Category: Equality

Equality stories

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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 The motion on student number controls had been tabled for a previous HEC but was withdrawn by the proposer so was not moved, debated or voted on.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.

  1. Student Number Controls (redux)

    HEC notes that:
  2. the combination of Covid-19 and marketisation of HE has created a ‘perfect storm’ of adverse conditions
  3. 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:

  1. The current uncapped, ‘free-for-all’ system of student places provides undue advantages to highly ranked institutions, and rewards gaming the system
  2. 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:

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

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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

Click here to register

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.

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Covid-19: Fighting for solidarity, equality and education

Covid-19 webinar landscape v2

Click here to register

Speakers to follow.

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

You can view past webinars here.

  1. Fighting for Education in the Time of Coronavirus
  2. Defending Casualised Workers in the Lockdown
  3. Homeworking & Managerialism: Beyond the Exam Factory

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.

 

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Can we resolve the Gender Pay Gap (and the race, disability and LGBT+ Pay Gaps)?

 

End the Gender Pay Gap - protest in London, HE strike 2016

Can we resolve the Gender Pay Gap (and the race, disability and LGBT+ Pay Gaps)?

The UCU website notes that ‘although equal pay legislation has been in place for over 40 years, the gender pay gap in Britain remains the highest in the EU at over 18%. In HE for all academics the gender pay gap is 12%.

It is worth noting that it is nearly 50 years since the Equal Pay Act 1970 and that in many Universities, the gender pay gap is more like 20%.

The most recent data (2016/17) suggests this is still the case. So we have a big problem to challenge. Our current strong collective action gives our members the chance to bridge this huge gap.

3 years ago in 2016, a number of UCU regional briefings were held on this topic by union officials to branch officers and reps. Now in 2019/20 we are nowhere further forward. The suggestion made by the officials was that equality reps and branch negotiators meet with HR departments, look at data and come up with an action plan. How many have achieved this? How many have actually resolved the gender pay gap (and other pay gaps such as BAME, disability and LGBT+)? Very few if any.

We cannot detach this area of discrimination from the context and influences around us. We are talking about the movements against sexual harassment and sexual assault such as #MeToo and #TimesUp on the streets. Women today are just not prepared to wait for years to achieve equality. So long detailed action plans are just not working. We need much faster action to resolve the gender pay gap (and other pay gaps).

An obvious solution is to have a clear career progression scheme. Let’s take, for example, a Lecturer on a grade which runs from £30,942 pa to £40,322 pa with discretionary points to £44,045 pa. Rather than have to submit to a time consuming and discriminatory application process to be promoted to Senior Lecturer why not progress automatically through from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer. Indeed we need to extend normal progression to the higher scales for all academic, academic-related and research staff. For the (few) women at the higher ends of the salary scale they also need parity in regards to bonus payments etc. however our main focus is having a fair and equitable career scheme and this dispute is our opportunity to get this sorted now rather than sit through slow and laborious meetings with HR departments

We must link the fight for gender pay with the fight against casualization. Inevitably once data is acquired on those on precarious contracts we will see that it is invariably women, BAME disabled and LGBT+ staff who are on these contracts in the majority. Our dispute is about equality as well as pensions, pay, workload and casualization.

Only a clearly defined career progression scheme will resolve the gender pay gap and other pay gaps. The pay gap has a lasting effect on current pay but also on past pay and future pension. Therefore clearly defined career progression should also be applied retrospectively as women, BAME, disabled and LGBT+ staff have been held back for far too long.

Dr Sue Abbott

NEC and Chair of Equality Committee (pc)

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Report on UCU HE pay sector conference, 7 November

HE votes to re-ballot and campaign on pay, equality, casulisation and workload – prepare to organise and fight

Following a serious debate about strategy, delegates at Wednesday’s HE Sector Conference voted to relaunch a hard-hitting national pay campaign, focusing on pay, equality, casualisation and workload.

Delegates came to the pay conference in the wake of industrial action ballot results which delivered an overall vote of 69% for strikes and 80% for action short of strike on a 42% turnout, the highest figures ever for an HE national pay ballot. However, as we know, only eight out of 147 branches of the union exceeded the 50% turnout threshold required under the Tory anti-trade union legislation.

The debate

Given the solid support for action there was no desire to wind up the pay campaign.

But there were tactical and strategic differences about how to go forward.

  • A number of motions (composite motion 1, and motions 2 and 3) argued for a selective re-ballot of members in branches which had come close to reaching the threshold. Motion 1 used the 35% turnout as a benchmark, allowing others to opt in. This would be a ‘disaggregated’ ballot, counted branch-by-branch, just like the most recent ballot and the USS ballot.
  • Against this position was a motion (Motion 5) which argued for an aggregated national ballot in the Spring Term and for fighting over next year’s pay claim. This means that all members get to vote, and all votes are counted centrally. The delay would offer branches some additional time to prepare.

The conference heard how branches such as Herriot Watt had sailed over the threshold (achieving a 65% turnout) by implementing a meticulous GTVO campaign. If this experience were generalised across the union, combined with speaking tours by HEC members and other measures, many more branches could reach the threshold in time to take action alongside those which already have a valid ballot.

The merits of aggregated and disaggregated ballots was debated. An aggregated ballot would mean that if the 50% threshold was crossed, all members could strike and take ASOS together. It would be a national strike as well as a national claim. But the disadvantage is that if the 50% threshold was not crossed, the dispute would be over. It is one roll of the dice.

The recent turnout at 42% is a lot higher than the ~35% turnout in 2016, but there is still some way to go to reach 50%. We would all be in it together, but there is an increased risk of not getting over the threshold. The fact that branch results would be hidden in the total also tends to soften the responsibility of individual branch activists to fight to reach 50% in their own institution. This is why UCU Left believe that in light of the Tory union thresholds, we have nothing to lose by disaggregating a national ballot.  A national pay campaign, if necessary, could be led by a significant number who reached the thresholds. 

For this tactical reason, UCU Left members argued to mount a disaggregated ballot and to build on the current ballot result. As one speaker put it, “our task is to march every branch over the 50% threshold” in pursuit of the national claim, an act that would strengthen their ability to fight independently in front of their own employer. Continue reading “Report on UCU HE pay sector conference, 7 November”

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Register Now – Joint National Conference for UCU members – 13th October 2018

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Marketisation is destroying education in our colleges, universities, prisons and the adult education sector. UCU is at a crossroads – how do we get the type of union we need to push back the Tories and the employers in the struggle against marketisation? How can we build and strengthen our union for the fight over pay, pensions and for a progressive post-16 education system?
In the late summer and early autumn, both Further and Higher Education members will ballot over pay. And the USS dispute may restart in earnest if the Joint Expert Panel (JEP) finds the projections of the deficit credible.
Our union has been transformed by strikes. Over 20,000 new members have joined. Branches have grown – in some cases by 50% or more.
All those who care about the future of UCU need to unite and emphasise our needs – for a democratic, fighting union that stands up for its members.
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This conference, called by many groups uniting together, is an opportunity for UCU members from across the UK to meet and debate the big questions facing us. Please join us.
Registration from 10.30. Conference starts at 11.00.
Register here
Sessions on :
USS * Precarious workers * Resisting Redundancies * Democracy in the union * Reclaim the curriculum *  Immigration / EU nationals * The money’s there, we want our share – radical accounting * How to Organise Strikes * We Are the University *
Adult Ed/Devolution/Apprenticeships * Victimisation* Activist Pamphlet launch