We enter the new semester knowing, yet again, the resolve of UCU members to fight for the defence of higher education. We now have a further 38 institutions balloting to join the action over USS and the ‘Four Fights one Dispute’ pay inequalities campaigns. There must be no wavering in our resolve to fight for the whole sector

The Four Fights over pay inequalities and the fifth fight over USS pensions is growing. New branches are being balloted to join the campaigns. Now is not the time for hesitation or cold feet. Linking the issues and uniting members in escalating action is the way to win.

The long awaited second Joint Expert Panel (JEP) report on USS was released on Friday 13th December. In this brief commentary many of the key positive and negative points of the Second JEP Report are examined.

Graduate students at Edinburgh have been organising a creative and highly democratic campaign to highlight the university’s attacks on their working conditions, after managers told …

The motions passed by the HE Special Conference on Friday have now been published. https://www.ucu.org.uk/hesc_Dec19
The mood of the conference was buoyant after eight days of …

Saturday’s Democracy Congress saw a mobilisation by the right-wing ‘Independent Broad Left’ (IBL) to block rule changes proposed by the UCU’s Democracy Commission intended to …

It is nearly 50 years since the Equal Pay Act 1970. 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.

UCU Congress in 2019 proposed running the ballots for pay inequalities and USS pension disputes together and combining our strike action for both disputes as a means to maximise the unity of our union.

Take back the university – Unite and Fight

UCU members have achieved something many thought impossible. We bust through the Tory anti-union threshold of 50% turnout in sixty universities. Activists have breathed new life into the campaign to defend USS, and broadened the fight to the post-92 universities, winning ballots on pay, equality, casualisation and workload.

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