Category: Debate

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No more ‘pauses’ – no suspension of action! Strike to win!

Tuesday’s #UCURising reps briefing has caused a huge amount of confusion ahead of our six days of strike action.

No new information about progress in the talks materialised.

All we learned was that there ‘may’ be some progress on USS, and that ‘some agreement’ is close on how the issues of casualisation, pay gaps and workloads might be addressed in the future.

  • Pay: The only pay-related item currently on the table is compression of the pay spine (the result of higher increases on lower spine points reducing pay differentials between them). Correcting this is unlikely to put money in UCU members’ pockets, and may make only a small difference to the lowest paid. There has been no further offer from the employers over headline pay. Members still face a two-year 15% pay cut against inflation.
  • USS: On USS there has been an interim statement with employers agreeing to prioritise benefit restoration ‘if it can be done in a sustainable manner.’ However, there has been no firm commitment to benefit restoration, and a lot could still go wrong.

In other words, there is no offer that represents tangible progress in the disputes, and there is not likely to be one this week.

In spite of this, it seems that branches will be asked to elect delegates in preparation for an ‘emergency’ BDM which may take place as early as this Thursday, and be followed by an ‘emergency’ HEC to take decisions on the action.

Why? The only reason can be that the General Secretary and the President-elect want to call off our strikes. The silence from HQ about these six days of action has been deafening.

Jo Grady has learned, however, that calling off strikes unilaterally produces a negative response from members. Instead, it looks like an emergency BDM will be used as a mechanism to try and bounce the HEC into calling off the action.

Democracy takes time

We are in favour of holding BDMs to update members in the course of disputes and to involve them in decisions about action.

But as of March 15, no-one apart from a select few even knows what is on the table!

A BDM called at no notice to discuss an ‘offer’ which does not yet exist — and which delegates will barely get sight of in advance — is even less democratic than some of the recent BDMs have been.

To be effective and democratic, BDMs need to be preceded by branch meetings at which the issues are discussed, votes are taken and delegates are elected and mandated. This ensures that members can consider the arguments for and against, delegates vote according to branch positions and decisions, and don’t just represent themselves.

This kind of democratic process will be impossible ahead of a BDM on Thursday. Members are mobilised for the strike. Many are attending Budget Day demonstrations on Wednesday and will have no time to meet.

Indeed, the only reason for the rush to do this on Thursday seems to be because the NEC meets on Friday all day!

We have to go forward

What is at stake is not just a few days of strike action but the future of the entire dispute.

We need to insist that no more of our planned strikes are called off. The GS’s ‘pause’ set back our campaign by destroying our momentum and causing confusion among members. We lifted the pressure from the employers at the crucial time, with the inevitable result that the employers imposed a pay award comprising two years’ worth of pay cuts instead of just one.

We have already wasted too much of this six-month mandate to call off more strikes. Every time we do, the employers are emboldened.

Strike. Vote. Win.

Strikes now at the end of term have substantial leverage with the employers because they prevent remedial ‘catch up’ teaching ahead of exams next term (in some universities this is the last week of teaching). Were we to stand down action next week, it would lead to immediate demands on members to catch up with teaching and undermine our own strikes. Of course we are not just a union of lecturers. But teaching is time-constrained, and it is a mistake to think otherwise.

But ultimately the main message will be obvious. Cancelling strikes tells members and employers that the union is not confident of winning. The pressure on employers is immediately lifted. And it will make it harder to win the reballot we need to mount a marking and assessment boycott next term — and harder to carry it out, for fear of a repeat of more start-stop sabotage.

No Capitulation. Unity is Strength.

Build the Pickets. Keep up the Action.

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E-ballots and union democracy

A debate is currently underway about how democracy in UCU should work, with some members arguing that more use should be made of e-ballots. This is UCU Left’s view.

Union democracy as principle and necessity
For trade unions democracy is a matter of both principle and necessity. The moral legitimacy of trade unions depends on our capacity to be truly representative of our members. This means all members must have opportunities to vote on matters, to attend meetings, to vote and stand in union elections.

Trade unions exist to represent working people and to improve our conditions of employment. To do this effectively trade unions must be democratic. We need democracy so that we know what members think, what they want the union’s negotiating objectives to be, what action they are prepared to take and what settlements they find acceptable. Without democracy union memberships become disillusioned, unions lose members and policies are adopted which members do not support.

Effectiveness in political campaigning, parliamentary lobbying and industrial action all depend upon union democracy.

We should all agree on the importance of democracy. What do we understand by democracy and how do we achieve it?

The importance of discussion and meetings (before voting)
Unions work best on the basis of participatory democracy. By this we mean that members engage in debate at union meetings (both in-person and online), over email and social media and then vote on the way forward. In the discussion at a branch meeting members can put motions and amendments. We can decide what we vote on. Sometimes in discussion more options will emerge or a compromise position which everyone can support will emerge. This type of debate should be at the heart of our democratic processes. This is very different from a survey conducted from Head Office where there may be only a limited number of options.

We are absolutely for the right of members to vote. We are also strongly for the right of members to have the opportunity to discuss with other members before the vote is taken. This way members are not atomised. We may know what we think, but we also need to know what other members think and why. This improves the quality of our decision-making processes. We don’t want snap votes with no chance for discussion or debate before the vote. This is disempowering of ordinary members.

Some members may object that many members are too busy and ground down with heavy workloads to get to in-person meetings. Also such meetings may not work for members who are casualised and live a long way from university and college premises or who are sheltering on account of health conditions. This is where hybrid meetings are appropriate. However, meetings are held, members need time to participate. We should endeavour to negotiate union facility agreements which not only give reps time off for union work (time on in the case of part-time staff) but also block out time so that all union members can attend a branch meeting at least once a month. Many universities and colleges block out time, when they wish, for other sorts of meetings, so they could do it for union meetings.

Plebiscites
Sometimes decisions in countries and in organisations are taken on the basis of a plebiscite, for instance the vote on a new constitution or the decision in 2006 to merge AUT and NATFHE to form UCU. Where plebiscites are run well they are held after full democratic debate and on the basis of informed choice. Plebiscites can, however, be abused by dictators, for instance to ratify annexation of territory of to take away democratic rights. In these cases, the debate is limited, the plebiscite is often called without much prior notice and there is no scope for all opinions to be debated fully. The way the plebiscite is worded can deliberately close down options. Whoever gets to word the plebiscite gets to set the agenda for the debate.

We saw in UCU an attempt by a previous General Secretary to misuse a plebiscite when members were asked whether they favoured cutting the size of the NEC in order to provide more services for members. Why was a cut to democratic structures proposed as the means for financing more services, rather than some other means of financing? Note too that this formulation of the debate shut out the debate between servicing and organising models of trade unions.

Ways of voting and the law
Union members can vote by show of hands at a meeting, electronically or by paper ballot, often conducted via the post.

Under the current anti-union laws in the UK unions are forced to rely on paper post for the conduct of voting in NEC and General Secretary elections and in ballots on industrial action. The anti-unions laws should be repealed so that trade unions can use electronic voting. Reliance on paper post can disenfranchise workers who are working away from home. It can be a form of voter suppression. This may be particularly the case for workers in temporary and precarious employment.

Trade unions should argue that unions should be subject to no greater legal regulation than professional bodies in terms of how their internal affairs are conducted.

Incidentally there is nothing in the anti-union laws at all which gives workers any right to vote on settlements. The anti-union bias of the law, and the fact that it is really nothing to do with democracy, can be seen in the fact that union executives cannot bring members out on strike without a ballot, but can send them back to work without a ballot! Of course, we are not in favour of this. We do believe in the right to vote on settlements.

Consultation or decision-making?
Are we ‘consulting’ members or are members taking the decision? In the workplace we often face phoney consultation exercises, where the employer has already decided on the outcome and consultation is cynically adopted as a means of selling employer decisions to workers. Trade unions want nothing to do with this type of consultation.

We often talk about ‘consultative ballots’ on industrial action as a preliminary to an official ballot under the law. Consultative ballots of this sort can be used to build up a case for action or to wind it down. It depends rather on how the question is worded. One thing that is important is to ensure that all options are on the table and that questions are formulated after debate among members.

When it comes to a vote of members on whether to accept an offer from the employers, this is a decision which can be taken by votes at branch meetings or electronic or paper ballot. This is a case of decision-making not consultation. It should occur when the negotiators are satisfied that the employers have really made their best and final offer.

The management of industrial disputes
For unions to be effective members need to be involved as far as possible in the running of industrial dispute. This starts with involvement in formulating the negotiating objectives. The strength of the Four Fights dispute in Higher Education is that it involves issues of concern to many members, namely pay, pay equality, job security and workloads. Sometimes union leaderships restrict the scope of a dispute too narrowly, leaving out the concerns of substantial groups of members.

The design of industrial action strategy needs to be based on two main considerations: what members are prepared to do and how the proposed sanctions will bring the employer back to the table with an acceptable offer. It is important that the employment situation of all groups of members (full-time and part-time, working in a variety of jobs) is kept in mind when designing the industrial action strategy. Such strategies should be debated in branch meetings and at sector conferences. Strike committees should be formed to manage the day to day running of the action in workplaces.

Leadership and bureaucracy
Both elected lay trade union officers and full-time officials should engage in regular listening to the views of members and should report back regularly from negotiations. It must be understood that any attempts to treat the members as a stage army who can be wheeled in and out of action from a central office does not work. On the contrary industrial militancy and strength has to be build up systematically, through union recruitment and effective workplace organising. Union members will take action when they have confidence that their elected leadership has a clear strategy for winning and believes in the capacity of members to fight for their rights.

Vote Maria and Deepa and other UCU Left candidates for such a leadership.

Branches are encouraged to pass the motion below calling for a Special HE Sector Conference. UCU HQ is not calling a Branch Delegate Meeting before the HEC on 24th February so this will be the best way to ensure democratic control of our disputes during this period of action. Twenty branches are required to pass the motion.

This branch calls under Rule 16.11 for a Special Higher Education Sector Conference to be called to debate and direct the future of our disputes. Notice for this SHESC should be issued as soon as the number of branches requesting it reaches twenty.

If you have unused preferences after voting for UCU Left candidates, we recommended using them for the following other candidates:

HE South – Aris Katzourakis
President UCU Scotland – Sarah Joss
Representative of Casually Employed Members – Sam Morecroft
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2023: The year our side breaks through or another missed opportunity?

dozens of people at a picket at UCL

Twenty twenty-two will be remembered as the year that organised labour returned. More strike days have been lost since the summer than any time since 2011. Perhaps more importantly than the numbers is the attempt to coordinate the action across different unions. We have seen rail and postal workers strike on the same day as nurses and higher education workers.  The question that faces the movement is – will we coordinate and escalate our action in a way that allows us to win?

More unions are set to strike in 2023. February has been pencilled in as the month in which up to half million workers could coordinate their action including 350,000 teachers.

Predictably the media and press have responded to the strikes with the usual attempts to blame the strikers for ruining Christmas and putting people’s lives at risk.  Despite their relentless attempt to divide the ‘public’ against striking workers, polls show that the majority of people support those taking action for more pay and to protect services.

The government and the employers have significantly lost the battle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the public.

Commentators speak of the return of strikes as a central part of daily life as a turning point. However, if this is to be a turning point that benefits the working class as a whole then we need victories.

There have been some very significant victories especially in the private sector. Liverpool Dockers, Bus drivers and Barristers. These victories are important, demonstrating the power of hard hitting strike action over a quick period of time. However, they do not generalise in a way that lifts the whole of the class, as would be the case if the current national strikes won.

The stakes are high for both sides. We only need to look to Italy and France to see what happens when strikes don’t succeed in improving working peoples living standards – the far-right feeds on despair.

National strikes – more than pay

The government and employers are digging in. They are doing so because they are desperate to keep profit margins high at any expense. The Financial Times surveyed 100 leading economists, the vast majority of which believed that the UK will have the longest recession compared to other G7 countries.

They recognise that a victory for any one of the groups of workers taking national action would open the floodgates. It is one thing for a local employer to concede to local demands but completely another for government and employers to reach a compromise with a union taking national action. For them this is more than a battle about keeping pay below inflation.

The arguments put by governments and the employers are simply not convincing. The usual tropes of ‘wage rises cause inflation’ do not cut it. The obvious wealth inequality that exists in society is well known.

A new report shows that the FTSE 100 CEO pay increased from £2.46m in 2020 to £3.41m in 2021. Median CEO pay is now 109 times that of the median UK full-time worker, compared to 79 times in 2020 and 107 times in 2019. Median CEO pay is also up on pre pandemic levels – reflected by an increase of 5% from £3.25m median CEO pay in 2019. In 2022 CEO pay surged by 32%!  CEO pay survey 2022: CEO pay surges 39% • High Pay Centre

What creates such rage about this inequality is not simply that the rich are getting wealthier whilst we are getting poorer but they are doing so at our expense!

The government and employers are becoming increasingly aware that what lies behind the solid support for the strikes is a much bigger desire among the public than simply seeing workers win a pay rise which keeps up with the cost-of-living crisis.

The inability for the government and employers to win ‘heart and minds’ doesn’t simply lie with pay inequality. It is also because the ‘public’ want to see a more democratically run society which prioritises public services which deliver for society and people.  One in which profit margins must not be the concern for a national health service, rail network or a postal service.

The strikes have also highlighted how unhappy people are at work. The bullying managerialism that is rife in every workplace, the long hours and the struggle to maintain a work/life balance, are all leading to significant increases in physical and mental ill health.

In short, the government and employers are becoming increasingly alert to the fact that a deal that would be considered by the public as a victory would not only be a victory for increased pay but a defeat for everything this government, and all the ones that preceded it over the past 40 years, have stood for – the zealot like belief in the market, competition and profit as the only way society can be run effectively.

The strikes give the public a glimpse that it ‘is not necessarily so’.

Never been a better time to fight and win.

If you add to the mix the skill shortages in key sectors like health, teaching and social care and you have an explosive combination, which puts those who are fighting back in a good position to win – or should. All the arguments that are usually put forward by union leaders that we can’t escalate because we don’t have ‘public opinion on our side’ or, ‘members aren’t up for indefinite action’ or ‘the government/employers are too strong and united’ are ones that clearly don’t hold today, if they ever did.

Incredible ballot results, solid strikes, lively pickets and excellent solidarity all demonstrate workers are up for taking significant action including indefinite action. The government is clearly weak and divided. If they called an election around the theme, ‘who runs the country the government or the unions’ as Heath did in 1972, Sunak would get the same answer…

As for public opinion, unions, union leaders, strikes and coordinated strikes have never been so popular. The role played by the dreadful Starmer – not supporting strikes and disciplining Labour MPs who appear on picket lines – has allowed the Mick Lynch and other trade union leaders to fill the political vacuum left by a rightward moving Labour leadership desperate to prove that they are fit to govern.   

However, although a useful sign of the weakness of the government’s position, unfortunately public opinion does not win strikes – more strikes and solidarity do. The Great Miners’ strike of 1984-5 highest recorded public support for the miners was 35%. But this was not the reason why the miners lost. It was the failure of the TUC and Labour leadership to turn that 35% into solidarity strike action.

The high levels of support for the strikes at the moment can quickly evaporate if they are not pursuing a strategy that is clearly putting the government and employers under pressure.

Bring down the Tories: Make the country ungovernable.

We are in a very good position to win. But to do so we will need to take the action that can win. The government and the employers are working together to ensure that they inflict a serious defeat on the rail and postal workers to show others thinking of doing the same that they too will be crushed if they follow. Just like after the miners defeat in 1984/5 trade union leaders will be lining up to tell those arguing for action, ‘if the rail or postal workers can’t do it – what chance have we?’

The government appear to want to adopt tactics learnt from the past. The government response to the 1926 General Strike was to pass laws to make it easier for the employers to break the strikes, make scabbing easier and use the army. However, the government victory came not from new laws but because the TUC, supported by the left-wing TU leaders, called the general strike off on the seventh day. This left the miners to fight alone leading to an unnecessary devastating defeat. The debate about the defeat of 1926 General strike is pursued here in this interesting debate between Duncan Hallas, leading member of the SWP and Tony Benn (sadly, both now passed) – it’s worth a watch. Tony Benn & Duncan Hallas: Lessons of 1926 General Strike

It is clear that Sunak is preparing new trade union legislation to make it even harder for workers to take legal strike action. Worryingly, Paul Novak, the new TUC GS, response to these new laws is to threaten to take the government to court. This strategy clearly will not work and its failure will not only make it even more difficult for workers to withdraw their labour but it will leave those who taking action potentially isolated. 

We’ve been here before….

To maintain the level of support from the public as well as from the workers who are taking strike action there needs be a strategy which convinces that victory is possible.

There are times in which merely the result of an industrial action ballot is enough to bring the employers back to the table and agree a significant deal. Or a few days of action can force the employers to back down. But we can’t play by the same old rules using the same strategies. Their side isn’t neither should ours.

As argued above, currently the stakes are too high for the government and the employers to respond to significant ballot results or one- or two-days action. The employers are prepared to ride out several two day strikes over a period of months. The government and employers have held the line.  The RMT and CWU are right to shift to calling more sustained action over a shorter period of time.

This doesn’t mean that the government and employers can’t be beaten. They can. But to do so we have to raise the stakes ourselves through prolonged strikes over a shorter period to make the country ungovernable. This would increase the pressure on government, challenge their current strategy of waiting out strikes and provoke divisions amongst their side as some sections of the employers would fear increased crisis and rising and generalised resistance across society.

It doesn’t automatically mean that to win workers have to take indefinite action for months and months.  In fact, if the postal and rail workers had taken all their days of strike action all in one go over a week or two-week period it is very likely the government and the employers would have conceded by now.

For workers taking strike action to sustain more prolonged action over a shorter period it will take, out of necessity to facilitate such organisation, more active participation of those on strike with the decisions and running of the disputes through strike committees.

Without such organisation prolonged strike action will be far more difficult to achieve.

For those who are about to enter the field of battle the lessons to draw from the action so far is not to adopt ‘smart’ strategies, or look to limit days of strike action over a long period of time. The government and employers and prepared for that. What they are not prepared for is sustained action including indefinite action over a matter of weeks.

Coordinating and escalating on this basis will put real pressure on the government to concede as employer’s fear where this action might end if concessions aren’t made.

If 2023 is to be the year remembered as the year in which workers won then we will need to take the action that can deliver that victory.

Sean Vernell UCU CCCG Coordinating Sec and National Negotiator.

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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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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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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?”

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Branches criticise the General Secretary’s strategy for the HE disputes

UCU Left report on the Branch Delegate Meetings, 12 November

The two Branch Delegates’ Meetings (BDMs) took place on Friday. These had been called after the ballot results on USS and the Four Fights campaigns had been released and over 100 branches were represented. 

BDMs do not have constitutional status in UCU but emerged in the original 2018 USS strikes to ensure branches were up-to-date with the most recent developments in the dispute.  Crucially BDMs ensure members can feedback on developments in the dispute and that this feedback comes immediately to negotiators and to HEC. As a result BDMs provide an informal mechanism for a kind of direct democracy in UCU. If their views are ignored by the HEC, as occurred after the second ‘#NoCapitulation’ moment in 2019, branches can bring motions of no confidence to Congress. Branch delegate voting is weighted by sector conference delegate entitlements, so the votes of big branches carry more weight than those of small ones. 

The BDM on the USS dispute highlighted the extensive knowledge and understanding within branches of the key questions of strategy and tactics. Overwhelmingly, branch delegates reported that they recognised the importance of the timing of the dispute and the need to maximise our leverage on employers and USS prior to the February deadline for the decision on changes to contribution rates. Most delegates reported large branch meetings with members, where the majority view reflected the need to launch serious industrial action prior to the Xmas break. Token action was rejected as simply insufficient. Indeed, even in branches where the GS’s questions had been put out to members in a survey, without debate and discussion, delegates reported responses that were highly critical and questioning, with members objecting to the narrow range of options being offered.

The Four Fights BDM followed a similar pattern, although with more reps ‘in the room’, the format of the meeting was very frustrating for delegates, and large numbers of delegates were not called. This meant two things. First, it was difficult for reps to get an idea of the overall pattern of voting because they did not know what other branches had concluded. The weighted votes of the meetings were not reported to delegates.

But the second problem is that the Four Fights dispute is simultaneously a UK-wide battle and a series of local ones, because whatever is agreed at “New JNCHES” must be implemented locally, and UCEA always claim that local employers will not give them a mandate (basically, because some want to hold on to the worst employment practices, like zero hours contracts or bogus self-employment). The battlelines in the fight over casualisation, workload and inequality are inside every workplace. Branches’ experiences are different, and it is essential for reps to hear what those differences mean. A dispute of this kind relies on a culture of solidarity, and we must factor in local confrontations into the union’s overall strategy.

For example, members at the Royal College of Art are engaged in a bitter local battle over casualisation and workload. At the time of the BDM, RCA UCU members had taken 9 days of strike action and were about to begin 5 days more. But frustratingly they were not called to speak. Neither were Goldsmiths (with 3 weeks of strike action announced) or Sheffield, both branches where the Four Fights dispute intersects with their local disputes over redundancies. Branches benefit from building local campaigns of key demands under the Four Fights umbrella, and using them to build support for ballots and industrial action.

Nonetheless in both meetings, nearly all the delegates who spoke recognised the need to keep the fights together and not decouple them. Some wondered why two separate BDMs had been called. Delegates argued against delayed ballots and aggregation, instead proposing to move to reballot branches which missed the 50% threshold in order for them to join further escalating industrial action as early as possible, before February 2022.

There was criticism of the short ballot window from branch delegates, particularly the large number that missed the threshold by handfuls of votes. Many believe that they actually exceeded the 50% threshold, but delays in the post to Civica meant late postal votes weren’t counted.

Likewise in the USS meeting, branch delegates favoured campaigning beyond strike action, which should already have been underway. On USS, UCU policy is for legal action against USS, a trade union campaign for the defence of defined benefit pensions, and lobbying MPs and journalists. Our defence of USS cannot be understood as a narrow vested interest, but part of a wider campaign against the marketisation of higher education and – because pension attacks are fundamentally an attack on younger workers – an inter-generational defence of the right to a decent retirement for all workers.

Although the results of the BDM voting have not been released, these debates indicated that branches and their delegates reject the proposals coming from the General Secretary and UCU officials. Members recognise the seriousness of the dispute and want the union to respond with the seriousness that the threat requires.

We will know what decisions HEC took on the basis of the BDMs very soon.

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Meeting – COP26: How can unions respond to the climate emergency?

Poster for climate meeting on 18th October. All details included in the post.

Join our next online participatory UCU Left meeting, co-hosted with Campaign Against Climate Change

Monday 18th October, 6.15pm

Register: https://bit.ly/UCUL-CACC

The COP26 summit will not bring about the radical change necessary to address the climate emergency. It is going to take mass mobilisation to challenge the powerful interests behind the fossil fuel economy and force governments to act.

It is an urgent task and trade unions must play a central role in it.

Speakers:

Camille Barbagallo, COP26 Coalition. 
Asad Rehman, War On Want
Suzanne Jeffery, Campaign Against Climate Change
Rhona O’Brien, Liverpool Hope UCU and Liverpool COP26 Coalition
Rahul Patel, University of the Arts, London UCU. 

Themes for discussion:

  • mobilising a trade union bloc for the global day of action 6/11
  • decarbonising and decolonising our colleges and universities
  • achieving ‘just transition’.

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