Defend Coventry Adult & Community learning and nursery provision

Coventry City Council is planning to make drastic cuts across eight council services. The Coventry Adult Education Service (CAES) faces a deficit of almost £200,000, blamed on inflation and rising costs.

In CAES, the entire team of 23 highly-skilled dedicated creche staff have been informed that their jobs will be ‘deleted’. Creches for learners’ children at teaching venues will end in July. Creche staff also act as learning support assistants within Family Learning classes.

The Government is offering an ‘alternative pot’ of funding to source privately owned nursery provision across the city, but this is unlikely to be workable for adult learners, both because of a general lack of availability and the short notice when learners enroll on courses. The Council’s own equality impact assessment accepts that

‘[a]ccess to courses by migrants and asylum seekers who require childcare facilities in order to access provision, particularly women seeking ESOL programmes, may be negatively affected by the closure of AES creche services.’

In total, 37 roles may be cut. Essential course management roles, across all curriculum areas, are proposed to be cut by about half. Staff with years of management and teaching experience will potentially be lost.

The range of community leisure classes is also shrinking. All fitness classes ended at Christmas 2023 and will not be replaced. For some learners, the fitness classes were a lifeline that kept them out of hospital, increased their mobility and helped them to gain or sustain employment. In Coventry, the proportion of physically active adults is lower than the England average. Alternative classes are now only available to the few who can afford private tuition.

The Department for Education funding guidelines state that ‘Adult Education Budget should not be used to deliver ‘leisure only’ courses’ So, what does the future hold for the visual and performing arts in CAES?

What you can do

Send a message of solidarity to Coventry ACE UCU, c/o ucuaescov@yahoo.co.uk.
Invite a speaker to your next branch meeting.
Pass a motion in your branch (see below).

Pass this motion

This branch notes

Coventry Adult Education Service, creche provision at 6 different teaching venues is under threat of closure by July 2024.
At this moment there is a potential loss of 37 roles (19.56) FTE.
That additional funding went to FE colleges for pay and staffing but ACE were excluded from that additional funding.

This branch believes

ACE needs these cuts reversed, the current course provision conserved in all curriculum areas, and for all staff to be employed on permanent secure contracts.

This branch resolves

To send a message of solidarity to Coventry ACE members.
To support a Coventry ACE campaign to reverse the cuts and to call on UCU nationally do do the same.
To call on UCU to launch a national campaign to reverse the cuts in ACE, e.g. under the heading “Respect Adult Community Education”.
To call for a nationally-binding framework agreement for ACE staff.

28 June 202228 June 2022

Statement by UCU Left on ending of constitutional right to abortion in USA

The decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe versus Wade is a major attack on women’s rights and on abortion rights. It has many implications for the right to privacy and many other constitutional rights.

In the USA it will mean abortion is legal in some states and not others. This means women who live in states where abortion is legal and women who can afford to travel can access abortion, but other women will not. This is similar to the situation in the UK before the 1967 Abortion Act, when safe medical abortions could be accessed by those who could afford to do so and knew which clinics to go to, while others faced the choice of continuing with an unwanted pregnancy or risking their lives going to an illegal abortionist.

President Biden warned against attempts by anti-choice states to restrict women’s rights to travel freely in the USA and to receive drugs from pharmacists. It is chilling that the US President felt it necessary to say this. Can this really be happening in the 21^st century in a country which has had nearly 50 years of legal abortion? Is it the case that US citizens could be banned from travelling out of their state lest they access termination of pregnancy in another state? Many women do feel this is getting like ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.

Already the anti-choice states are bringing in restrictions and abortion clinics in these states are closing. Some states are banning abortion from the moment of conception, others from six weeks of pregnancy, a time when many women may not know they are pregnant and will have had little opportunity to obtain an abortion. In the anti-abortion states the only exception allowed is where the life of the pregnant woman or pregnant person is at risk. There are not exceptions in the cases of rape or incest. These states are enacting draconian anti-abortion laws, which will put women’s rights and reproductive rights generally back more than 50 years.

What are the implications of this decision for women in the USA and world-wide?

The prohibition of abortion in some states in the USA will lead to forced child-bearing and to increased rates of illegal abortion, causing death and injury to women. These changes will particularly harm poor women, women of colour and women who do not have the means or the opportunity to travel to a pro-choice state.

There will be greater state intrusion in women’s lives and invasion of privacy. In states where abortion is prohibited women who experience spontaneous miscarriages may find themselves subject to police questioning to check whether they have had an (illegal) abortion. This happens often in societies where abortion is illegal. One example of this was Romania under Ceausescu, where women were subject to compulsory pregnancy tests and then had to explain if they were no longer pregnant.

This type of invasion of medical and personal privacy and increased policing of the human body is also a major threat to transgender and non-binary people. The rights of trans and non-binary people to live their lives freely and to access appropriate medical care is likely to come under attack. If medical privacy can be invaded in one area of life, it can be invaded in many other areas of life.

As a result of the loss of reproductive freedom, women’s employment status will diminish. If women’s lives can be disrupted at any stage by unplanned pregnancy, then this potential maternity is used against all women of childbearing age, irrespective of marital status, sexual activity or sexual orientation, to deny women equal opportunities in education, employment and public life. The argument will be put, as it was put half a century ago, that it is not worth investing in women, because they may at any moment have a baby and leave education, work etc. Women workers are classified as unreliable. This is what happened to women workers prior to the second wave of feminism and the establishment of sex equality laws in many jurisdictions.

The removal of abortion rights in many states of the USA will have major implications for education workers and for students. There will be limitations on what education workers, particularly counsellors, can say to students, if it is a state felony to do anything to help anyone access abortion or even advice about abortion. Students will lose their right to education if unplanned pregnancies force them to terminate their studies.

The status of women as rational decision-makers is undermined. If women cannot be trusted to make decisions about our own bodies, there is a frightening implication that we are not competent people to make any decisions, for instance about how best to govern a country or what should be done about climate change.

The right to contraception will come under attack. This may be done piecemeal, first by trying to restrict contraception for young people, then to married women only, then only to those married women who already have children, perhaps then only to those whose lives would be threatened by pregnancy. We must remember many anti-abortionists do not believe in equal rights for women. They think women should be wives and mothers and nothing else. They come from a very conservative place in terms of their view of gender roles, often reinforced by yearnings for a theocratic state and particular readings of major world religions which justify patriarchy and women’s oppression.

Among the anti-abortion demonstrators in Washington were young women who were describing themselves as the ‘post-Roe’ generation. Do they realise what is in store for them? Will they still think reversing Roe versus Wade was a good idea when they lose the right to contraception and to equal employment rights?

Anti-abortionists world-wide will be encouraged by this attack on abortion rights in the USA. It gives encouragement to all who seek to repeal reproductive rights. We must remember there are too many countries in the world where lack of access to safe, legal abortion significantly increases rates of maternal mortality.

What can pro-choice activists do in this situation?

Worldwide pro-choice campaigners must demonstrate in solidarity with the pro-choice movement in the USA. We should support their campaigns for legal reform, including a federal law guaranteeing abortion rights.

It is important to keep in mind that abortion rights are a trade union issue. Reproductive rights are essential for sex equality in the workplace.

Trade unions can pass motions protesting attacks on abortion rights, including the overturn of Roe versus Wade. Unions can continue to educate members about why abortion rights are necessary for women’s liberation. We must raise the health issues and the danger of a return to backstreet abortion. Unions must also make members aware of the danger of other, related attacks on democratic rights, such as attacks on gay marriage or rights of transgender people. We must defend medical privacy for everyone.

Pro-choice activists, trade unionists and human rights defenders must defend pro-choice laws everywhere they exist, and campaign for legal reform where it is needed. We must defend abortion clinics and call for exclusion zones around them, if anti-abortionists harass the patients and staff of these clinics.

We must be organised and vigilant in defending women’s rights and other human rights. We must be prepared to argue the case for abortion rights and to educate on this issue. For some of us this means we fight again battles we fought decades ago. We need to do this. We must keep saying ‘Abortion on demand; a woman’s right to choose’.

Liz Lawrence

Picture: Laurie Shaull

29 June 2021

Negotiating working arrangements in post 16 education after the pandemic: equality, workloads and surveillance

Abstract

The shape of the workplace after the pandemic will be a major negotiating issue for trade unions. In these negotiations the issues of equality, workloads and surveillance will be important. The traditional trade union agenda around homeworking was to support the right of homeworking for those who wished to do so. While this agenda continues, there is now also a need to resist the imposition of homeworking on those who do not wish or cannot work at home. Trade unions must get these matters on the bargaining agenda, in order to resist employer imposition.

Introduction

University and college staff, like many other groups of workers, have since March 2020, experienced massive changes in their working conditions and work experience. First there was a rapid shift to homeworking, which caused massive pressures of workload, then pressures to return to the workplace generating major concerns about health and safety. Many universities and colleges are now preparing for teaching and other activities to be based far more or wholly on workplace premises in future academic years.

There are, however, unknowns, such as whether there will be further variants and waves of the COVID-19 virus, which could lead to more lockdowns. The progress of mass vaccination in the UK may give confidence that further lockdowns will not be needed, but this is only the case if variants which are vaccine-resistant do not arise. The failure to vaccinate the whole world at a similar pace leaves real dangers of a resurgence of this pandemic. Moreover, until the environmental issues which lay the basis for future pandemics are tackled, we cannot be certain that lockdowns and travel restrictions will be things of the past.

The pandemic has highlighted sharply many social inequalities. These include:

Internationally inequalities in access to medical care and vaccination;
Inequalities in different countries in terms of welfare systems and income support;
Jobs where homeworking is possible versus those where attendance at the workplace is essential;
Variations in quality and space of housing which mean that for some homeworking has been comfortable, while for others it has been a very negative experience;
Levels of job and income security, which mean some have survived the pandemic with more savings and disposable income, while others have suffered serious financial hardship;
Race and class inequalities in the death rate from COVID-19, associated also with occupational and housing inequalities;
Higher death rates from the pandemic among elderly and disabled people, especially those in care homes;
The double load on many working women who have had to combine paid work with home-schooling of children;
Inequalities in digital access, related to class, age and geographical factors, which mean some have suffered much greater isolation than others.
Domestic violence and abuse within the privacy of the home;
Unequal educational opportunities and support for children in the context of home-schooling;
Inequalities in physical and mental health linked with many of the above inequalities.

Returning to the workplace

Some employers, e.g., Nationwide, are offering many of their staff a choice between homeworking or working on employer premises. The recent experiment with homeworking is likely in some sectors to produce a long-term shift in the balance of working patterns. Within the post-16 education sector there are a number of factors which will influence the outcome. On the one side, in support of both more homeworking and more distance learning will be the growth of companies specialising in education technology, the savings to employers from home working and the convenience that some students have experienced in being able to access learning remotely. On the other side there will be commercial pressures, particularly in terms of student accommodation and catering services, to get students, and hence staff, back on college and university premises, with a return to face-to-face teaching. Educational considerations should also, hopefully, feature in this debate. There are strong arguments in favour of face-to-face teaching, with learning technologies as a supplement, not a substitute. These arguments include the creation of academic communities, greater support for student learning and greater development of social skills, emotional intelligence and vocational learning.

Negotiations and choices about patterns of working

Some UCU members, for instance research scientists who need access to laboratories, can only carry out their work in the workplace. Similarly, some staff with student-facing duties may need to be present at the workplace. Others will have discovered that work can be performed remotely, even in jobs where in the past it may have been assumed this was not possible. So, we must recognise not all members will be in an equal position in terms of choice about where they work. In the past unions often negotiated over homeworking, with an agenda of securing a right to homeworking for those staff who wished to work at home. Now some of the union negotiating agenda must be around securing workstations and the right to work at the workplace, for those who fear they are being pressured into homeworking. Labour Research Department had produced a very useful guide on ‘Negotiating the new homeworking landscape’. One of the points it makes is that unions should, where they can, get these matters into a negotiating arena. Otherwise, employers will unilaterally impose new patterns of working.

We should recognise that there are both occupational role factors and personal preferences involved. Those heavily involved in face-to-face teaching may find they are back in college or university every day of the week. Others may have some discretion, as those in higher education have had in the past, as to whether they carry out tasks such as teaching preparation, marking, administration and research from home or on campus. Some members may thrive on solitary working; others will find working at home on their own challenging or unacceptable.

Equality between those working in the workplace and those working at home

UCU should ensure that all equality groups are consulted and that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach, which can leave the needs of some groups unattended. For instance, some disabled people may find a shift to homeworking makes working life easier and allows them to stay in employment for longer, particularly if it removes obstacles associated with travel to and from work. For others the isolation of working at home may exacerbate mental health problems. Similarly in the case of working parents and those staff with caring responsibilities, some may find homeworking makes it easier to manage paid work and other commitments, while others may find a clear separation between home and workplace is more beneficial.

Casualised staff may benefit from remote working if it means they do not have to move home frequently on account of work, but there may be disadvantages in working at home if homeworkers have less access to networks and career development opportunities compared to those working on employer premises. Some of these aspects of occupational and professional cultures may not be formally recognised or acknowledged, but may be very real for newly appointed staff, who do not have the legacy of having previously worked with others in their workplace on a face-to-face basis. It is often in informal conversations in the workplace that new staff learn about aspects of work performance, what training and other development opportunities they can apply for and who is likely to support or block their career development. They can also learn from contact with union representatives about their employment rights and conditions of service. Sometimes this informal learning can make the difference between being able to stay in a job and falling foul of some regulations or difficult individuals, which ends up in the individual leaving the organisation.

Where some staff are working remotely and others are working on employer premises, unions need to consider issues of equity between the two groups. For instance, those working remotely may lose out in networking and career development opportunities. It may also be the case, however, that those working in the workplace have to pick up more issues and queries which disadvantage them compared to homeworkers in being able to plan their time effectively and achieve targets for research and other duties.

The complexity of these issues can only be addressed if there is regular and systematic consultation with staff about ways of working. There must be regular equality impact assessments of developments in working patterns.

Workloads

One of the big workload issues concerning homeworking is when does the working day end. Prior to the pandemic it was already the case that many university and college staff worked unpaid overtime, in terms particularly of preparation and marking duties which could not be fitted into a standard working work. (By the way I am in favour of using the blunt phrase ‘unpaid overtime’ for discussing this problem.) In the workplace some work activities are halted, for instance a teaching session ends when another group of students are waiting to enter the room. The danger with transfer of many work activities to an online basis is that there are not the same natural end points and the worker can be accessible online at all hours of the day, unless there is a clear, enforced, institutional policy about fixed working hours.

Prospect, a trade union representing workers in professions such as engineering, science, management and the civil service, is campaigning for the right to disconnect. This includes the right not to be sent emails outside work hours and of course no expectation to send or reply to emails outside work hours. This is an important demand because it affirms that boundaries are good for mental health. The right to disconnect is a demand which may become increasingly popular with workers and can be enacted on a legislative basis.

Workload control, however, is not only a matter of the right to enforce working hours and to disconnect from work outside working hours. Workload control is better achieved if work is properly planned in the first place, so that workers have realistic time allowances for doing tasks. This involves an element of work study. UCU members in post-92 universities, where there is a national contract, are familiar with these processes of work planning. Work planning, if done properly, should give the lecturer sufficient time within a normal working week (around 35-37 hours) for teaching, related preparation, marking and administration, scholarship, research and general academic duties, plus some headroom or contingency time. Reader, please do not laugh! Often the reality experienced is that many jobs take longer than the time allowances and also that there is no contingency time in the workplan, so there is an assumption lecturers will just cope if other demands on their time crop up. We have to reject this view that university and college staff are sponges, who can just absorb more.

So, besides the right to disconnect and the enforcement of clear boundaries around personal time, time for research and scholarship, and holidays, university and college staff need jobs which have been designed to be achievable within a standard working week. Let me add that when we are talking about achievable in a standard working week this should not be based on assumptions that everything always goes well, that the worker is an experienced performer at every task they undertake, that the worker is never sick and that there are no IT breakdowns.

Finally for homeworkers, there is a workload issue of who does certain jobs which were performed by other staff groups in the workplace, but which are likely to be done by workers at home. This includes cleaning of workstations and office space and IT maintenance. In some cases. it may be appropriate to recognise that the homeworker will do this within their set working hours. In other cases, for instance IT maintenance, it may be appropriate for the employer to send staff to the employee’s home to provide these services. This issue needs to be included in the negotiation of homeworking arrangements, in order to avoid a default assumption that the homeworker will pick up these tasks in addition to their standard working week.

Many work organisations, such as colleges and universities, may have a proportion of staff working at home and a proportion working on employer premises. If liaison between the two groups involves additional work for staff this too needs to be counted and budgeted for within existing working hours. So workplans should be reviewed to take into account the changes in modes of working post COVID.

Surveillance and Autonomy

The starting point for any negotiations around this area should be that homeworkers should not be subject to forms of surveillance that do not apply in the workplace and that no workers should be subject to forms of surveillance which erode professional autonomy. Having some autonomy about when and where to do work (for instance research, teaching preparation and marking) and how to do it are aspects of working in universities and colleges which many staff value and which we should defend. This issue of autonomy in working arrangements can also be seen as linked to academic freedom and professional and pedagogic autonomy. They are all part of resisting micro-management and the marketisation of education.

If we think temporarily about the pandemic as a social experiment in different ways of working and living, what has happened in some cases is that some employers and managers have learned to trust workers to work responsibly at home without direct control. Of course, they are unlikely to admit this, but there will be employers and managers who were convinced homeworking would lead to unlimited skiving who have found this was far from the case.

In some cases, however, employers have sought to monitor homeworking in oppressive ways, using IT equipment to measure output and attendance. This should be opposed. Universities and colleges have existing procedure for dealing with disciplinary and capability matters and there is no good case for introducing further controls. Management education should focus on the development of high trust relationships and supportive management styles.

It is also important that students are not subject to inappropriate forms of surveillance.

As institutions plan working practices for the future, employers may be proposing a variety of working arrangements. Some will wish to embrace a norm in which all staff are on university or college premises for fixed working hours or a core number of hours per week. Others may be looking at models in which some staff work partly at home while others attend the workplace full-time. Terms are being used like ‘the physical campus’ and ‘the virtual campus’ and ‘hybrid workers’ and ‘campus workers’. In the case of ‘hybrid workers’ in one university at least there has been the proposed that the worker is obliged to agree the pattern of attendance with their line manager. This is very different from the freedom to work at home or in the workplace, while being reasonably contactable in emergencies. Such proposals do not give staff flexibility but rather subject them to greater control and attendance monitoring. We should also be mindful of the danger that staff working in the ‘virtual campus’ or as ‘hybrid workers’ lose access to office space and workstations in the workplace. Proposals to redesign campuses so that the number of workstations is reduced should be resisted. This can take away the right to work on campus for those who do not wish to work at home.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that there is a substantial trade union negotiating agenda around the post COVID workplace. It has discussed this in regard to three areas: equality, workloads and surveillance. There are also matters to bring within negotiation regarding copyright and regarding environmental impact of variations in ways of working. We should also ask whether trade unions can achieve something positive in terms of improvements in the quality of working life. This may seem over-optimistic at a time when unions are fighting major defensive battles over jobs, resisting ‘fire and rehire’ and casualisation. These battles need to be fought and won. Nonetheless in the early days of the pandemic people were thinking and talking about how to live and work differently in a way which was more sociable, more sustainable in terms of the economy and the environment and better for mental and physical health. We should not lose sight of this agenda.

If unions are to negotiate for improvements in the quality of working life, this means finding ways of maximising membership involvement in debate about what union members want the post COVID workplace to look like. Union organising around this will involve both formulation of demands for collective bargaining and also building the solidarity of unionised workgroups to protect against over-loading and to develop new ways of working at the grassroots of organisations.

Elizabeth Lawrence

2 May 20214 May 2021

HEC REPORT 30TH April 2021

HEC discussion focused on negotiations on pay campaigns and pensions. Whilst confidentiality prevents much discussion, it is possible to say the following.

Pay

On pay the 0% non-offer in 2020-21 has been repeatedly rejected by UCU members in electronic ballots and in branch delegates meetings. On the 2021-22 pay negotiations employers continue to put forward plans for further pay cuts. A wide-ranging debate took place on how to address this crisis. A late motion to HE Sector Conference from an independent member was supported by UCU Left and was carried. This called for an immediate campaign and further delegate meetings to be held. The forthcoming HESC will be the crucial democratic body to determine UCU strategy and policy in relation to any forthcoming dispute.

USS Pensions

Members will be aware that the USS negotiations have not led to a settlement on benefits. Instead a dispute over the 2020 valuation is fast approaching. There is agreement at HEC that the valuation is incapable of producing an outcome which protects the Defined Benefit scheme. This leaves members with a Hobson’s choice between remaining the high cost scheme and baring most of the risk or opting out of the scheme and having no pension to retire on. A wide ranging debate on how to address this. The forthcoming HESC will again be the crucial democratic body that determines UCU strategy in relation to, an almost certain, forthcoming dispute.

Motions

An important motion to instigate greylisting and increase solidarity with the 165 members threatened with redundancy at Leicester University was carried nem con.

A motion, subsequently discussed on Twitter, about student number controls was lost on a tied vote: 13:13 with 7 abstentions. The motion on student number controls had been tabled for a previous HEC but was withdrawn by the proposer so was not moved, debated or voted on. On this occasion the convention with tied votes is that the status quo remains, so there is no change to existing policy. The motion is pasted below. The debate centred on the role of caps on student numbers in pre- and post 92 universities. The lifting of the cap on student numbers has led to larger universities, particularly within the Russell Group, to boost their fee income by increasing their student intake. At the same time many post-92 universities have faced increased competition for students.

Opposition to this motion did not centre on the impact of the lifting of these caps, but on campaigning for ending marketisation and the fees regime. The role that fees has played in the increase in student recruitment was emphasised.

Numbers entering higher education have been rising and will continue to do so in the face of rapidly rising unemployment. Youth unemployment rate is now over 14%, a 10% rise during the pandemic, and there are still five million workers on furlough. Higher Education is an important option for current students and those returning to education in the face of the crisis Covid-19 has created. As a union we should not support a view which holds that there is too much higher education in the UK. There is a definite need for further discussion on this but the motion as it stood was not fit for purpose. It conceded too much ground to the notion that the problem is too many students, rather than the marketised fees regime.

UCU policy is for the abolition of fees and access to university for all those wishing to seek a university education. This unites us with students in a demand to challenge the market in higher education. To suggest students’ choices themselves are somehow responsible for the funding crisis in some institutions is to break the link of solidarity we should be building with student groups and student unions.

A further argument was made by supporters of the motion that these increases in student numbers are the driver of casualisation, especially in Russell Group institutions. Again, there was opposition to the notion that we can solve casualisation by cutting student numbers. In the summer of 2020, as the pandemic accelerated, Universities were only too willing to dismiss casualised staff on mass when fearing a drop in student numbers.

As a trade union it is our member’s strength and mobilisation through campaigning and industrial action that protects jobs and improves conditions. Granting employers and government uncritical control over the future of the sector by managing decline is not a solution for members. UCU must campaign for post-92 universities but it must be one which is independent of the employers’ narrative of a shrinking pool of students. As the mover of the motion’s own research recognised “the return of caps … may not necessarily be the silver bullet that we are hoping for” (https://medium.com/ussbriefs/stockpiling-students-covid-19-caps-and-growth-inequalities-in-uk-he-from-2014-5-to-2018-9-f9ab2991cc2e\0.

Student Number Controls (redux)

HEC notes that:
the combination of Covid-19 and marketisation of HE has created a ‘perfect storm’ of adverse conditions
some UK universities over-recruited in 2020, and expect to do the same in 2021, in effect ‘poaching’ from other universities, particularly post-92 institutions

HEC believes that:

The current uncapped, ‘free-for-all’ system of student places provides undue advantages to highly ranked institutions, and rewards gaming the system
Fair competition is neither possible nor desirable, and that attempts to induce an education ‘marketplace’ have done enormous harm to the sector, workers and students

HEC resolves to:

request modelling of student number control mechanisms for UK HE to be reported to the next HEC for further action
support a robust form of student number controls aligned with UCU’s general opposition to the marketisation of HE
campaign for caps aimed at the prevention of institutional failure and departmental closure

25 February 20213 March 2021

The Fight for Trans Rights

A photograph of a trans pride flag laid out flat

Note on terminology: this article will use the term trans throughout as an umbrella term referring to a range of trans, nonbinary, genderqueer and gender non-conforming identities (as many trans-led organisations such as Gendered Intelligence do). We will use other terms alongside trans when we are discussing a specific identity within the trans* community.

In 2020 the Morning Star published a transphobic cartoon depicting trans people as vicious predators that would have been shocking if it had appeared in the Daily Mail. In recent years we have seen trans exclusionary or trans hostile rhetoric become commonplace in the mainstream media and social media, with a number of high profile writers, journalists and politicians facing criticism for their comments. It is deeply disappointing to see the growing transphobia coming from far-right and right wing populist regimes and organisations being echoed by a minority of feminists and people on the left. Much of this ill-framed and ill-informed assault has been centred around the now scrapped reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), a process which was shelved by the Tory government in 2020, to the dismay of trans people and organisations.

UCU has a long history of enabling self-identification for all members linking back to our predecessor unions. This is a key part of our work and responsibilities as trade unionists and socialists – working together to end all forms of oppression. Improved rights for one oppressed group should never be conditional on the oppression of other groups. Trans rights and women’s rights are not incompatible, just as women’s rights are not incompatible with the rights of disabled people, or our Black siblings. Indeed, many trans people are also women, are disabled, are Black.

There has been, rightly, a storm of criticism and condemnation of the many examples of media transphobia, as well as the specific shocking example of the Morning Star cartoon. For those of us less familiar with the ongoing fight for trans rights and inclusion, it is worth asking why these attacks on trans and nonbinary people have gained the traction that they have in recent years.

The state of the so-called trans debate reveals a departure from the basic position all socialists must take when it comes to oppression. Socialists unconditionally stand with all the oppressed. Capitalism divides the working class through racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Governments led by the likes of Johnson and Bolsonaro are looking to pick on groups of already vulnerable people who appear to be different to the rest of the class and attempt to blame them for poverty, poor housing and cuts to services and the insecurity these cause, for which in reality these governments are responsible.

The roots of trans oppression

The causes of transphobia have similar roots to those of women’s oppression. They lie in the emergence of class societies, especially capitalism, and the centrality of the ideology of the privatised nuclear family as the key unit in providing, at minimal cost to the state, the next generation of workers to generate profits and economic growth. For socialists this is the starting point to understanding women’s and trans peoples’ oppression. It is through the traditional family unit that the mores and behaviours the establishment expect from working people are perpetuated and sustained. It is for this reason that the fight for women’s and trans equality are one and the same struggle.

It is through the bravery and heroism of those who came out and defied homophobic and transphobic societal norms in the late 1960s, most spectacularly in the 1969 Stonewall riots, that a powerful social movement for LGBT+ rights emerged with the aim of putting an end to such discrimination. The struggles of those who ignited the fight in the 60s have led to many important reforms for LGBT+ people and women that today right wing governments, in their reactions to the failures of neoliberalism, are trying to roll back in order to divide opposition to their policies and re-impose strict traditional family values. Why does a vocal minority, including in education, continue to provide left cover for transphobic lines of argument under the guise of ‘concern’ for ‘academic freedom’ or ‘free speech’? They seem to accept basic right wing tropes used first against gay men and now against trans people. Gay men were, and are, attacked on the spurious basis that the only reason they go to public toilets is to have sex with unsuspecting heterosexual men. Another key trope was that gay men groom children. That was one of the spurious and vicious claims used to justify the Tories’ Section 28 homophobic legislation of the late 1980s which impacted the education system. Similar claims are being made against trans people and their organisations today.

The Morning Star cartoon reinforced offensive myths about trans women – that trans women are not women at all but ‘men in dresses’ who want to use public toilets and other single sex spaces to abuse women. Yet actual examples of trans women assaulting cisgender women in public places like toilets, changing rooms or refuges are very rare. Indeed, the main results of this scaremongering are to make life more threatening and dangerous for trans people – and to result in more cisgender women being challenged because they are not perceived as fitting gender stereotypes sufficiently well. This position is also rooted in deep-seated homophobia and (trans)misogyny, as its proponents rarely consider trans men, nonbinary and other gender nonconforming people in their analysis of trans people’s experiences.

Unity

The final reason why some of the left end up in a position that puts them at odds with those in the trans community is that they oppose some aspects of the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA). The scrapped GRA reforms, and the recent High Court hearing of Bell V Tavistock (2020) – granted appeal for 2022 – leave trans people under a cloud of legal limbo, as much needed reforms and access to gender affirming healthcare (especially for young people, in relation to Bell V Tavistock) are pushed further out of reach. Many young trans people have had the lifeline of puberty blockers snatched away from them without notice by last December’s High Court ruling. The ruling also potentially threatens young people’s access to contraception and abortion in the future.

The proposed / possible reforms to the GRA are not particularly radical, and are not out of step with other countries such as Ireland, Portugal, Uruguay and Spain. The introduction of self-identification/self-declaration – instead of a heavily medicalised process – to obtain a gender recognition certificate, would have been a key step towards trans liberation in the UK. The Tories have failed to implement this opportunity to make trans people’s lives a little bit less hazardous, pathologised and stressful.

This move is being greeted by transphobes as a victory and will inevitably lead to further abuse and discrimination against trans people. It will also open the door to further attacks on women’s and LGBT+ rights, since a setback for trans women would be a setback for all women and for all LGBT+ people.

Nor should the introduction of additional voluntary questions on gender in the National Census, allowing for the expression of non-binary and trans identities, be perceived as a threat to women. For the first time this will generate some national data about the numbers of people who may be trans or non-binary. Despite this, some transphobic groups have supported a legal challenge to the guidance the ONS has published on how to complete the question on sex.

The existence of trans women is not a threat to women’s rights or a denial of cis women’s oppression. History has shown us when the oppressed are united we can better protect all our rights and we all take a step closer to liberation.

That’s why it’s crucial that the left unites now around a renewed campaign to amend the GRA as well as defend the trans rights embodied in the 2010 Equality Act just like we did in the late 1980s around Section 28. We must continue to push for the legal recognition of nonbinary identities, building on the decision from Taylor v Jaguar Land Rover (2020) that nonbinary and genderfluid employees are also protected under the Equality Act 2010.

It is understandable that a lot of those who have been offended, angered and felt so let down by the media and public discourse around trans rights have been calling for individuals and organisations to be ‘no platformed’ and boycotted by the labour movement. Trans people feel attacked, beleaguered and marginalised. Increasing numbers report being afraid to leave their homes or use public facilities, or access education, and this stress and isolation has been made worse by the effects of the pandemic and repeated lockdowns.

Transphobes and ‘trans critics’ who are using their considerable platforms and positions to push these attacks on trans people often claim, perversely, that they are being ‘silenced’ and bullied. Clearly, making threats against such people is unacceptable, but those trying to block or undermine trans rights cannot expect immunity from criticism and counter arguments, particularly since it is overwhelmingly trans voices that are repeatedly ignored or silenced.

Nevertheless, we think a blanket application of a no-platform policy would be a mistake and no-platforming should be restricted to fascist organisations and individuals. Though we do not believe inviting those with proven transphobic records, or hate organisations, is acceptable, and student and staff organisations are entitled to disinvite speakers if they decide to do so, we do not believe refusing a platform in every individual case is the best way to persuade the vast majority of people to support and act in solidarity with trans people. As we do when people make bad faith arguments at UCU Congress and Sector conferences, or in our branches, or during equalities committee meetings or debates, we must demonstrate that these arguments are wrong. We must not lose our own voices – if they don’t happen in the light, they will continue to happen in the shadows.

We recognise that there are differences within the movement around a range of issues, and indeed that some people are genuinely unclear or poorly informed about trans rights, but we must debate these disagreements rather than refuse to engage with them. ‘No platform’ is a tactic used to prevent fascist organisations from gaining any foothold in our society which they would then use to undermine the very democracy that allowed them that platform in the first place. Whatever our disagreements may be with people who espouse transphobic views, they are not – in the vast majority of cases – fascists.

We can debate these issues on the basis of evidence but we cannot and should not expect trans people to engage with transphobes and trans critics who want to ‘debate’ the very existence of trans people. Let’s debate the issues, yes, sometimes robustly if necessary. But let’s above all also unite in the defence of the LGBT+ community and fight for a world where people are brought up to never know what it is to discriminate against those who are perceived to be different.

Originally published March 2020 by Laura Miles & Megan Povey
Updated in February 2021 by Bee Hughes, Laura Miles & Megan Povey

12 February 202112 February 2021

UCL’s Academic Board finds the IHRA definition not fit for purpose, urges the College Council to retract its adoption

University College London’s Academic Board to recommend to the Council of the College that it should set aside the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and replace it with a more appropriate alternative.
Report finds the IHRA definition “not fit for purpose within a university setting and has no legal basis for enforcement.”
Findings raise serious questions about the implications of academic institutions and public bodies adopting IHRA definition.
Report issues a scathing criticism of Secretary of State Gavin Williamson’s threats to withdraw funding from universities if they do not adopt the IHRA, describing this as putting their autonomy under threat.

UCL’s Academic Board has overseen the most detailed and forensic study of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism yet, investigating its fitness for purpose following UCL’s adoption of it in 2019.

The product of a year-long study by a Working Group established by the Academic Board, this major Report examines UCL’s decision in 2019 to adopt the IHRA definition. It has involved consultation with eminent lawyers including Philippe Sands and Sir Geoffrey Bindman, as well as academic experts on antisemitism such as Brain Klug, and representatives of UCL’s most relevant academic departments and of its Student’s Union.

The ground-breaking Report found that the IHRA definition “is not fit for purpose within a university setting and has no legal basis for enforcement.” In considering alternative possibilities, given the inadequacy of the definition, the Academic Board decided that it should recommend to Council that the IHRA definition should be replaced through a process designed to identify a replacement definition.

Furthermore, the Report also found that the IHRA definition is unhelpful in identifying actual cases of antisemitic harassment and is therefore a weak tool for effective university action. It observes that the definition “obfuscates rather than clarifies the meaning of antisemitism, and may in fact make it harder to identify and understand how antisemitism works.”

The Report finds that the IHRA definition risks conflating legitimate criticism of the State of Israel, or of Zionism, with antisemitism, thus threatening freedom of expression on campus. “By blurring these boundaries”, it states, “the IHRA working definition risks undermining academic freedom.”

With its measured and powerful analysis the Report delivers a devastating blow to Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson’s attempts to pressure universities into adopting the IHRA definition.

His threat to withhold funding from Universities that do not adopt the definition, it says, demonstrates “how university autonomy is under threat.” It concludes by stating that “if universities are not permitted to use evidence, scholarship, research and logic to rebut Ministers’ political demands, then our autonomy and independence are seriously in peril.”

Ben Jamal, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign said:

“This study, the most systematic yet undertaken by a group of eminent academics, reinforces the concerns that have been expressed by a wide range of bodies since the UK government adopted the IHRA definition in 2016. The definition has been used to prevent both discussion of the facts of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people and calls for action to address that oppression. It thereby undermines freedom of expression at Universities and more widely.

Gavin Williamson needs to stop pressuring universities to adopt. Moreover, all public bodies considering adoption need to address seriously the findings of this report.”

Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC said:

“Concerns about the coercive attempts to force public bodies to adopt the IHRA definition are clearly shared by lawyers and academics alike. The Government must cease its pressure on institutions to curtail debate and restrict freedom of expression.”

Report of the UCL AB Working Group on Racism and Prejudice
UCL UCU website
Article by lead drafter of IHRA definition Kenneth Stern on its intended use
Hugh Tomlinson and Geoffrey Robertson’s legal opinions on the definition
Case studies of how the definition has been used to prevent freedom of speech

21 December 2020

LBGT+ Members’ Conference 2020

The LGBT+ conference took place on Saturday 5th December, via Microsoft Teams. It was attended by around 50 colleagues, and we heard from four guest speakers across two panels. Five new members were nominated and elected to the LGBT+ Members Standing Committee, including UCU Left Chair, Bee Hughes.

We also paused for a 30 seconds silence, proposed by Peter Evans, to remember Nita Sanghera. Chair, Ryan Prout spoke of Nita’s impact across the union and her allyship with the LGBT+ community.

Panel One: Intersectionality

The first speaker, Sen Sunil Raj, gave a detailed and vital presentation on the intersections of LGBT+ experience and seeking asylum. His presentation highlighted the ways in which hostility towards LGBT+ people, racist and homophobic and transphobe stereotypes, and racism in the LGBTQIA+ community can significantly worsen and amplify the effects of the UK’s hostile border environment. Sen also detailed how UK law has changed, demonstrating that homo/transphobic practices have long been entwined with the law, though there have been some recent positive precedents, including the UK’s first granting of asylum based on nonbinary gender.

Next, we heard from Rohit Dasgupta, who explored ‘Queer Spaces, Racialisation and Belonging in East London’, drawing on his experiences as a Labour Councillor, ethnographic, and the art of Raisa Kabir. Rohit’s presentation reflected on the ‘limits of British multiculturalism’ and the production of queer spaces which exclude queer Muslim people, closing with a call to imagine new modes of queer Muslim belonging.

A detailed discussion followed, covering the impact of gentrification, how we can improve our work as activists and professionals, the need for legal recognition of nonbinary genders, workplace bullying, and how we can make our IT systems work for inclusion rather than exclusion.

Panel Two: LGBT+ in FE & HE Now

The second panel began with a presentation by Trude Sundberg, sharing results from their ‘Report from LGBT+ Pilot Survey “Working conditions for LGBT+ Staff in HE”’. The results from this survey explored the impact of the covid-19 crisis on the wellbeing of LGBT+ staff laid bare a shocking and sobering view of how the LGBT+ community has been effected by recent changes including working from home. The survey demonstrates the wearing accumulated effect of ‘indirect’ or ‘everyday’ discriminations, such as misgendering, and derogatory language, the increased feeling of being ‘outed’ by working from home, and the intersection of racism with homo/transphobia which impact Black LGBT+ colleagues immensely.

The final guest speaker for the conference, PhD researcher Samuel J. Heyes, spoke movingly on the experience of being a trans student in post-16 education. Samuel shared his experience of continuing to support trans siblings through the university system, while taking care of himself as a trans student. He highlighted the huge emotional investment and labour it takes to perform these acts of (self)care and of simply being a trans person in a world where public discourse is often overwhelmingly hostile.

During the discussion many attendees expressed solidarity with Samuel, the impacts many at the meeting have experienced since working from home and online, the inflexibility of IT systems which do not accommodate gender diverse people’s identities, feelings of institutional gaslighting, and questions about the impact of covid-19 on those living with HIV. Bee Hughes proposed that LGBT+ Members Committee, and any other members present, to work together to develop good practice guidelines for the union, and for branches negotiating and workplace policies which impact trans and nonbinary people. The proposal was welcomed by a number of attendees who will take up this work together.

Motion: Campaign for GRA Reforms and Against Asylum Seeker Persecution

Megan Povey moved the motion from Leeds UCU, which has introduced so well through the context provided by Sen Sunil Raj’s presentation, resolving to ‘raise the profile of the UCU campaign for reform of the GRA’ and ‘to campaign for an end to the persecution of asylum seekers’. The motion was formally seconded by Bee Hughes. Though there was a small minority of conference delegates who opposed the motion, with one person speaking against, the overwhelming majority of attendees indicated support, with multiple speeches decisively for the motion. Voting on the motion is underway online.

10 July 202010 July 2020

Vote to Reject the ‘offer’: Four Fights are more important than ever

Four-fights Square

Vote to Reject the ‘offer’: Four Fights are more important than ever

Members are being asked to vote on the employers’ derisory ‘offer’ on pay and inequalities. It is important that we vote to reject their non-offer.

We live in the midst of a serious challenge to the continued institutional racial discrimination in society with the inspirational Black Lives Matter movement. As such, to abandon our fight for pay equality for BAME staff, women and other equality groups, would be a terrible indication that UCU is giving up on equality. This fact alone should be sufficient for voting to reject the ‘offer’ in the #Four Fights dispute.

However, the #FourFights dispute goes beyond pay inequality into many of the other areas that lie at the centre of what is wrong with industrial relations in Higher Education and the fact these are unresolved means we should not accept an end to our dispute.

Our dispute shone a light on the appalling levels of casualisation in the sector. It also highlighted the falling real pay levels for most staff of 15-20% over the past ten years whilst senior management sought to inflate their own pay beyond what anyone, apart from themselves, think is in any way acceptable. The fourth of the #FourFights was the increasing and unacceptable workloads facing members as rising student numbers failed to be matched by adequate staffing levels, leading to the worsening of higher education. Overarching all of these elements is the rampant discrimination in the sector.

The #FourFights dispute proved successful in ensuring all of these issues were finally accepted as areas for negotiation by employers. This is a marked step forward and was testimony to the 22 days of strike action we took. It has been argued that, if we do not accept the ‘offer’, what we have achieved in getting employers to discuss expectations will be withdrawn. However, this is not the case. The employers body UCEA has had to accept that the questions being raised in the #FourFights have to be addressed and meetings with negotiators are currently timetabled. Employers know they are vulnerable, but we need to keep the pressure on them.

The Covid-19 crisis is intensifying all of these failings in higher education. Indeed, with the move to blended learning, new issues relating to excessive workloads, working from home and the gender disparity this entails have arisen. Whereas UCU was demanding that all the fine words coming from UCEA needed to be backed with enforceable commitments to change,employers are using Covid-19 to drive these failings further into the sector. Marketisation is not being abandoned as a result of Covid-19 rather it is leading to its intensification with inequality, job cuts, pay cuts and bankruptcy across HE.

The Fund the Future campaign can become our political defence of the sector but it will be all the more powerful if we have a UK-wide strategy to address jobs, pay and inequalities to back it up.

Currently, UCU is leaving branches to resist these changes on a branch-by-branch level. But we know that won’t work. No matter what local deals emerge which minimise the cuts in a specific case, these will become the maximum any other branch can aspire to. We will quickly be in a race to the bottom with members paying the price for a lack of a UK-wide strategy of resistance. We need a UK wide #FourFights dispute more than ever.

A successful rejection of the offer will not, of course, lead to an immediate return to industrial action. But it would be a clear marker to employers that UCU is serious about defending members and higher education. It would also boost the confidence to fight in those branches facing immediate cuts if the members know the union has their backs. Finally, it would also start to turn around the defeatism in much of the leadership of UCU that thinks all we can do is manage and ameliorate the decline of the sector. We need to reject this offer and begin the mobilisation of the union for the defence of higher education.

2 June 20207 June 2020

Racism, Rebellion and Education under the Pandemic

With mass demonstrations across the globe in response to the killings of George Floyd, and in America the largest uprisings experienced since the 1960s. We meet to discuss the inspiring Black Lives Matter movement and how we can forge solidarity from within our union and with UK protests. The UK is not innocent, and we are witnessing police violence on our streets on those protesting.

Racism, rebellion and education under the pandemic

UCU left hosted meeting

Monday 8 June, 7.30pm.

Initial speakers:

Marcus Rediker, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh
Hakim Adi, Professor of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester
Shirin Hirsch is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and People’s History Museum, and a UCU activist.

With uprisings in America in response to the brutal police killing of George Floyd, how do we respond here in post-16 education to institutional racism at work and in our society? What movements are there to decolonise our curriculum? How do we fight against casualisation within our workforce, and the disproportionate impact on BME staff and students? What challenges does the current pandemic pose and how do we build an anti-racist classroom that connects with past and present movements?

Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh.  He has written numerous histories “from below” including  The Many-Headed Hydra  (with Peter Linebaugh) and  The Slave Ship.  His scholarship and activism focus on race and class in American and Atlantic history.

Hakim Adi is Professor of the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester. He was the first full professor of History who is of African or Caribbean heritage at a British university. He is the editor of the new book Black British History: New Perspectives. He was one of the founders of BASA and the founder and consultant historian to the Young Historians Project.

Shirin Hirsch is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and People’s History Museum and a UCU activist.

24 April 2020

Covid-19: Fighting for solidarity, equality and education

Speakers to follow.

This is part of a series of webinars during the crisis hosted by UCU Left.

You can view past webinars here.

UCU members put themselves at the forefront of fighting austerity and inequality. The strikes in further and higher education on pay inequality, pensions, casualised workers and workload. In doing so we have been the guardians of education and challenged the market vision of education.

The government has warned that the economy could shrink by 35% with unemployment reaching 2 million. The starting gun has gone off on the question of who pays and who is to blame for the crisis. How any recovery takes place. Therefore we urgently need to debate how we can use our collective strength to resist and to fight for solidarity and equality, and an inclusive education for all.

The Corona pandemic has exposed the depth of inequality in Britain. Frontline BAME and migrant health workers and those providing essential services in care homes, buses, shop workers, and many more, have died disproportionately as they work without vital PPE under a herd immunity strategy in practice.

The Tories are already starting to plan how to make us pay for their crisis and roll back equality gains. With it will come the divisive rhetoric and blaming of minorities and those accessing welfare. We can already see with the rejection of demands for a bailout how higher education could be viewed as a luxury for those who can afford it or merit the opportunity.

How can we protect a vision of full and inclusive education that break down barriers? The proposals to rank students to award grades will reinforce the inequalities that see black, asian and working class communities denied access to education and labelled as failures. How do we ensure they have no detriment and there remains an education service that can widen participation and access for all?

Some employers are rushing to cut their cloth rather than advocating post-16 education as vital to the recovery. It will be BAME workers on insecure contracts and students from poor backgrounds who will face the brunt of those cuts. Black communities will be doubly hit, by being forced into taking insecure and dangerous work , and education to these communities will decline to a basic level of training for dead end jobs.

The move to remote working has put a renewed triple burden on women. The inadequacy of social care means women are expected to perform their work, whilst also the role of carer for elderly family, and looking after children. This is in the context of cut services for vulnerable women and a rise in domestic violence. There will be a further barrier to women’s progression and the gender pay gap in academia.

We have seen a rise on eugenicist arguments about whose life is worth saving when hospitals are under resourced, or whose life should be sacrificed to the altar of profit. The elderly, sick and disabled have not been shielded, they have been abandoned by callous policies and cuts.

The introduction of the CoronaVirus Act 2020 should sound alarm bells. Every duty on our employers to meet the needs of disabled people under Care Act 2014 have been suspended. Those working at home are expected to do so with little regard to reasonable adjustments.

The state has more powers to detain people under the Mental Health Act. This comes at a time when there is a rise of poor mental health in young people and adults made worse by the crisis. How can we fight for an inclusive education for workers and students, the funding we need and for a social model of disability that breaks down barriers.

There can be no roll back on women’s rights women and LGBT+ rights. We have seen the impact on our campuses of the rise of the politics of hate to trans and minorities. The impact of Corona is already affecting access to medical care for those who need to access gender identity clinics. The social, psychological and material experience of lockdown is vastly different for the oppressed and depending on your class position.

We are also witnessing divisive politics that pits the old against the young. Where older members of society should stay home whilst younger workers go back to work. We are already seeing debates in the media and from those in power, that juxtapose economy versus lives. These will seek to reframe what it means to grow old in society, to have a pension, the right to care and support, and lifelong learning.

We invite you to join this webinar to fight for an inclusive vision of education and society based on solidarity, equality and learning. To reject the divisive policies of cuts and scapegoating. That would lead to a roll back of inclusive and widening participation of education. We need to unite to defend it in the fight of our lives.