academic year.

Reballoting over the summer

After giving money, the greatest solidarity members can give those in the front line is to pledge to join them as soon as possible. So alongside fundraising and participating in demonstrations and protests alongside members taking action, branches should start planning to reballot over the summer if the employers have not settled.

Motion 15 from the HE Sector Conference called for strikes in induction week in the 2022-23 academic year. Induction weeks vary from institution to institution (from 12 to 26 September at least, and possibly later). Newly-successful branches have mandates that run until early October. To ensure that as many branches as possible are successful, the best bet is to have a long ballot. Disaggregated ballots (ballots counted on a per-employer basis) can have different end dates, to make the most of when staff are expected to return from leave.

What about an aggregated ballot? Recently some reps and branches have been calling for a return to aggregated ballots, arguing that we need to bring the whole union out on strike. Perhaps the longer period over the summer justifies a return to aggregation?

There has been some debate in the union over aggregated ballots, with the General Secretary pitching in with her opinion. Aggregated ballots are simpler to run, for one thing. And if successful they mean that members in weaker branches can strike.

The method of balloting is not a question of principle for the left, but tactics.

Aggregated ballots have disadvantages. The first concerns legal challenges. Although UCU has been careful not to draw attention to this publicly, in an aggregated ballot one employer can file an injunction and stop the whole union’s action.

The second disadvantage is that the ballots are all-or-nothing. If UCU were winning an average turnout of 55% or higher in disaggregated ballots, we could likely afford to take the risk of calling a UK-aggregated ballot. But this is not where we are.

Finally, there is the question of organising. The irony of the Tory anti-union threshold is that unions like UCU that have switched to disaggregated ballots have shown that you can organise to get the vote out and recruit reps in the process. This then makes switching from ‘get the vote out’ to ‘get the members out’ more straightforward.

The Tory anti-union law has galvanised unions and branches who got this right. Between 2018 and 2019 A lot of branches, including the biggest, boosted turnout from around 40% to above 50%. In 2020, both the Royal College of Art and University of the Arts London UCU branches smashed through the threshold by organising. Cardiff UCU shows you should never give up, successfully getting through the threshold this time by a renewed organising focus.

The issue at the present time also concerns the message that we send to the employers. If we say we are going for an aggregate ballot, in effect we are saying we are prepared to risk not getting over the threshold, and stopping our action. With colleagues preparing for a marking boycott we think this is the wrong message to send!

The current phase of action requires us all to up our game. We need an even higher intensity of organising, not just to get the members out, but to hold the action. We must ensure that the employers blink first.

Local settlements

As the pressure starts to bite, employers may start seeking local settlements. We need to be clear that all branches are in UK-wide disputes, and so a local settlement is not a way out for an employer. If in doubt, talk to union officials and the national negotiators!

But there are goodwill actions that an employer might make. In 2019-20 some branches were effective at using the UK-wide action to put political pressure on their university managements to negotiate over casualisation and workload (UCL and many others) and equality (notably Bristol). Of course, the first act of goodwill we ask employers to make is to not make threats of high pay deductions for ASOS.

UCU is committed to UK-wide pay bargaining, and it is not possible for the union to reach local deals over pay in return for standing down action. Where there is an offer to stand down strikes, it would not be to end the action or dispute, and ASOS would continue.

The same applies to USS negotiations. There are practical useful demands around seeking that employers break ranks within UUK to force a vote on paying in Deficit Recovery Contributions into pensions and partially reversing the 1 April pension cuts that would be helpful. But even the most supportive local statement would not enable branches to reach an agreement – the changes have to go through the USS JNC!

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UCU Left recommendations on USS SHESC voting

Motion Recommendation
1 SWG report and recommendations HEC Remit, because the last bullet point is potentially unconstitutional and could be used to silence negotiators
Oppose if not remitted*
2 Call for indefinite strike action Sheffield Against, in favour of later motions
3 Indefinite action USS HEC For
4 Escalate to indefinite action with local consultation Manchester For
5 ASOS and strike action (composite) Dundee / Ulster / Liverpool For
6 Industrial Action Plan University College London For
7 Action to win Glasgow For
8 USS – Escalating industrial action Nottingham Against, only ‘moving towards’ boycott
9 Assessment boycott as a core part of our UK-wide strategy Newcastle For, although no specific resolves
10 Escalation of USS Dispute ACC Against, no resolves and could be used by GS to undermine action
11 UCU HEC invitation to UUK to ACAS collective conciliation Bristol Against, because it would likely create a delay and the demand is unrealistic**
12 Next steps in the disputes Newcastle For
13 Planning now for action next academic year Cambridge Against, due to the mistaken call for an aggregated ballot
14 Co-ordinating effective UK-wide action Liverpool For
15 Striking out of teaching term Leeds Against
16 Maximum effective action Edinburgh For
17 Compiling regional calendars to assist timing of industrial action Heriot-Watt For, if amended
Otherwise oppose (risk of delay)
17A.1 Dundee For
18 Call for a return to aggregated strike ballots Southampton Against (aggregated ballot)
19 No decoupling of Four Fights and USS Dundee For
20 UCU HE members to decide future HE strike action Bristol Against
21 Branch Delegates Meetings Edinburgh For
22 Pay deductions for striking members with external funding ACC For
23 Negotiations before valuation Glasgow Against, because it weakens the negotiator’s position and there are better prospects in campaigning over DRCs
Consequentials: rules out 26 resolves “a” (no detriment) which has been remitted

Notes

*Motion 1. The Remit and Standing Orders for the SWG are intended to go via the NEC processes. Any changes in normal expectations must be made via standard Congress rule change process (2/3 majority etc), and corresponding implementation. While “Terms of Reference” may sound innocuous and indeed are proposed in good faith, they cannot be put in place for one committee in a manner that is distinct from that for all other. This poses risks in interpretation, implementation and consistency of process. As there is no option to take the motion in parts, were remission to fall, the SWG report should be voted down.

Existing policy would still continue to apply should the report be not passed.

**Motion 11. “Notes 4” is incorrect. The ACAS resolution of reduction in benefits similar to the current one was rejected by members; the JEP proposal came out of discussion between the previous GS and employers, and there was no second JEP proposal.

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UCU must call the marking boycott now – there is no time to waste!

In the ballot for industrial action, union members in their tens of thousands voted overwhelmingly for strike action and ASOS (including a marking boycott). When members were asked, “should we fight on?”, they voted YES.

Now, in an historic vote, elected branch delegates at the first Special Higher Education Sector Conference (on the Four Fights dispute) have voted for an immediate marking boycott backed up by strike action.

No more delays

These decisions must be acted on immediately. With marking begun in some universities, and 14 days notification to the employers required under the anti-union laws, there is no time to waste.

Every day lost risks weakening the marking boycott.

But the General Secretary’s email to members says that there will be a meeting on 10 May and an HEC on 12 May to decide “next steps”.

This is not what delegates voted for.

  • Motion 5 calls on HEC to “initiate a marking and assessment boycott at the earliest opportunity in all branches with a mandate.”
  • Motion 6 demands that UCU “call a boycott of all summative marking from the start of summer term.”
  • Motion 23, the only motion that resolved to consult branches, asked UCU to consult branches about dates to avoid for strike action.

Motions expressing the General Secretary’s proposals to postpone action were defeated. But her latest email seems to be yet another intervention to delay action to a point where it could be ineffective.

She has to stop blocking the democratic decisions of members.

We just voted. We don’t need to be consulted again!

UCU needs to call the marking boycott now – not after 12 May.

What needs to happen urgently is for HEC officers to meet and decide to send out notification to employers. There is no need for a full HEC meeting.

It was expected that this would happen after Friday’s HEC meeting. But that has been called off. HEC members have already written to the General Secretary asking why this has happened.

Consult over strikes, not the boycott

It is a good plan to hold a Branch Delegate Meeting on 10 May. But that is not a reason to delay calling the marking boycott. Indeed Motion 6 specifically called for weekly BDMs with voting powers to be held to monitor progress, after the marking boycott was called.

Branches did not vote for more consultation and delay over the marking boycott.

What you can do

Members and branches should write to  the General Secretary and HEC officers calling for the marking boycott to be formally notified immediately, and to reinstate Friday’s HEC meeting.  

The USS Special HESC

On Wednesday, delegates meet at the second Special Higher Education Sector Conference, on the USS pension dispute, to discuss the next steps in that campaign. All delegates have the right to expect that when they vote for motions, decisions will be enacted as soon as possible – especially when time is critical.

Several motions tabled at the Four Fights HESC re-appear on the order paper. We would encourage colleagues to be disciplined and ensure that at least the same action is called on the USS dispute heading as over Four Fights! It is also important that we work together to get through all of the business and debate the USS-specific motions at the end of the agenda.

Build the Solidarity!

We are now entering a new phase in the fight over Four Fights and USS.

Forty branches have a mandate for action. Others do not, but have recorded resounding YES votes.

We need to put the question of solidarity for all branches and members taking action at the forefront of everything we do. We need to build UCU Region networks and meetings, twinning branches and raising money. And the super-regional UCU Solidarity Movement, which is backed by UCU, can be a place where members can meet and discuss the next steps in the dispute.

The next Solidarity Movement meeting is on Wednesday evening at 6pm. We would encourage all members and supporters to attend!

Details below.

UCU Solidarity Movement open organising meeting

⏰Wednesday 27 April 6pm

👉🏽 Direct link to Zoom: https://bit.ly/6pmWed

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Seize the Time, Don’t Abandon the Fight

We all know we are in the fight of our lives.

But the General Secretary’s ‘new plan of action for the four fights dispute’ is a radical-sounding document that abandons the Four Fights dispute until a year’s time, and pulls back from defending the USS pension scheme at the very moment the employers are cutting it back.

It is unsurprising that union reps are speaking out spontaneously against this plan.

We are told that continuing action at this point would be ‘conservative’, whereas the ‘radical and militant’ response to the greatest attack on our standard of living for 30 years is to… halt the fight for a year! Inflation is hitting 9 percent, but our union’s leadership is telling its members – with a live dispute and mandate – to put up with it, and fight another time!

Reading this document, you wouldn’t have thought that the union had just recorded overwhelming majorities for strike action and ASOS. Reps are lectured on ‘democracy’ after winning votes!

We are told that this is the way we can increase union density, but this flies in the face of our own union’s history. In 2018, pre-92 HE branches grew by 50% in a couple of months as they readied for strikes. That happened because members want to know the union will defend them, individually and collectively. On the other hand, shutting down the national fight against casualisation sends precisely the wrong signal to members on casual contracts.

The General Secretary is counterposing union recruitment to industrial action. Her theory of the ‘supermajority‘ says that the reason why strikes win is because union density is high. But this is not correct. UCU was a third smaller in the pre-92 USS ballot in 2018 than in 2021. And some branches with high membership density – like Goldsmiths – are under remorseless attack.

In fact, industrial action is won by workers when employers recognise that refusing to concede to union demands will be more costly than any perceived benefits. That cost can be economic (e.g. damaging reputations and recruitment, etc), but it can also be political (causing a political crisis for the employers, as in 2018). 

For everyone who has stood on the picket lines in the wind and rain, and spent weeks fighting to get the vote out, the General Secretary’s pre-prepared ruminations will be a massive disappointment.  On the other hand, members who voted for action but failed to take it themselves will read it as a signal that the union is not serious. 

Democracy

Jo Grady was elected after her predecessor, Sally Hunt, sought to abandon the USS fight. She was elected as an expression of UCU members’ will to resist. However her response to the present attacks on UCU members looks little different to Sally Hunt’s.

The latest round of ballots saw members once again vote overwhelmingly for action. Had this ballot taken place before the Tory Anti-Union Law of 2016 was introduced, we would be all able to take strike action. Branches have asked their members whether they support strikes and ASOS. And they have voted Yes!

Even if you are in a union branch that failed to get over the Tory threshold and cannot take action, with very rare exceptions, in branch after branch members have overwhelmingly voted for action. That’s democracy. 

It is wrong to interpret non-votes as no votes. Firstly, it is anti-democractic in principle. This is why quorums for general meetings are low, to ensure that members turn up and participate in debates and vote for and against motions.

Secondly, it is not consistent with the evidence. Members do not vote for a variety of reasons, as anyone who has engaged with a Get the Vote Out (GTVO) campaign can report, from lost papers to house moves and pre-arranged leave. This explains why branches with well-organised GTVO campaigns chasing and nudging members to vote have been repeatedly able to get high turnouts. It is also why Yes vote percentages tend to be remarkably stable even when turnout fluctuates. 

The three-week ballot insisted upon by UCU HQ, at the end of the second term and into the Easter break, left many branches close below the 50 percent threshold. Another week would have brought more branches over the line, and two more weeks, as voted for by HEC, could have changed the picture enormously. 

Some members complained that replacement ballot papers arrived at home on the final Friday, and rep reports show members saying they were voting right up until the end. The ballot deadline combined with the postal voting process cut voters short.

A plan to win

The General Secretary is now trying to lobby union reps and activists over their heads, to persuade branches to stand down the action that members have just voted for. Yet a calibrated plan and a mobilisation of the whole union could win these disputes. 

At the current time, some 40 branches can still take action on exams in Term 3. Everyone knows this action will need the whole union to rally around.

  • A marking boycott organised on a ‘Liverpool basis’ requires a positive outward campaign across the membership to sponsor strikers, fundraise on a massive scale, and ensure that every participant knows the whole union is behind them, practically and financially.
  • Members in non-striking branches would be more than willing to contribute to sponsor colleagues. These branches need to organise too. The USS rank-and-file legal challenge shows the scale of fundraising we need.
  • And a ballot over the summer in the context of a hard-hitting fightback makes sense. It could see us all ready to take on the employers right at the start of the autumn term.

The General Secretary says this is a war. But you don’t win wars by telling the enemy you are too weak to fight, and would they mind if we came back in a year?! The attacks on Goldsmiths colleagues, and the employers’ general intransigence show that they are likely to see such a declaration as a sign of weakness.

We are now told that despite previous attempts to de-couple the USS dispute from Four Fights that it’s OK to keep them coordinated – as long as we fight in a year’s time! But this makes no sense. Why would giving the employers free rein for a year make them more likely to reverse the changes? With the next valuation in 2023, backing off now looks like an invitation to the employers to push for 100% Defined Contribution!

Even USS Limited admit there is no need for ‘Deficit Recovery Contributions’, and that these could be spent on members’ pensions. This represents an open goal – if we fight.

Debating the way forward 

Members deserve a serious strategy. Instead we are told is to ‘keep our powder dry’ while the university employers drive through attacks on staff and students alike. Demobilisation is a recipe for defeat and demoralisation, not union-building.

We cannot allow the work by UCU reps and members to be wasted. We need to stand up for union democracy and stand by the ballot.

Two meetings have been called to debate the way forward:

In our strikes and ballots, members learned to trust each other, not the official union machine.

We are the union, and we need to fight for the future of our sector.

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Democracy Now! How can members control our disputes?

The issue of union democracy has again become important in the context of UCU’s higher education disputes.

Many members are wondering how the Higher Education Committee (HEC) could blatantly ignore the views expressed at the previous Branch Delegate Meeting (BDM) when they took decisions about our forthcoming industrial action.

No delegate argued for decoupling the two disputes, and no delegate made the case for rolling regional one-day strikes. And yet that is what HEC voted for.

Fury at this democratic deficit has led to branches passing motions for an emergency Special HE Sector Conference and to a demand for a further Branch Delegate Meeting, with voting powers, before the next HEC meeting.

Democracy is the life-blood

Democracy is central to fighting industrial disputes effectively. This is because unlike an army, those making sacrifices to fight cannot simply be ordered around. Union members need to feel that we have a stake in the battle and a say in how it is conducted. If members believe that the strategy will be ineffective, or that their leaders will settle for less than they should, support for the dispute will quickly erode.

Democratic involvement is not an optional extra. It is essential to being able to win.

The last time a row about democracy exploded in UCU was in the USS dispute in 2018. The famous #NoCapitulation revolt by members stopped the the then General Secretary signing a shoddy deal. To avoid motions critical of the GS being debated at Congress later that year, the leadership unplugged the microphones and turned out the lights. Congress ended early, but not before it had set up a Democracy Commission comprising elected union members to propose ways to enhance democracy in the union.

Dispute committees

One of the proposals drawn up by the Democracy Commission was for dispute committees to be set up in every dispute, composed of delegates from each of the branches involved. The dispute committee would debate the strategy and tactics of the dispute and no decision about the conduct of the dispute could be taken without its approval. Dispute committees would ensure that control of disputes was in the hands of the members fighting them and prevent settlements that the majority of branches opposed.

Unfortunately, at the Democracy Congress in December 2019, this proposal narrowly failed to gain the two-thirds majority required to bring it in. Opponents argued that it undermined the authority of the HEC and the Further Education Committee (FEC) — which was precisely the point — and that holding such meetings would be impractical and expensive. The pandemic has taught us otherwise.

Nevertheless, it is already constitutionally the case that the National Executive Committee’s (NEC) role is to enact the policy set by members, not to determine it. What mechanisms do we have to ensure that it, and its two subcommittees, HEC and FEC, behave democratically? Continue reading “Democracy Now! How can members control our disputes?”