Christina Paine (London Met UCU, NEC) and Cecily Blyther (Petroc UCU), both members of the Anti-Casualisation Committee
Across the UK, the post-16 education model is broken as workers struggle under the weight of precarious contracts, redundancies, casualised job losses and impossible workloads. As working conditions continue to race to the bottom we must secure the casualised to stop the casualisation of the secure.
Behind every ‘hourly paid’ or ‘fixed-term contract’ model are stories of poverty wages, homelessness, insecurity, burnout and exploitation. We know casualisation worsens structural inequalities, overwhelmingly impacting women, migrants, racialised and disabled colleagues.
The structural inequality of casualisation needs to be a key focus in our equality work (SFC33). We see the most vulnerable are targeted and are often left feeling “discarded” as contracts vanish with no consultation or redundancy.
Across post-16 education, casualised workers deliver the core teaching, support student learning and keep institutions afloat yet are discarded without consultation, redundancy process and with no safety net.
Casualised staff precarious
As HE institutions parade deficits and launch brutal redundancy and restructuring programmes it’s casualised staff who disappear first with few redundancy rights or recognition.
The pattern repeats in FE. Staff hours are cut, contracts aren’t renewed and layers of redundancy are obscured while management shifts workload to permanent staff already struggling under impossible demands.
The lack of data and monitoring of these job losses is unacceptable. Institutionalised insecurity is the business model for marketised post-16 education. We must support Congress motions calling for UCU to survey branches to document the scale of the job losses.
Key Motions
• HE11 calls for all campaigns against redundancy to protect and defend casualised staff. • HE22, HE23 and HE24 demand transparency in casualised redundancies and for UCU to survey branches on the scale of job losses among casualised staff. • FE15 calls for solidarity across casualised and non-casualised staff and protecting casualised staff in campaigns against redundancy. • FE16 addresses recruitment and retention of casualised workers in FE, calling for a representative working group to develop union work in this area.
Pensions often feel unattainable to casualised workers, yet pension inequality is a huge issue with inconsistent work and huge amounts of unpaid labour leaving them out of pocket in work and in retirement. This is compounded by the introduction of two-tier pensions in some institutions with casualised workers pushed onto inferior schemes. We must fight for all workers to have a decent and secure retirement.
• ROC2 defends universal pension and welfare rights and SFC36 calls for stronger pension action for casualised workers. • SFC33 calls for UCU to develop a stronger, unified strategy to defend equality and fight casualisation. • SFC21 targets action on the pitiful Employment Rights Bill and calls for the full repeal of the anti-trade union laws. This is vital for strengthening work to stamp out casualised work in our sectors.
We must fight together against every job loss: • SFC15 calls for a post-16 strategy to defend education. It is time for action across the union to call for full security for all workers and full government funding for post-16 education.
Starmer’s Labour is Anti-Worker
The Labour government’s so-called Employment Rights Bill fails to offer meaningful protection or a way forward for workers. They’ve climbed down on reversal of the Trade Union Act 2016 and banning zero-hours contracts. The Bill does not guarantee work after regular service and there are no penalties for misuse of casual contracts. It’s a betrayal dressed up in progressive language while leaving thousands of workers out to dry.
Zero-hours contracts remain as legalised precarity. They lock staff into cycles of poverty pay, instability and mental harm. They disproportionately trap women, racialised and disabled workers in second-class employment, excluded from rights and robbed of security.
UK-wide joint action now – enough is enough.
Casualisation is the ground on which every other injustice grows – leading to unpaid work overload, inequality, stress, mental health collapse, bullying and silencing. We must build on recent networks created in our regions and join with sibling unions to build on new strong networks in our regions to give voice to casualised workers.
Our working conditions are the foundations of students’ education in every part of post-16 education and casualisation undermines both. Casualised staff are not disposable. They are central to the sector. We cannot wait any longer – we must all work together to fight for decent jobs and pension justice for all workers.
Roddy Slorach (Imperial College UCU) and Christina Paine (London Met UCU and NEC)
Keir Starmer’s government is in big trouble. Its strategy is already in tatters and its support is rapidly disappearing. Many voters are turning in desperation to the racists of Farage’s Reform UK. Labour’s answer is more scapegoating – of migrants, muslims and now of trans people. For many people, the most shocking betrayal is the savage assault on disability benefits. Cuts to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and incapacity benefit threaten to push at least 250,000 disabled people into poverty.
In her Spring Statement in March, chancellor Rachel Reeves said Labour is “clear whose side we are on.” Her policies have indeed made this clear. The pledge to restrict public spending was rapidly forgotten when Donald Trump demanded European countries ramp up arms spending. Starmer says there is a “moral case” for the cuts to disability benefits – with the savings spent on more deadly weapons like those being used to carry out genocide in Gaza.
Disabled workers across post-16 education are raising the alarm – and UCU is demanding action. Staff are still being denied the most basic reasonable adjustments to do their jobs safely, whilst simultaneously facing a government hell-bent on slashing the support they rely on to live and flourish.
War on the poorest
Disabled people are already poorer than a decade ago. A report to the UN by disability organisations in August 2023 showed the real terms value of UK benefit payments had fallen by over ten percent since 2010. Research by disability charity Scope shows that the average UK disabled household faces extra costs of £1122 per month – making disabled people “almost three times as likely to live in material deprivation than the rest of the population.” With one in ten people of working-age receiving health-related benefits, UCU members are among those threatened by the cuts.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting tried to divert attention by claiming that the problem is an “overdiagnosis” of mental distress and conditions such as autism and ADHD. The real problem is that more and more of us are struggling to cope in an increasingly barbaric and hostile world.
Fifteen years ago, another Labour government introduced the Equality Act in 2010. It is a deeply flawed law that nevertheless for the first time put disability discrimination on an equal legal footing to racism, sexism and other forms of oppression. Many people believed that the new law would improve life for disabled people – but our employers constantly refuse to meet its most basic requirements.
Toxic narrative
The government’s toxic narrative – that disabled people are work-shy or exaggerate their difficulties – ignores the reality of our communities and workplaces. Across post-16 education, staff report long delays for essential support like screen readers, ergonomic equipment, hybrid work arrangements, or flexible hours. Often, reasonable adjustments never arrive and disabled workers increasingly face job insecurity and loss of hours.
The government’s unacceptable cuts to PIP and other disability benefits have been widely condemned by trade unions, disabled-led organisations and carers’ groups. In a chilling continuation of austerity politics, ministers are tightening assessments and proposing to stop many thousands of people from accessing the support they need to live, whether they are in work or not. All of this is being done under the guise of “fiscal responsibility.”
Among the most vulnerable are the growing number of disabled workers on casualised contracts. Meanwhile, digitalisation and AI-driven teaching models create new barriers and exclusions. Flexible tech could open doors, but instead it’s being used to strip out jobs and further marginalise disabled educators. We need a national campaign for accessible, inclusive and secure workplaces, a zero-tolerance approach to non-compliance on reasonable adjustments and above all a union that is prepared to fight for every job and every member.
These cuts can be beaten and the fightback starts here. Starmer suspended Labour MPs who refused to support the cuts to winter fuel payments, but this time the threats aren’t working. Disabled People Against Cuts and other organisations have called a series of protests against the cuts under the banner of ‘Welfare not Warfare’. Every Palestinian supporter, every anti-war campaigner and every serious trade unionist needs to get behind this growing rebellion in defence of disability benefits.
Key Motions
The following motions will strengthen and support UCU’s work to fight discrimination against disabled members: • Universal welfare and equal pensions provision (ROC2 EQ18). • Ending cuts to PIP and disability benefits, working with wider campaigns for welfare and against military spending (SFC24 SFC25). • Better support for disabled members to engage with UCU (EQ12) and linking anti-casualisation with equality issues (SFC33). • Support and guidance for developing robust and inclusive policies (EQ15). • More robust data to enable effective campaigning (FE32).
These motions will help us in the fight for restoring and securing PIP and disability benefits, a zero-tolerance approach to non-compliance on reasonable adjustments and stronger legal protections for precariously employed disabled members. We need a UK-wide campaign for accessible, inclusive and secure workplaces and greater accountability for institutions that rely on insecure labour while evading their equality duties.
Anne Alexander, comms officer for Cambridge UCU and a member of University and College Workers for Palestine and BRICUP
The past year has seen a significant escalation in repressive tactics by universities against protest for Palestine on UK campuses, mainly targeting students. Many UCU branches and activists have played an important role in building solidarity campaigns to protect student activists and the ability to collectively protest, but more needs to be done at a national level to organise a fightback.
Back in August 2024, University and College Workers for Palestine documented a wide set of repressive tactics deployed by university managements working in collaboration with security companies and sometimes the police. Although at a much lower level than the repression of pro-Palestine protests in other countries, such as the US and Germany, these attempts to discipline and criminalise student protesters is deeply worrying.
Examples include violent arrests of students in Newcastle, Oxford and SOAS; victimisation of student activists at Birmingham, Essex, SOAS and LSE through long-running disciplinary cases, where some were banned from campus and threatened with expulsion. Even though legal charges have often been dropped later, or no disciplinary action taken after the investigation – the impact on individuals targeted has been immense.
In two recent cases, University of London and Cambridge University used High Court injunctions in an attempt to pre-emptively ban protests on or near university-owned land. Breaching a court order puts students, staff and members of the public at risk of fines or even imprisonment.
The increasing legal threats to protest rights for students and staff on campus should concern every trade unionist and activist. The injunction obtained by the University of Cambridge targets all types of protest, not only solidarity action for Palestine. It affects a location in the centre of the city which has been used for decades as a rallying point by trade unions and local campaigns.
It comes alongside other attacks on the right to protest and speak about Palestine, such as the prosecution of leading figures in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition after police restrictions and mass arrests on the 18 January demonstration, the arrest of Youth Demand activists in a Quaker Meeting House and the use of counter-terrorism laws to try and silence people speaking out against genocide, such as Cardiff activist Kwabena Devonish who faces trial in August. None of this can be separated from examples of authoritarian policing, such as the intervention to stop picketing by striking bin workers in Birmingham and the harsh sentencing of climate activists on charges of “conspiracy” for taking part in a zoom call.
Yet repression is only half the picture – many of these cases galvanised greater solidarity and organising by staff and students to push back. When the University of Leicester brought police to arrest students occupying a university building in November, the UCU branch put out a strong statement pointing out that student occupations played a key role in the campaigns against the Vietnam War and South African Apartheid.
University of London took three student activists to the High Court to obtain an injunction against them organising BDS protests on part of its land. UCU, Unison and IWGB branches from across the UoL’s Bloomsbury colleges helped to co-organise a major rally condemning the injunction on the workplace day of action for Palestine, 28 November.
In Cambridge, the University’s rush to obtain a High Court injunction targeting pro-Palestinian protests in February spurred staff and students to work together on a public and legal campaign contesting this repressive move online, in the streets and in court. The University was forced to retreat on several aspects of its original request to the court, including targeting the student-led campaign, Cambridge for Palestine, by name. National and international pressure played an important role through open letters condemning the University from Gina Romero, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Assembly and UCU General Secretary Jo Grady.
Battles over the right to protest shouldn’t obscure the scale of the audience for Palestine solidarity organising – and how this audience continues to grow and develop. University and College Workers for Palestine and BRICUP worked with UCU nationally to organise a highly successful tour, implementing a resolution at UCU congress in 2024.
Between October 28 and November 6, the Campus Voices for Palestine tour visited 8 cities across the UK with a message of solidarity against scholasticide and amplifying the calls by staff and students from Palestinian universities for BDS. Sundos Hammad from the ‘Right to Education’ campaign from Birzeit University and Ahmed Shaban of the Emergency Committee for the Universities of Gaza were able to connect with activists across the UK which also boosted local organising.
Workplace days of action have continued to bring staff and students together to highlight institutional complicity in genocide and war crimes. Initiatives like these are taking on a significance beyond the question of Palestine, with the current tilt towards militarism from governments worldwide. Labour’s appalling decision to steal money from disabled people in Britain in order to boost the profits of arms companies creating weapons to kill and maim people in Palestine and around the world has rightly enraged activists across the country.
In the coming year, we should be looking to build as many links as possible between the Palestine movement and wider campaigns challenging the drive to war. • Donate to the legal campaign over the University of London and Cambridge injunctions here . • Resources from the Campus Voices for Palestine tour here • Download BRICUP’s pamphlet on BDS, sign the Academic Commitment for Palestine and find other resources here.
Safia Flissi, ESOL Lecturer at South and City College Birmingham and NEC
The government’s recent announcement of a 6% cut in Adult Skills Funding (ASF) is yet another slap in the face for FE, ACE and our learners. Without resistance it will undoubtedly lead to mass course closures; making education inaccessible for many adults particularly those with few or no qualifications, unemployed, ESOL learners, adults with learning difficulties or disabilities and working adults on low incomes. In short the ASF cuts will hit the most disadvantaged and marginalised adults in our society.
Adult Education has a long history of creating educational opportunities, breaking down barriers and empowering adults. But since 2010, funding to adult education has reduced considerably. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, public funding for adult skills has declined by a third compared to its inflation adjusted peak in the early 2000s. That alone is terrible, however, it’s even worse when examining expenditure on classroom-based learning. This has fallen by two-thirds – from £5.1 billion to £1.7 billion by 2023/24, leading to a 47% reduction in adult learners. These cuts disproportionately affected lower-level courses, making them unaffordable to deliver and thus limiting access for those seeking to upskill or retrain.
The Department for Education (DfE) has justified these cuts as necessary fiscal measures. However, this perspective overlooks the long-term economic benefits of adult education. Investing in adult skills contributes to a more adaptable workforce, reduces unemployment, and fosters innovation. The current funding reductions are counterproductive, undermining efforts to build a resilient economy. The DfE’s approach fails to consider the social value of FE colleges and Adult Education. But education is always more than simply “economic metrics”. Adult learning promotes personal development, mental health, economic growth, community development and social cohesion. FE colleges and Adult Education often serve as a lifeline for marginalised groups, providing pathways to employment and social inclusion. Reducing access to these programmes exacerbates inequality and hampers community development.
Colleges across the country are grappling with the consequences of reduced funding. For instance, NCG’s colleges report that demand for adult education is so high that they are delivering beyond their allocated budgets, making it impossible to support current student numbers. Lewisham College Principal Jamie Stevenson refers to the cuts as “unjust cuts” and reminds us that “Those figures aren’t just numbers or a funding amount. They are real people who need these opportunities.” In the West Midlands a vast number of FE colleges have large adult provisions and the impact of the cuts to ASF could have disastrous consequences not only for FE colleges but also for the wider community.
South and City College Birmingham (SCCB), where I teach, is sadly a perfect example of where the cuts to ASF could jeopardise its future. SCCB has a large adult provision, it is a pivotal institution in the West Midlands, offering a wide range of adult education programmes aimed at upskilling the local workforce and supporting community development. Given Birmingham City Council’s financial challenges, including a declaration of effective bankruptcy, the college’s reliance on ASF becomes even more critical. Any reductions in this funding could lead to:
• Course reductions and the potential elimination of programmes essential for adult learners seeking to improve their qualifications. • Job losses & hiring freezes, affecting the college’s capacity to deliver quality education. • Limiting communities by reducing educational opportunities for adults in Birmingham, hindering efforts to address unemployment and social mobility.
The reduction in ASF poses a significant risk to institutions like NCG’s colleges, SCCB and others across the UK that provide vital adult education services. The cuts are a short-sighted approach undermining both individual potential and collective prosperity. In the face of escalating welfare cuts and sustained attacks on students and staff across post-16 education, it is more vital than ever to defend a broad, inclusive curriculum—one that meets the needs our most vulnerable learners including SEND learners, one that recognises gender diversity, and actively addresses issues of race, class, and inequality. By restoring investment in this vital sector, we can empower individuals, strengthen communities, and build a more equitable and resilient society.
As the UK looks to strengthen its workforce for future challenges, restoring and increasing ASF should be seen as an investment in people, not a cost. Political will is essential to reversing these funding cuts. Advocacy by education leaders, unions, and think tanks has brought the issue into the spotlight, but real change requires sustained pressure on policymakers by the trade union movement.
UCU must act now. UCU’s campaign to reverse the cuts should include lobbies and demonstrations at Parliament to push the issue into the political spotlight, issue media alerts and build public awareness of what’s at risk. UCU must seek to work with the WEA, TUC, ESOL campaigners and others to build a broad, cross union coalition to protect adult provisions.
Let’s not accept these cuts. Let’s expose them, fight them, and reverse them. The future of our communities, our colleges, and our learners depends on it.
Richard McEwan (New City College) and Regi Pilling (Westminster Kingsway College), both NEC and national FE pay negotiators
The Starmer government has signalled its intent to continue austerity, cutting adult education budgets and slashing welfare and disability payments relied on by many students and staff. The DofE is recommending a 2.8% pay award, but it’s unfunded meaning more realterms pay cuts. As we are all too keenly aware, colleges were left out of the last pay award entirely. The promised £300m will not go far after years of cuts, rising student numbers and rising costs like national insurance, which the government is no longer covering. The situation is unlikely to improve with the Comprehensive Spending Review later this year – further education funding will still be woeful and unable to meet the ambitions of the New Deal claim. In this context, the decisions of this year’s FE sector conference will really matter.
Events have moved significantly since the special sector conference last spring. Employers, through the National Joint Forum (NJF), have committed to exploring how binding national bargaining can be implemented in England FE. Two special meetings have scoped this out, tied to a desire for pay parity with schools. England FE remains the only part of UK education without proper national bargaining, making it the poorest sector and unable to put coherent demands to government.
Although it is still early days, there is a convergence of interests as employers seek to address the recruitment crisis. It is clear that a new bargaining system is coming, but whether it favours us or the employers will depend on our industrial strength. Achieving a binding framework will require additional government funding and cannot be won through local strikes alone. Therefore, UCU needs to launch an England-wide campaign of protests, demonstrations, and strikes. Securing a national framework could transform pay and conditions — we must seize this opportunity with a decisive strategy.
Moreover, the FEC and the secretariat now agree that the time is right to escalate the New Deal claim to national action – this is also reflected in the motions to conference. However, whether this turns into action remains to be seen, especially with the IBL / CUD (the right in UCU) holding a majority on the FEC. They have historically opposed action, including recently opposing a motion for UCU to hold an indicative ballot to find out if members would strike to gain the equivalent 5.5% school teachers’ pay award. Therefore, the critical question is how and when we escalate our current campaign.
We could be in a much stronger position. In March 2023, a majority of England FE members voted for national action — an achievement that took the NEU years to reach – however little action was taken by UCU. This academic year, action by 30 sixth form colleges on FE pay over the 5.5% award caught the attention of employers and government- most 6th form colleges have now gained that pay award.
Yet UCU took two years to issue a briefing explaining our campaign for national bargaining, and no local FE strikes occurred this year — a first. Last year, despite strong indicative ballots, over 75 branches opted out of action. This demobilisation and lack of national leadership led to low settlements and made life harder for those branches that fought. The local action strategy has run its course. If we are to win, we cannot repeat these mistakes.
At this year’s FESC all the motions call for nationally coordinated action. However, timing is key. In FE, the best time to act is near the start of the academic year, when local and national negotiations occur and before the October census date, which is critical for student funding. Management are very worried about strikes at this point as students still have the ability to move to other institutions. Striking after enrolment but before the census date gives us maximum leverage.
We also need mass, coordinated action. Members understand that local strikes alone cannot address sector-wide issues. A campaign mobilising colleges together will be far more powerful and will raise confidence amongst members.
We support all motions. FE2 should be amended to encourage strong branch participation. What we are trying to do as a union requires branches to act in the overall interest of the union’s claim. FE3 and FE9 call for a national ballot, which we also support. Whether aggregated or disaggregated, the important thing is a united, England-wide ballot. It has been clarified to FEC that all previous national ballots were technically disaggregated. This should be explained clearly to the conference. If passed, the FEC can implement the motions as we have for previous national ballots.
We hope you have a good conference and that we come out with a clear plan to fight for our claim and win it. If we get this right in addition to fighting for our own pay and conditions, we will have a strong voice to stop more attacks on our communities’ access to education.
Sean Vernell – City and Islington College, NEC and FE National Pay Negotiator
This year’s Congress takes place in one of the most serious political situations faced by those working and learning in the Post-16 education sector for many years.
In HE over 10,000 jobs are at risk this year alone, with another 10,000 staff threatened next year. This crisis is set to get worse. The wiping out of arts, humanities and social sciences in all but the most elitist universities is on the cards.
The government announced a cut of 3 – 6% to the Adult Skills Fund which covers adult education in England FE and local authorities. Subsequently more student places will disappear, on top of the one million already lost in the last decade. In FE the refusal to act on UCU demands of a national binding agreement and pay parity with teachers has led to the worst recruitment crisis in the sector’s history. A crisis that is set to get worse with the predicted 60,000 increase in student numbers in the next two years.
With workloads spiralling out of control across the sectors, physical and mental health issues are rising significantly as staff and students’ conditions worsen.
Post-16 Education is in crisis. And there is worse to come.
It is clear that the strategy pursued by the GS and her team of fighting college by college, university by university, to stem the tide of attacks on the basis of ‘building capacity’ has, at best, simply led to a stagnant membership as we lose more members through redundancy. This strategy has not prepared our branches to be ready to resist the avalanche of attacks that are set to come.
Trump leading the way and Starmer happy to follow.
Trump’s tariff wars are a part of a wider offensive his administration has launched on everything that is progressive.
On the one hand he is attempting to break with the free trade model of running the world, replacing it with a protectionist model that Trump believes will boost the growth of goods made in the US and with it jobs and prosperity. Neither economic models benefit working class people and neither model was designed to do so. Trump’s tariff wars will lead to layoffs in America and elsewhere, it will lead to a general worsening of workers’ living standards just as the free trade agreements did across the world.
On the other hand, Trump is using his ‘war on woke’ to divide workers and make it easier to push through the cuts to make America profitable again. Being tough on ‘illegal’ immigrants is a key component to this offensive.
The attacks on the transgender community are at the forefront of his agenda. A classic tactic used by all far right leaders – target a numerically very small section of society and hold them responsible for working class immiseration.
His attempts to prevent teachers teaching anything the right regard as ‘woke’ is chilling. If a teacher is found ‘guilty’ of teaching equality rights, it can lead to dismissal. The showdown with Harvard and Columbia universities shows how far Trump’s administration will go to enforce his anti-equality agenda.
Starmer is only too happy to follow Trump’s lead out of fear of upsetting the ‘special relationship’. Starmer and Reeves’ economic agenda is to attempt to make Britain profitable again through more cuts in the welfare state. As usual it starts with those receiving benefits and attempts to demonise those who survive on ‘state handouts’.
Whilst Trump cuts US spending on Nato to force European powers to increase their spending on arms, Starmer and Reeves are happy to comply. Starmer has ratcheted up the pre-war rhetoric to justify cuts to welfare – the extra £6bn a year to be spent on arms is apparently “necessary” to deter the apparent ‘real threat’ of a Russian invasion.
This appeasement of the right can be seen in Starmer’s continued support for the genocide in Palestine and his tough action on ‘illegal’ immigrants – keeping in line with Tump and an ineffectively attempting to marginalise Reform UK.
The jettisoning of Labour’s manifesto commitment to spend £28 billion to tackle the climate crisis is another example of how far Starmer will go to appease the far right. Farage, like Trump, blames the woke ‘net zero agenda’ for the loss of the steel manufacturing in Scunthorpe rather than the vagaries of the free market. Starmer, alongside the leadership of the steel workers union, refuses to challenge this lie.
We only have to look to the Birmingham bin workers strike, where a Labour Council is prepared to break the strike with troops, to see how the Labour Government will fiercely try to squash any resistance to its cuts agenda.
However, Starmer’s ‘warfare not welfare’ approach, predictably ‘has given confidence to Farage and Reform UK feeding off working people’s despair. Reform UK, now the largest far right party in Britain ever, is leading Labour in many of the so-called ‘Red wall’ constituencies.
National action to turn the tide on despair.
The only way to stop the far right cashing in on the despair of millions of workers is by providing hope. Resistance provides that hope. At this Congress delegates have the opportunity to vote for motions that can lead to resistance.
This congress and its sector conferences must be councils of war. The first decision we must take is to support motions calling on UCU to organise national action within the sectors and across. Congress and the sector conferences must signal a clear break from the college by college, university by university strategy adopted by the GS and her team. It is irrelevant how we get there – aggregated or disaggregated – as long as we do.
Our colleagues in Newcastle, Dundee and Brunel universities have shown how we can fight. They have been an inspiration to the whole union. We cannot allow them to fight alone.
We have time to rise to the challenge and resist the attacks that are coming and implement the decisions made by HEC and HESC to launch an industrial action ballot on pay. And in FE, to implement the FEC decision for an indicative ballot on pay, workload and a national binding agreement before FESC. Failure to do so gives the employers and government a green light to speed up their attacks on post-16 education.
Lessons are being learnt by the government and the employers – that if they are to win, they must hit us on multiple fronts at once. We no longer live in a world where we can fight one front at a time. If we are to be able to unite in the battles over pay and jobs, we will also need to take up the attacks on benefits, the trans community, migrants and refugees and also take up tackling the climate crisis.
We must argue that the funding of our colleges and universities must be a priority and not an increase in arms spending – we must demand welfare not warfare.
The FEC met for the first time this academic year. The FEC considered how to advance the New Deal for FE as part of our England pay claim.
This follows the election of a Labour government in the General Election and the decision not to extend the 5.5% pay award for teachers to FE workers.
Staff unions will meet the AoC later this month at the National Joint Forum (NJF) where they are expected to make a formal recommendation on pay. As well as a special working group meeting to explore introducing binding national negotiations.
The UCU will roll out a series of briefing this month in light of those and outline the nature of our campaign.
We encourage reps and activists to join us at the Defend Post-16 Education under Labours Starmer conference on the 19th of October.
It is a step forward that in the committee secretary’s report to the FEC that the emphasis is on a national campaign and securing binding national bargaining. FE England is now the poorest relation of the UK education sector and the only part not covered by binding national sector bargaining. This was actually the rationale given by the government to decline to extend the pay award to FE workers.
It is right that the unions focus is now on securing binding national negotiations (BNN) not just local bargaining. But unfortunately that has not been the case up to now. At the Special Further Education Conference in April the conference was persuaded that now was not the time to prioritise winning national binding agreements. Some on the FEC leadership likened this to chasing unicorns!
Arguments against securing national binding agreements included:
That the AoC has no power to implement a binding framework due to incorporation.
The employers were not interested
Even if those barriers were not there, we can’t take national action because it’s illegal.
Since then, the AoC have agreed to set up a working group to look at the feasibility of implementing a binding national bargaining framework. They are due to present an initial rough costing to staff unions at a meeting this October as a basis to make the case to Government to set up a funded sector bargaining framework. This could be a first step toward a broader aim of establishing national terms and conditions – the employers’ words.
We could have been positioned far better than we are and need to run to catch up to the possibilities of levelling up in England.
Whilst it is early days and not all employers share the same views there is clearly more scope for BNN among employers than some had argued. What is important is it is now recognised now that we need national binding not just going for local deals as the main lever to improve pay and conditions.
It is hoped there can be more traction with the DofE due to the change of government and that can help the union communicate our aims and objectives (a motion was carried to emphasise the need for this work to develop further).
None of this means we will necessarily achieve BNN. It is likely that some form of new bargaining arrangement could be introduced. But will it be favourable to us or the employers? It will be far easier to shape a new binding framework with action now, than try to unpick an unfavourable version later.
A series of campaign briefing this October will roll out the New Deal for FE campaign and report back from meeting with the AoC.
Anger
There is a great deal of anger that FE staff were not included in the 5.5% pay award to teachers.
A motion (below) was brought to the FEC calling for an indicative national ballot to take action if we were not offered the same pay award as teachers.
It was argued that this would take resources away from campaigns, that an indicative ballot must be a prelude to a national statutory ballot and this was not within policy set by the SFEC.
These arguments opposing an indicative ballot seem to miss the point that FE members want their voice heard. This would be complimentary to the New Deal for FE campaign and give us more leverage in talks. Members expect us to act on this outrageous decision.
It is therefore disappointing that the motion tied 9 in favour and 9 against. In such a case the status quo ante prevails and therefore the motion fell. An amendment linked to the motion emphasising our claim as part of an indicative ballot also fell.
As the Committee Secretary point made clear. It is not for us to simply describe the situation; we have to act if we want to change it. Unfortunately, half of the FEC members failed to rise to this challenge again.
Parliament lobby
A rescheduled lobby and MP briefing will take place on Wednesday 23 October 5-7pm. More details with be circulated.
A change in government policy for adult community education funding means that the Adult Education Budget (AEB) is now called Adult Skills Fund, published by the education and skills funding agency (ESFA). The focus will be a further shift on skills for jobs and a narrowing of funding for non – qualification learning. UCU needs to defend a broad-based curriculum offer in ACE and in FE that meets the needs of everyone in our communities, not just those who are seeking and are ready for employment, but also for our pensioners and those with SEND needs. But also for the joy of learning for its own sake! The arts and humanities in ACE and FE as in higher education is under attack – we urgently need to defend arts education.
Conditions and pay for ACE staff since incorporation mean that ACE pay and conditions for ACE staff is chaotic with no nationally agreed binding arrangements. Some staff in local government are on the Green Book and some on the Pink book, some branches have no negotiations at all and no pay award.
For the last few years, we have put in motions to FEC and NEC arguing that this has to change.
We want consultation and a national set of demands such as starting pay to be the same as FE and transferring all staff in ACE on zero hours to decent contracts. As part of this campaign, we are drafting a template letter to all Regional UCU officers to send to the mayors of the devolved local authorities calling for the setting up of local mechanisms to make sure UCU ACE has a voice at the table when terms and conditions are set and a commitment to no zero hours contracts and good work standards
We are calling for all in ACE to attend the ACE meeting on the 6 November 4.00pm online to 5.15pm. Look out for email for a registration link and voice your views on pay and terms and conditions.
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Motion 1: Indicative ballot on pay (Fell)
FEC notes:
The government is implementing the School Teachers’ Review Body of a fully funded 5.5% pay award for 2024/25, but have stated this will not be extended to FE teachers.
This will further widen the pay gap between schoolteachers and FE teachers.
FEC believes:
UCU must apply pressure on the government to increase funding for FE pay – this requires national action
FEC resolves:
To launch an indicative national ballot of England FE members, asking whether they are willing to take industrial action over pay, if the government refuses to implement the same pay award as offered to the teachers.
Amendment to Motion 1 (Fell)
From FEC resolves. Remove “if the government refuses to implement the same pay award as offered to the teachers” and insert “in pursuit of our pay claim as laid out in the new deal for FE.”
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Motion 3: Towards a pay settlement for FE England (Carried)
FEC recognises:
UK/devolved governments settled the long-standing, pay-claims of workers who were loud and active in pursuing national campaigns and national action, notably train drivers, school teachers and FE in the rest of the UK
The government ignored FE claims in England
The AoC has taken no initiative in negotiations other than hiding behind the STRB and the lack of special funding from the government
The GS and her team have made strenuous efforts to engage with the SoS Education and have been rebuffed
FEC resolves:
UCU should enter an open dialogue with DfE, pressing and planning for new legislation to amend the relationship of Colleges with the DfE, promoting a National FE Service and a National FE Pay scale which Colleges implement as a result of BNN.
UCU will report to FEC on these talks with the DfE
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A majority of the FEC united to oppose the far right. Calling on all members to take to the streets on October 26th and to encourage UCU branches to organise themed learning weeks to celebrate multiculturalism.
Motion 2: Stop far right multiculturalism and themed learning week(Carried)
FEC notes:
The terrifying rise of racists and fascists on our streets with Tommy Robinson mobilising marches of thousands.
The racist riots over the summer and attempts to set hotels housing refugees on fire.
Anti-racists and anti-fascists successfully mobilised against them.
FE colleges teach many students who are refugees and migrants, with a large proportion of staff and students from ethnic minorities.
FEC believes:
Our colleges must be places that celebrate multiculturalism.
As educators within our community, we have an important role to play in stopping the growth of racism and fascism.
FEC resolves to:
Call on FE branches to organise a Themed Learning Week this term and to be sent this out in Friday emails.
UCU to facilitate the sharing of ideas and resources between FE branches.
Call on members to support the SuTR TUC backed counter demonstration on October 26th in Central London.
Stop the far right ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protests on Saturday 28th September London – stop the far right – no fascists in London
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Education and policy
The FEC heard from UCU policy unit on a range of policies. Labour have not made good on their earlier commitments to pause and review around the BTEC reforms. This is an area that urgently needs addressing with limited pause and review not sufficient to stop this disastrous policy.
The issue of GCSE resits for English and maths should also be front and centre of the unions campaigning. 30% of young people leave school without achieving maths and English. The outcomes for college students are at an all-time low. There are many voices now highlighting the harm this policy is doing to young people and the need for a genuine alternative to compulsory GCSE resits.
Defending Post-16 Education under Starmer’s Labour – a call for participation
Saturday October 19th.
UCU London Region initiated and supported by UCU branches at City and Islington College, Westminster Kingsway College, New City College Poplar branch, Merton College, Chichester College, Kingston College, York College, Lewisham College, Morley College, South & City Birmingham branch, Liverpool University, Liverpool John Moores University, London Metropolitan University, University College London, Imperial College London, Strathclyde University, University of Kent, York St John University, Newcastle University, Royal Holloway University of London, University of Greenwich, University of Dundee, University of Leicester, Brighton University, Royal College of Art, Y&H retired members and others tbc.
Solidarity with 5 colleges in North East striking for a decent pay rise
UCU members at Bede Sixth Form College, NETA Training Group, Stockton Riverside College, The Skills Academy, and Redcar and Cleveland College will down tools on Thursday 10 October as part of a long running dispute over pay.
Peter Evans, Hammersmith, FE LGBT+ Rep Safia Flissi, South & City College Birmingham FE Women’s Rep Naina Kent, Hackey Ace, FE UK elected Richard McEwan, New City College, FE London & East Regine Pilling, Westminster Kingsway, FE London & East Sean Vernell, City and Islington College, FE UK elected
National, not local, strategies are needed to win better pay and conditions
Friday’s NEC showed that far from strengthening her position at the top of UCU after her re-election, Jo Grady will find it increasingly difficult. There will be no honeymoon period for the General Secretary as the strategy she is pushing will not help members.
In HE members are facing a growing offensive. But the GS made it clear that the only strategy she will back is fighting university by university. The GS has given up on any pretence of defending national bargaining. UK-wide bargaining is vital for the protection of pay levels and employment conditions.
The growing mood is far from concentrating on merely ‘rebuilding’ branches, we urgently need a national strategy to ensure branches are not picked off one by one. Aberdeen have won a fantastic victory against redundancies but as Brighton’s dispute last year showed, employers will attempt to break union resistance at all costs. UCU HQ has been forced to call a special meeting of post-92 branches on 17 April to address these concerns. We need grassroots meetings to discuss how we defend existing agreements and conditions, such as the post-92 national contract.
Similarly, in FE the GS is in a battle with activists. The GS and her team are not supportive of an aggregated ballot to fight for a national binding bargaining agreement on pay and workload. Instead the GS prefers to continue to implement a strategy based on branches eking out local deals with employers college by college – a strategy that was voted against at a SFESC.
The GS and her team are attempting to implement the same strategy in both sectors – give up on defending or fighting for national bargaining, ditch any attempt to organise a UK-wide fight over pay, jobs and conditions, and focus on local bargaining college by college, university by university.
This is a disastrous strategy that plays into the hands of the employers. At a time when a weak and divided government has returned colleges to the public sector, and Labour is promising national bargaining when in power, we need UK-wide action more than ever.
We need to build the coming SFESC and SHESC to make sure the GS is not allowed to pursue this strategy.
Unfortunately, the discussion of NEC motions was timed out. There was also no time in the agenda for NEC to discuss the implementation of Congress motions. This is an abdication of NEC’s responsibility to give oversight of implementing these motions, and a key component in our union’s democracy.
GS loses her grip
The GS election has done nothing to resolve the union’s internal problems. Turnout was low and the vote was not starkly in favour of one candidate.
The union’s budget for next year, which was due to be put to this May’s annual Congress for approval, was rejected by NEC. There were several reasons for this.
After reports in the press that the GS’s had a 16% pay rise, NEC members asked for an explanation. It was explained that the GS was not given a pay rise but received money to help pay her libel fees. NEC were provided with different explanations as to how this was funded – one being unused holidays but another related to how she donates to the fighting fund. It was ambiguous and lacked the necessary transparency.
The dispute with UCU Unite members has become even more entrenched and acrimonious. Unite members’ grievances range from pay, breaching recognition agreements, health and safety, and accusations of bullying – each of these are very concerning. Many NEC members share the concerns of UCU Unite members over these. The amount earmarked for staff pay in next year’s budget was only 2.25% higher than last year. We were told that we had misread the budget, but not offered an alternative figure.
It was suggested that a special NEC should be called to discuss the budget and how to resolve the issues with staff unions. It is clear the GS and her senior management team are unable, or unwilling, to resolve these issues. For us, and many members of UCU, it is deeply worrying that these issues remain unaddressed.
NEC also rejected the plan to leave subscription rates static. Although it is good news that there is no need to increase subs, recent Congresses have demanded a more progressive subscription regime. Members expect the union to move incrementally in this direction, with progressive rates for our lower paid members. However, the current treasurer repeats the mantra of the previous one – that increasing the rates for higher earners will provoke them to leave the union and reduce the total subs take – without offering any concessions to support those at the lower end of the salary scale.
NEC was not in the mood to endorse this flagrant disregard of union policy and refused to endorse the proposal on subscription rates.
Officials now have to come up with a revised budget and subscription plan in time for Congress at the end of May. For a General Secretary re-elected only two weeks ago, this is a devastating loss of authority.
We need to organise for the SFESC and SHESC to ensure members’ voices are heard – to have branches united in national fights to resist the attacks in our sectors.
UCU General Secretary-incumbent Jo Grady has made a number of claims in her election campaign.
In particular, she says that were she re-elected she would treat her strategy, as outlined in her manifesto, as being ‘endorsed’ by members, and expect all members of the union, including elected members of the NEC, to follow it.
This is profoundly undemocratic for obvious reasons.
Strategy
The first problem with her approach is that the strategy itself cannot work. Any industrial strategy based on a limited industrial action programme set in advance is certain to fail simply because the employers will change their response depending on what the union does! The saying “no plan survives contact with the enemy” is attributed to Moltke the Elder, a German WWI general, but the point is well made.
You don’t need to look very far to see obvious examples. The strength of the Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) in 2022 and the early part of 2023 lay in the fact that the employers did not know who was participating and therefore how to respond. On the other hand, the weakness of the MAB in 2023 came from the paralysis at the top of the union as Jo Grady and her supporters left members to hang out to dry over the summer.
Jo Grady herself had to abandon her ‘build now, fight later’ strategy in the summer of 2022 when rising inflation propelled members to support the #ucuRISING campaign.
Changing economic circumstances meant that it was politically unsustainable to advocate such an approach, and instead she had to call for members to vote to take action over pay. But she had no plan to follow through. She bypassed elected negotiations, agreed to stop negotiations over pay with the employers and tried to divert negotiations onto pay-related matters at ACAS.
Despite the rhetoric, Jo Grady has no militant strategy to defend our sectors. But worse, as a top-down leader who sees members’ industrial action as a walk-on-part in stage-managed actions, she struggles to adapt her strategy to face new challenges, such as the current employers’ offensive over jobs and conditions in HE. Moreover, it is profoundly mistaken to see industrial militancy as something which can be turned on and off like a tap. Union members will take action when they are confident they have a union leadership which listens regularly to members and which is capable of following a consistent industrial action strategy. But Jo Grady’s tenure of the General Secretaryship has been marked by stop-start inconsistency and demotivation of members.
Democracy
The second problem with her approach is that it is undemocratic. Trade union democracy is far more developed than Westminster elections: elections take place annually, replacing half of the executive committees each time, and policies made at national union conferences are binding on the executive.
In our union the rule is simple: members make policy decisions, and executive committees carry them out. This rule applies to union branches and to the national executive committee structure of our union. Congress is binding on NEC and HE and FE Sector Conference resolutions are binding on HEC and FEC. Rule 18.1 says
18.1 The National Executive Committee shall be the principal executive committee of the Union, and shall be responsible for the execution of policy and the conduct of the general business of the Union between meetings of National Congress, and shall abide by decisions passed at National Congress, subject to the Rules. The HEC and FEC shall abide by and implement the decisions passed by their respective Sector Conferences.
By contrast, governing parties in Westminster make decisions in cabinet. In some cases, parties impose policies that were never in their manifestos. Famously, in 1997, following a landslide election, Tony Blair introduced £1,000 university tuition fees, in order to begin a process of marketisation of Higher Education, a proposal entirely absent from the Labour Party manifesto. One can point to numerous other examples!
What Jo Grady is demanding is a centralisation of power around her manifesto that is incompatible with the rules of the union. If she and her supporters wished to make her proposals they would be obliged to win a vote in a quorate union branch meeting, put the motion to Congress or Conference, and then win a vote in those meetings. She wants to bypass both members and debate.
The General Secretary has tried to impose her strategy on the union three times already, and whenever it has been put to a vote, she has lost heavily. Now she is trying to wrap it up in the mantle of her GS election campaign.
But a small proportion of members tend to vote in this election, and they do so by choosing between candidates, not detailed strategy documents. Her strategy has no popular support, hence her attempt to present a vote for her as a vote for her strategy.
If you have not voted yet in the elections, please do vote!
What is increasingly at stake in this GS election is not just a vote for different candidates, but a vote for the future of our union as a democratic and effective union..
Do we want a member-led union which builds on the best of our democratic processes, where the General Secretary does what members tell her to do? Or do we want a union where democracy is reversed, and the members are expected to do what the General Secretary wants?
The alternative
We need to face up to the reality of industrial relations in post-16 education. The days of partnership with management and quiet words in the ear of the Head of Personnel have long gone — if they ever existed. Vice Chancellors want to see “blood on the carpet” and a weakening of our union. They have shown they don’t care about students or the quality of their degree teaching or marking. Most Further Education principals don’t implement national pay offers.
Our pay and conditions are under assault by university and college employers thanks to increasing inflation on top of a toxic combination of market competition, division, and a race to the bottom.
We should not underestimate divide and rule. Not every member is made redundant simultaneously. Some may be prepared to take voluntary redundancy if they don’t see a prospect for a fightback. Not every member takes part in industrial action at the moment.
We need to develop a culture in our union which encourages members to meet together, stick together and participate in strikes together.
To defend our jobs and rates of pay, we must organise members at the grassroots of the union and build members’ confidence to take action. Crucially, this means being honest. It means not abandoning them when the chips are down. Our members need a leadership who will support them when they resist. This means following through on decisions when they are made, like reballoting over the summer.
We have to rebuild UK-wide disputes because otherwise we are forced into fighting over what every individual employer tells us they can afford. Our employers will plead poverty. This is a recipe for a Hobson’s Choice between jobs and pay. HE will become more like FE just as our FE colleagues are attempting to get national pay bargaining back on the agenda.
Nothing argued here is “against strategy”: rather UCU Left is opposed to counterposing the idea of a strategy to the task of real-world organising. In fact, a serious industrial strategy means organising to fight on the terrain where the employers are weak and we are strong. It means, for example, preparing the political ground for industrial action, such as targeting professional bodies accrediting courses before a MAB.
But the best way to guarantee members have confidence in an industrial strategy is simply this: they themselves must be part of developing it in practice under the changing conditions of the struggle.
This means increasing democracy. We need members to have democratic control of strike action and MABs, continually day-by-day, week-by-week, through the development of strike committees in branches, and, in national disputes, linked up UK-wide.
The basic principle that members who take action should control that action is unanswerable.
But this is not just a moral imperative. We should never underestimate our strength.
As a group of workers, we are immensely strong. Other people can’t easily teach our courses or mark our students’ work. If we increase participation in our action, we can be more solid and effective still. That is why the HE employers pulled out all the stops to try to break our action last summer, risking their public reputations and their wider employment relations with staff. It is why FE employers pay better levels of pay to members in better organised and more militant branches.
But for members to have confidence in collective action they need to control it.
In a truly member-led union, democracy and strategy go hand in hand.
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?
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.
