Category: Reports

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November NEC: UCU Left Report

UCU’s National Executive Committee (NEC) met on Friday for the first time since the general election, in the midst of turmoil in UK and international politics and crises in post-16 education. This was the first time the union’s elected leadership has had an opportunity to focus upon strategies to defend post 16 education.

NEC was also meeting in the aftermath of the visible rise of the far right in the UK, from the explosion of racist violence over the summer and the general electoral success of Farage and Reform UK, through successful mobilisations of antiracists in pushing back the fascist right led by Tommy (Yaxley Lennon) Robinson, to recent Reform UK elections wins.

Internationally, the horror of genocide in Gaza and the global solidarity movement with Palestine continues while Trump’s success in the United States Presidential Election sends shivers down everyone’s spine.

A wave of redundancies has begun across Higher Education as the Hostile Environment racist immigration policies of recent Tory governments has led to a fall in international student applications, and falling student fee income is hitting University finances hard. At the same time, the Labour government has announced a £300m boost to FE funding, but failed to address falling pay in the sector.

Political campaigning

The General Secretary’s Report highlighted that the union has responded to international and political questions at home.

The Campus Voices for Palestine speaking tour, organised by University and College Workers for Palestine and BRICUP was supported by UCU, saw over 700 attend the meetings with Sundos Hammad from the Right to Education. The week of action “United Against Scholasticide” for Palestinian education from 23rd November culminating with the TUC backed Day of Action on the 28th is now a focus for activists.

The union has also moved to recognise the threat of the far right and to build anti-racist initiatives withing our membership, universities, colleges and prisons. A motion brought by UCU Left on opposing the far right was passed, which calls on the union to publicise protests against the far right and encourage branches to organise meetings and invite speakers from Stand Up To Racism, Black Members’ Standing Committee and local refugee and migrant speakers in. (The full wording of thiso motion is at the end of this report).

Where is the national fightback? 

It was clear from the GS report that she and her team have no appetite for national strike action. They provided a pessimistic outlook when it came to acting on the threats facing members in post-16 education, indeed despairing and bemoaning the lack of opportunity to influence the Starmer inner circle.

This pessimism is rooted in the strategy followed by the union in focusing upon local action as opposed to organising for co-ordinated UK-wide action. At a time when the Labour government is vulnerable to strikes and is looking to avoid confrontations with the unions, UCU has pulled back from mobilising members on a national level.  Our power is a collective power in which politicians, and our employers, have to act to answer our demands when our pressure becomes impossible to ignore any longer. It does not come from officials having access to political leaders for fireside chats.

The majority of the NEC recognise this, and repeatedly asked for an answer as to why the UK-wide demonstration in defence of post-16 education, voted for at Congress, has not been enacted?Indeed any mention of it was erased from the priorities set out for NEC. The motion called for a demonstration in the Autumn, yet 5 months later, it is unclear if any actions have happened to make this a reality.

A paper was brought to the NEC outlining the union’s priorities over 2024/25. The failure to provide a guarantee that the UK-wide demo would be a priority meant that this paper was not carried. Moreover, the priorities paper didn’t link these “priorities” to motions carried at Congress and sector conferences, which raised serious questions as to how these priorities had been created (and what was missing).

The lack of urgency by officials in HE is also evident by the lack of information available to NEC on the scale of redundancies. In the middle of a major crisis in HE funding, the union is not even able to produce a list of branches facing redundancies or identify the 40% of universities which reportedly have just one month’s cashflow to continue to pay wages!

Within FE, despite the £300m additional funding the Labour Government has committed for 2025/26 the union has no plan for a co-ordinated national plan of industrial action to get any of this funding ringfenced for pay. Neither does it have a plan on how to ensure that FE members get the 5.5% that was awarded to teachers for this year’s pay rise (2024/25).

FE members will be rightly confused and angered when NEU members in Sixth Form Colleges take strike action from the 28th November over securing a 5.5% pay increase for themselves but UCU is still sitting on its hands.

Flawed, undemocratic plans for a hybrid Congress

Unfortunately, due to the length of the GS Report, little time was spent discussing these crucial issues that confront our members.

Instead, NEC was presented with a long debate over how a hybrid Congress in 2025 could be organised. 

UCU Congress has never voted for a hybrid Congress, but it has been the goal of some on the NEC. Congress delegates have been far more cautious. There was a vote at Congress 2024 to create standing orders which allowed for a hybrid Congress. (These rely on electronic voting being used, rather than a show of hands or cards.) Following Congress, the NEC in June agreed in principle to move this work forward with a study of the mechanisms to facilitate this.

NEC members were presented with a set of proposals, many of which could have been circulated well in advance. This included a proposal that is not compatible with UCU rules – opening up Congress attendance to all union members as observers (currently a small number of observers are elected, like delegates). It appeared not to have crossed the minds of the authors of this proposal that this would mean that managers could join the union and attend online simply to spy on reps!

There was an almost unanimous rejection of this proposal.

The wider set of proposals that were put forward failed to get a majority. (They would have been voted down if it were not for an NEC member being ejected from the meeting, before the vote took place, resulting in a tied vote.) This means that the paper did not pass, and the ‘status-quo ante’ was the outcome. 

This should mean that right now these particular proposals are not agreed, and therefore we have no agreed mechanism for running a hybrid Congress in 2025. During the debate, this was stated by the secretariat when they were asked what would happen if NEC voted down the paper. Unfortunately, this interpretation was changed once the vote was taken, whereupon it was stated that a Congress 2025 would be hybrid!

Problems with a hybrid Congress still stand.

A ‘hybrid’ Congress is suggested to be more inclusive over a wholly in-person event. However, it has become clear that the practical problems of running a Congress meeting are more complex than was first thought. The proposals for a hybrid Congress put to the NEC do not deal with many of the concerns that were raised at Congress, and that NEC members have.

One of the major concerns is that remote participation would actually reduce access.

Many actions to supposedly increase access for some risks the exclusion of others. For example, many carers may find themselves both retaining their carer responsibilities while trying to participate in a three-day Congress online meeting, as they had when Congress was online-only. NEC members had called for proposals to actively engage members with caring responsibilities, to be part of the planning: this was minuted in the June NEC, yet this was absent from current plans.

As anyone who has tried this will know, attempting to participate in an intensive online meeting for three days is far from simple! NEC has been meeting in a hybrid form for over a year. It has seen many times that even a one-day meeting leads to frustration and anger being expressed by delegates on a scale greater than with in-person meetings.

There had been consultation with the Disabled Members’ Standing Committee, but not the other equality standing committees. NEC members raised concerns about how accessible the plans were to disabled and neurodivergent members particularly around how voting would work and the ability to follow debates.

UCU democracy would also be undermined by plans to change a core trade union principle of public voting to private secret anonymous voting. This was something that the elected UCU Democracy Commission spent 1.5 years examining closely. It found that voting anonymously disenfranchises members and branches’ ability to mandate delegates and hold them accountable. By contrast, voting by show of hands in a mass meeting is fundamentally a public shared act, where those who vote own the outcome. They know which way they voted, and which way others in the room voted. It can also mean that people are swayed by debate on the floor of Congress. At this year’s Congress there were debates where members changed their mind because of the way that voting was visibly going in the room. 

The paper stated that voting records would not be published. There was nothing in the proposals to deal with how private anonymous voting would allow delegates to ensure that their branch/region motions, which their members had voted for, were being voted on by their elected delegates. 

Failure to resolve this issue risks reducing Congress to a collection of individuals making policies rather than members elected by branches (supplemented by elected delegates from regions and committees of the union) making policy.

Similarly, permanent recording of electronic votes cannot be guaranteed to be secure, opening up delegates to potential victimisation at work.

We believe that working to address inclusivity for in-person events would be a far better focus for our union than believing technology is the way to resolve inclusivity.

Review of Racism

UCU is undertaking a review of anti-Black racism in the union in response to concerns by Black staff and members.  The paper indicated that the people carrying out the review had been appointed, but that further progress was dependent on the dispute between UCU staff and management being resolved.  There was no information about when this would happen.  The stalling of the race review is yet another reason to be concerned about how long it is taking to resolve the dispute.

Where do we go from here?

This was a frustrating NEC meeting. An important motion on defending free speech on campus was lost off the agenda due to the length of time debating the GS report and Congress preparations. 

Increasingly NEC members are finding  a lack of transparency and urgency in our national union’s actions to take on the issues facing the post-16 education sectors. We think reps will have to step up organising at branch and region/nation level and not waiting for HQ. 

 In FE and HE, UCU Left members are organising meetings to help connect branches and build momentum to ensure that we rise to the challenges facing us all.

Motion: Organising against the Far Right (CARRIED)

NEC deplores:

  1. Reform UK’s attempt to bring racist ideas into the mainstream.
  2. The racist riots following UK fascist Tommy Robinson’s summer demonstration.

NEC applauds the successful mobilisations against recent Far Right demonstrations – central London and Glasgow.

NEC affirms the importance of UCU being actively involved in the fightback against the Far Right.

NEC agrees to:

  1. Encourage branches to set up Anti-racist/anti-facist groups which work together with students, other trade unions, SUTR and local organisations supporting/of refugees and migrants.
  2. Circulate educational materials on dangers of Far Right to all members.
  3. Publicise mobilisations against the Far Right and encourage members and branches to attend with banners, as well as to attend organising meetings and other anti-Far Right events.
  4. Encourage branches to invite speakers from SUTR, Black Members’ Standing Committee and local organisations of/supporting refugees and migrants to speak at branch meetings.
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UCU elections: A Pyrrhic victory for Jo Grady as left gains majority of seats

The fourth UCU GS election is over, and Jo Grady is the victor.

Grady argues that she now has a mandate to carry out the policies she campaigned over. The reality, though, is rather different. The GS presides over a more divided union compared to the one before the election started and an NEC which is even further from her views. Left NEC candidates received around 60% of the vote, which provides a real opportunity to build a serious grassroots movement in the union.

Despite being the incumbent candidate, Jo Grady’s support collapsed from her dominant win five years ago to scraping in with a narrow margin on the final round. After all preferences were counted, she beat the next closest candidate, Ewan McGaughey, by fewer than 200 votes. And, despite Grady campaigning for members to support her slate, UCU left supporters now have more seats on the NEC than any other grouping. The wider left have a comfortable majority on all three committees: the NEC, FEC and HEC.

Grady’s preferred VP candidate, David Hunter, also won. But again, his group is in a minority on the FEC.

UCU Left put up candidates for both the GS and VP positions. Although they did not win, these campaigns were successful in ensuring the voice of the rank and file was heard, and provided an important pole of attraction for everyone who wanted to see a more militant and democratic union. In a crowded field, one in six members gave their first preferences to Saira Weiner for GS. Peter Evans, our VP candidate, got the highest total vote of any UCU left VP candidate since the union was formed.

There is a clear appetite for change within the union.

Our candidates made sure that Palestine was part of the election debates. Their unwavering support for Gaza increased the pressure on the union to stand up for Palestinian solidarity actions. It meant that calls were put out by the GS’s office to members to support the Days of Action, the most recent of which saw 66 colleges and universities take part.

The election result also reflects the frustration and anger of members, especially in HE, where members have engaged in a bruising battles with the employers, and are angry with the way the GS and much of the leadership conducted these campaigns. This is the main reason why Grady’s vote collapsed from the last GS election where she received over 50% of the first preference vote.

Many members felt that Ewan McGaughey’s campaign, that focused on legal means to achieve results that members so desperately desire, was the way forward. Unfortunately, whereas legal challenges are important and UCU is far too conservative in pursuing legal paths, the law cannot be a substitute for mass action, as our USS victory proved. It was members’ strike action that secured victory over the employers.

We now need to ensure that the wider left unites, not just on the NEC, over the fights ahead. We will need to commit to building maximum solidarity for everyone fighting job losses and education cuts in both sectors. We need to support every branch resisting attacks on contractual rights and nationally-agreed pay levels.

For example, in Further Education we will need to unite against the newly-elected GS and VP’s attempt to undermine FE members’ democratic decision to hold an aggregated ballot over binding national, pay and workload agreements. Already Mr Hunter has questioned the FEC’s democratic mandate to implement the ‘levelling up campaign’ despite it being passed not once but twice at Further Education Sector Conferences!

We will also need to continue to maximise our efforts to stop the genocide in Palestine as Israeli tanks prepare to roll into Rafah and oppose racism at home.

It is these issues and more that UCU Left hopes will enable the left to put our differences aside and unite to build a powerful movement that can challenge the corrosive marketisation of post-16 education.

Let us move forward in unity to defend education, jobs, our employment rights and working conditions, to fight for equality in our sector, and build a stronger union for all.

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HEC report 14 August 23 – Two steps forward, one step back

HEC agrees to call strike action before the end of the ballot period and launch reballot as soon as possible.

But HEC was also told that this reballot would take five weeks to prepare, which was a shock to those in attendance. If this is true – and it has not been confirmed formally – then this will open up a large gap in our mandates. 

Indeed if this were true, then union officials should have told HE officers and begun preparations months ago! Sector Conference had put the union on notice that a long summer ballot was required. Delaying HEC meetings, failing to implement HE19 and now stating that time delays would be required before the ballot commenced – all of these delays appear deliberate.

Moreover, had UCU members at Friday’s BDM been told such a delay was inevitable there would have been uproar. Were this information circulated earlier still, it would have affected how branches voted.

On Monday a motion calling for branches to take strike action in one of the last two weeks of September (allowing for flexibility) was passed. At the same time, another motion calling for an e-ballot to consult members over potentially winding down the MAB was agreed. 

USS was taken out of the reballot motion after a closely-contested debate. It is clear that some members of HEC are influenced by the idea that reballoting on USS would be seen as an act of ‘bad faith’ in the negotiations – despite this being the same brutal negotiating space which saw UUK impose draconian cuts on members’ benefits for two years, cuts UUK admitted at the time were unnecessary.

With the employers openly seeking to exploit the turnaround in USS fortunes for themselves and cut contributions, we think it is a mistake to take any negotiations over the pension scheme merely on trust. We will need to revisit this question urgently!

What next?

Branches should call meetings of members as soon as possible and invite HEC members and negotiators. 

Many branches are still facing major deductions for MAB participation. We need to signal to employers that the more they try to intimidate members the more they undermine goodwill from the very staff they need to mark student work and address complaints.

We should all be preparing for strikes in September to show the employers we are not defeated. Branches should ask for a discussion with HE officers about alternative strike dates if term does not begin until October (the HEC motion passed mentions flexibility). 

We should also begin a debate about the kind of action we need to see next year to win. Many members are drawing the conclusion we need indefinite strike action that the employers cannot wait out.

Branch reps should prepare for another GTVO effort, and use it to recruit more members.

In USS branches we will also need to campaign to demand employers accept UCU’s priorities for benefit restoration over their desire for a ‘pension holiday’ and cutting contributions. It was a mistake for HEC to postpone a ballot on USS, but that does not stop branches campaigning.

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In-person Congress returns: democracy, debate and catharsis

For the first time since 2019, UCU came together in-person, in its annual Congress: a three-day union policy conference with delegates from every branch. The meeting included two days of general union policy-making, ‘Congress’, and one day of sector conferences where motions about industrial policy would be heard.

The fact that Congress met in-person after such a period of time is remarkable. Many delegates who attended had not been before. In the dark days of lockdown, many old hands would be forgiven for expecting that a return to an in-person Congress would not be possible. Although we have seen a flourishing of online meetings and conferences since 2020, the return of an in-person conference therefore represented new opportunities and challenges for delegates.

There were sharp disagreements which were generally handled well, but there was also a very large amount of unity across Congress delegates.

Further Education Sector Conference

On Sunday, the Further Education Sector Conference heard the Head of FE launch the campaign in preparation of ballots in the new academic term involving at least 150 branches. He said this would be the biggest and the best resourced campaign that FE had ever seen. 

Delegates voted to outline how the already agreed nationally-coordinated campaign over pay, workload and an England-wide binding bargaining agreement should be conducted. 

They supported calls for a demonstration in London on one of the first days of strike action, an England-wide strike committee, and to prepare for an aggregated ballot of all FE branches from January if the coordinated campaign had not succeeded in moving the employers. 

Delegates also supported a raft of other important motions on maternity/paternity rights, parity with sixth form colleges, the impact of the cost of living crisis on Black members’ mental health, which resolved to campaign for the government to publish data on the disproportionate impact it has had on Black people, and motions in support of trans and non binary people in FE.

The Yorkshire and Humberside motion on attendance monitoring in colleges was well supported after delegates explained the corrosive impact on staff and students on punitive attendance chasing policies, which are rife within the sector.

A late motion brought by Trafford college on the negative impact of Ofsted in the wake of the tragic death of Ruth Perry was unanimously supported.

Higher Education Sector Conference

Meanwhile at the Higher Education Sector Conference, delegates voted for a long reballot over the summer in both the Four Fights and USS disputes. Our existing mandate runs out in September and without the ability to threaten further action in the autumn term the employers will be tempted to harden their stance against the MAB and may renege on promises on pensions. 

HE delegates also voted to encourage branches to call strike committees if they had not done so already, and to call a national strike committee in HE disputes. Such a committee would have a coordinating role to ‘increase members’ involvement and participation in building disputes and [shape] their direction.’ Delegates should be elected from every striking (or MABbing) branch and meet regularly while action is being taken. (The meeting would be advisory, but they should be run by union members rather than officials. A rule change motion which would have created rules and standing orders for a national strike/‘dispute’ committee with decision-making powers was not heard on Saturday due to lack of time.)

The responsibility for calling a national strike committee now falls to the incoming President. Given that the UK-wide MAB is now at an acute point, one should be called urgently in the Four Fights dispute.

Motions calling for further exploration of Conditional Indexation in USS and a ‘student distribution system’ were also passed. UCU Left opposed CI because it risks becoming a way that USS reintroduces stock market uncertainty into members’ pensions just as we are close to a victory. 

We also questioned the wisdom of focusing on balancing student numbers rather than opposing the entire market system, in which Universities UK is lobbying for £12K undergraduate fees in England and next year’s undergraduates are signed up to 40 year RPI-based loans. This is not opposition in principle but concerns the practical implications of such a stance. The risk is that this opens the door to advocates of high tuition fees, dividing members and branches, and staff from students and parents. The motion called for both exploration of student redistribution models and the immediate advocacy of the idea – which seems premature!

Accountability of the General Secretary

One of the most difficult debates also relates to democracy.

On Saturday, Congress voted to censure the General Secretary over her role in the HE dispute. (Censure means formally criticise.) A motion of ‘no confidence’, which is more serious, fell by only 27 votes. Before Congress met, eleven HE branches had submitted motions of either censure or no confidence.

Delegates criticised the continual undermining of the HE disputes through pausing strikes at key moments, ignoring HEC decisions and blocking democratically elected national negotiators from key decisions.

FE delegates shared these concerns. As one put it, ‘We in FE are heading into a dispute on a national level next year. We do not want a long-drawn-out dispute which is paused at key moments when we should be escalating to win.’ 

The General Secretary was allowed a 15-minute right to reply after the debate but before the voting took place. She admitted mistakes had been made and spoke about how we need unity if the union is to move forward to beat the employers. 

At the end of the debate, Congress voted to censure her. The fact that the ‘no confidence’ motion fell indicates that delegates were prepared to give the General Secretary a chance to rectify the way she has handled the disputes. 

Congress has made a decision. It is not one that UCU Left agrees with, but we need to draw a line under this debate and move on to winning the ballots in FE, and pursuing the MAB. We will also need to reballot in HE to maintain our mandate. This raises the prospect that we could see a united post-16 strike over pay and conditions in the autumn. 

But on her part the General Secretary must make good on her promise to learn from the mistakes that have been made. Any recurrence of attempts to undermine democratic decisions will lead to members calling our elected leadership to account again.

Worryingly, on the last day of Congress the outgoing President said that some of the speeches in Saturday’s debate had been misogynistic, i.e., sexist and abusive. This is a surprising claim, firstly because the debate was witnessed by over 300 members, and secondly because if the chair (the President) felt this, she should have intervened at the time! In fact, the debate was characterised by a high level of care by all delegates. Delegates were very careful to focus on the actions of the General Secretary rather than making remarks directed to her personally. 

The debate is not about personalities, but who controls the disputes. Members are putting themselves on the line when they strike or MAB, and they expect their union leadership not to leave them high and dry. 

The best solution is to organise. Members in disputes need to continue to strengthen union democracy, and in particular to organise real, functioning strike committees – regular decision-making meetings open to every striker or MABber – in every institution participating in the dispute. 

What kind of democracy do we need?

The other big debate about democracy, which was reflected in both the HE Conference and the full Congress, concerned e-ballots versus deliberative democracy. 

Some delegates argued that electronic surveys and polls reached more members than branch meetings or strike committees, and therefore were either superior, or should be used in addition to other forms of decision-making. These arguments were voted down, primarily because delegates have witnessed how such e-polls can be misused in the HE disputes. If they run in parallel with branch meetings, how do you integrate possibly different results? If they run as a separate step, do they lead to delay and inaction?

Changes to union rules

Congress 2022 last year had established a committee to review Rule 13, the UCU procedure for dealing with complaints against union members, in response to concerns about the fairness of the procedure. This year, Congress voted to bring in a new procedure, which establishes a new body, the Conduct of Members Committee, to deal with these complaints. This body will be comprised of members elected by Congress, increasing lay member involvement in internal processes that were previously highly centralised. Congress’s wish to democratise union procedures should be seen as part of a more general will to improve democracy and accountability within our union, also seen, for example, in motions such as those to establish strike committees. 

UCU Left supported the proposals from the Rule 13 Commission and opposed an Open University amendment, which was passed, which established a different panel for gender-based violence and bullying which would have only a single UCU member and two external members ‘qualified in survivor-centred complaint investigation and resolution.’ We consider that these are very serious issues, but opposed the creation of a separate procedure. We also believe that UCU needs to be accountable for the behaviour of its members and take responsibility for sanctioning them when required.

Having a separate procedure for gender-based violence raises the issue of separate procedures for racially-motivated violence, and violence against disabled and LGBT+ people. It is also not clear whether any citation of bullying in a complaint would cause this alternative procedure to be selected. This is a debate we will have to return to.

In an historic vote, Congress also agreed to rule changes that permit postgraduate research students (‘PGRs’) to become UCU members on an equal basis to staff, even if they were not employed at the time. Although delegates were made aware of some issues of implementation – primarily, access to legal support and industrial action ballots (like retired members, student members can’t lawfully vote in statutory ballots) – these were not considered insurmountable, and the principle of inclusion was paramount.

Another rule change clarified the role of national negotiators and their reporting responsibilities.

International motions

After a thorough debate, delegates voted for two motions on Ukraine. Both motions took a clear position of opposition to the Russian invasion, demanded Russian troops leave, condemned all manifestations of imperialism, and called for peace. The first motion called for the British government to stop sending arms to Ukraine, opposed NATO expansionism and called on UCU to support demonstrations called by the Stop the War Coalition and CND. The second motion called for UCU to campaign for safe routes for all refugees and asylum speakers, for the cancellation of Ukraine’s national debt, and tasked the UCU with developing programmes of practical solidarity work.

Congress was persuaded by those who argued that the war was escalating in violence and weaponry, with an arms race of ever more high-tech weapons being deployed on both sides, risking prolonging the war, killing tens of thousands of working-class Ukrainians and Russian soldiers, and increasing the likelihood of a nuclear conflagration. 

Congress also voted to support the ‘Right to Boycott’ campaign, a new campaign being set up to oppose Government plans to make Boycott Divestment and Sanctions policies of public bodies illegal. Already this topic has caused the union to become legally defensive, despite the union winning the famous Fraser vs. UCU legal case. Congress voted to reinstate, and then support, an amendment to the motion which reminded members of existing policy towards academic boycott of Israeli institutions and their academic freedom right to decide who to collaborate with.

Along with other motions in support of the Palestinian struggle and in solidarity with the people of Sudan, these motions were overwhelmingly supported.

Equality

In a series of debates, Congress reaffirmed its commitment to trans and non-binary solidarity and LGBT+ rights. It also took forward proposals on sex workers’ rights, and sexual and gender based violence training, including in the internal UCU complaints procedure. A range of motions on disability advocacy and support were passed, including supporting disabled students and campaigning against Cost of Living and cuts in disability entitlements. 

A motion on reparations for slavery that had fallen off the agenda last year was brought forward in the agenda and supported overwhelmingly.

Finally UCU voted to campaign against the various new far right extremist groups who have been given a platform to attack refugees by the Government’s brazen scapegoating. 

Solidarity with UEA and Brighton branches

Congress unanimously passed motions of solidarity with two branches suffering serious redundancy threats at the moment – University of East Anglia and University of Brighton.

Delegates heard that the attack at Brighton University, involving the threat to over 100 academic jobs, was also a deliberate assault on the UCU branch there with the aim of driving through further changes in breach of the post-92 national contract. Four members of the branch committee are on the ‘at risk’ list, including the Chair, who was also recently re-elected to the union’s NEC. 

Congress agreed that the struggle at Brighton should be declared ‘a local dispute of national significance’ and the branch should be provided with the resources it needs to resist this serious attack.

Branches in London and the South East, and some from further afield, committed to sending delegations with their branch banners to the ‘Save Brighton University – No to mass redundancies’ demonstration called by Brighton UCU for Saturday 10th June.

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Reject the Rubbish Non-Offer – No More Surveys!

Focus on GTVO – Drive up the Votes!

At yesterday’s branch reps briefing, UCU confirmed there was ‘no offer’ to vote on. But, in a moment of sheer surrealism, the General Secretary declared that she wants to make members vote on it again!

Reps were told:

  1. UCU officials say they will launch another e-consultation with unknown questions (branch reps heavily criticized the draft questions shared at the meeting)
  2. Branch delegates will be invited to a BDM on 29 March with an HEC on 30 March. 
  3. The employers are demanding that no further industrial action is taken while negotiations on ‘non-pay’ elements are ongoing – until February 2024 at the earliest.
  4. Our industrial ballot closes next Friday 31 March. Results are expected the following week.

What is UCU playing at? Calling off action before we even know the outcome of our industrial ballot is nonsensical – why would we shelve an industrial ballot before it’s even announced?

If the GS is successful in calling off action, there will be no possibility of taking action under the new mandate – there will be no MAB, and no ‘leverage’ over these negotiations.

We are just days away from smashing through the ballot thresholds again – that means we can launch a Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) – don’t throw away the chance to use a powerful industrial tool!

We have now seen the questions that members are being asked:

  1. Whether they support UCU members being formally consulted on ‘the proposals that have been reached with UCEA on pay, ending zero hours contracts, workloads, casualisation and closing pay gaps’. The fact that ‘the proposals on pay’ are a crushing 15% pay cut is not mentioned anywhere. Neither are the consequences of agreeing to conclude that dispute.
  2. For members in pre-92 branches, whether they support UCU members being formally consulted over ‘the proposals that have been reached with UUK to restore benefits and lower pension contributions.’

Both questions sound extremely reasonable. Who would not want their pension benefits restored?! But these ‘proposals’ come with significant downsides. The unstated subtext is to try to get UCU’s Higher Education Committee to call off the MAB.

What is going on?

We are at a critical point in our disputes. But instead of building members’ confidence and standing by their mandate, UCU officials are attempting to persuade the union’s elected Higher Education Committee (HEC), branches and union reps to call off the action. 

Branch reps have reported that the ‘pause’ and then the ‘e-ballot’ undermined our strikes, and demotivated members from attending picket lines. Every time that ‘Head Office’ intervenes like this it saps members’ belief that the union has their back.

On the other hand, the Cost of Living crisis is driving members into action. Those who did picket in the last few days found themselves with widespread support, from other staff, from students, and from the wider public. Striking – especially over pay – is extremely popular. 

Despite a smaller GTVO effort than six months ago, it seems likely that the reballot will be successful. If the officials thought we wouldn’t cross the anti-union 50% participation threshold, they would not be triggering such a major divisive internal row.

The employers are also rattled. But instead of UCU standing by its members and building the GTVO, strengthening the union’s hands in bargaining, the GS told reps that she will authorize yet another round of ‘consultation about consultation’. The only point of this exercise seems to be to try to persuade members to give up. 

It seems clear that both the employers and the officials are worried about the Marking and Assessment Boycott. The employers are worried that we can carry it out. The officials are worried because they won’t be able to control a national marking boycott – it is a type of industrial action that must be conducted by branches getting organised, like the 20 branches who did it last year. And that thought fills them with dread.

No offer to consult on

The officials were honest that the ACAS statement ‘is not an offer’. They admitted that the JNCHES offer was particularly bad – on pay it is a huge 15% pay cut and the working groups (with 10 employer reps and just one UCU lay rep allowed to attend) are likely to be a dead letter. On USS there is no conditionality in the joint statement – there is no need for UCU to ‘accept’ the offer or even to agree to pause action to work together for these ends. But the offer of working groups is dependent on stopping action.

None of the reps in the meeting spoke in favour of pausing or e-balloting at the present time. Members can be consulted in due course as to what they might wish to do over USS, for example. But that consultation should not be rushed, and members deserve to know what the consequences of voting Yes or No will be. 

In the meantime it is essential for members to vote in the industrial action ballot. If you believe in democracy, you have to give members both a Plan A and a Plan B!

But the officials want to appeal over the heads of union branches, branch delegates, elected HEC members, officers, and lay negotiators to members, and try to persuade members to call on HEC to pull the plug on the disputes. 

Last week they used a single double-barrelled question. This week they propose to ask multiple questions. But the intention is clearly the same – to try to get the HEC to call off the industrial action.

What we learned last week

UCU is a participatory member-led union. We have democratic structures, at the heart of which are union branches, passing motions and instructing delegates and representatives. 

Last week, in a vote weighted by the size of branches, branch delegates voted 70% in favour of keeping the action on, and only 16% voted against. That vote was the culmination of a series of emergency strike meetings and branch meetings of members which debated what had, and had not been achieved.

But at the same time, the General Secretary ran what she called an ‘informal survey’ over the heads of branches and reps, without authorisation from HEC, which is directly contrary to the explicit policy of our union. This policy was agreed by Congress in 2018 after the USS dispute.

Despite this ‘informal survey’ having no standing or validity, the General Secretary told HEC that representatives should accept this 2:1 survey result over the more than 4:1 vote the other way!

Every time that the General Secretary does this, it sends a clear signal to members who are active in branches, as well as hardworking branch officers and reps, that their voices and experience does not matter. And it shows how much of a fight we have in order to restore democracy in our union.

Why UCU has strict policy on e-ballots

Polls, ‘plebiscites’, ‘consultations’, and e-ballots require great care else they become a weapon against democracy. The most obvious problem is that whoever chooses the questions to ask can influence the outcome of the vote. (Government Referendums are clear examples of this – before a question can be asked, it must be authorized properly, and parties on either side are entitled to make representations on the question. Thus in 2014 the Scottish Referendum was on the question ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ and this was authorized by the Electoral Commission.) 

But there are other considerations, including timing and the information that is sent out with every question. This is why UCU’s policy on both formal and informal ballots is so strict.

Democracy begins in our branches 

Our union democracy begins in our union branches.

Branch executive committees can call on members to vote in any ‘informal survey’ against selling the disputes short. 

Even if a committee is divided on what precisely to advise, it is an uncontroversial statement of democratic policy that we should draw attention to our pension and pay claim, and compare it with what we have been offered! We have debated these matters for months, and persuaded members to vote in the ballot on the basis of these demands. 

Branches should also call union meetings to discuss the latest information about the offers, and hear reports from reps who attended the briefing. 

These meetings – which can be formal Emergency General Meetings if called quickly – can take motions for the Special Higher Education Sector Conference (deadline March 30). 

They can also take votes on questions put to members, and consider other steps to uphold democracy. Several branches have already passed motions of no confidence in the General Secretary for the way she has conducted these disputes. 

We need to prepare for a Marking and Assessment Boycott

Branches need to start talking concretely about the Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB). This is the elephant in the room at the heart of the current row. We need to be clear that a MAB can be a very powerful weapon, but it requires planning and organising to carry out. 

Crucially, we need to debate how branches can protect members against threats of serious pay deductions. Members have faced between 20% and 100% pay deductions for participating in these boycotts.

There are two emerging strategies which are not mutually exclusive.

  1. Focusing on key ‘block points’, solidarity and salary sharing. In this model branches identify key people who by taking part in a MAB can actually block marks from being agreed and students graduating.
  2. Threaten escalating industrial action if members face significant pay deductions for participation.

Related to this are also questions regarding obstructing employers from gathering data on participation which they will need in order to lawfully make pay deductions. 

Join UCU Left’s pre-BDM open meeting on Monday 27th March at 7:30pm to discuss the situation.

Register at tinyurl.com/preBDMmarch23

pink graphic with information about the open meeting "Don't let them end our disputes"

The UCU Solidarity Movement has organised a ‘Big MAB Workshop’ next Wednesday at 6pm to discuss how branches can carry out a boycott, with reps from branches that successfully carried out a MAB leading the discussion.

UCU Solidarity Movement special meeting:

The Big MAB Workshop

6pm Wednesday 29th March

Please register here: http://bit.ly/UCUSM_org

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Report from HEC: Friday email announcement overturns union democracy

At HEC on Friday 7th October, UCU Left-supporting members brought motions intended to ensure members are at the centre of decision making in the HE disputes, and permit branches in Scotland to decide to take action in the teaching term. The motions also aimed at ensuring the timeline of any industrial action coming out of the BDM and HEC could follow the industrial action timeline set out at HESC, and ensuring that no nation or region would have their capacity to engage in meaningful action before Christmas curtailed.

One motion aimed to address the democratic deficit of last year’s decision-making by requiring BDM questions to have the approval of elected HE officers; and to allow BDMs to consider the motions that some branches are already passing on what form our action should take if we win a mandate.

Others proposed earlier dates for the post-ballot BDM and subsequent HEC to ensure that meaningful action could take place before the end of term. This was the intention behind the timing of our ballot.

These motions were initially ruled out of order (in full, or in part) for no clear reason, and this Chair’s ruling was challenged robustly. Despite discussions with the Chair prior to the meeting, the efforts of HEC Vice-Chairs to gain clarity on the Chair’s ruling, and the Chair explaining their ruling at HEC, it remained unclear how any of the motions submitted to the meeting fell foul of UCU rules, policy or guidelines. Following a successful challenge to the Chair, the motions were debated and heard. We are pleased to report that those motions passed with clear majorities at the meeting. 

We are therefore alarmed to see that within an hour of HEC closing, the ‘Friday email’ directly contradicted the decision taken by HEC regarding the dates of the BDM. This also undermines decisions made by our sovereign policy-setting body for Higher Education, HESC, regarding the timescale for the disputes. If this email was drafted before HEC met, and sent in error without being updated to reflect the decisions taken by HEC, then a retraction and correction must be issued without delay.

HESC voted for a summer ballot in order to have leverage in the Autumn when members rightly anticipated the economic crisis would come to a head. We are in a sharp crisis. Members expect their union to step up. We cannot afford to delay. 

The Friday email announcement overturns a key decision taken democratically by the elected members of the Higher Education Committee and subverts wider union democracy.  They have not even deigned to provide the rationale behind their actions to HEC members, despite requests. This is unacceptable.

If you are concerned about the undermining of democratic decision making at a crucial time in our GTVO efforts, please make sure you contact the UK HE Officers and UCU Campaigns team to request clarity on the decisions made and BDM/HEC dates published. 

If like us you are concerned about these events you can contact UCU staff and elected officers at the following links:

General Secretary: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/2063/UCU-general-secretary

UCU President: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/11178/UCU-president

UCU national officials: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/2062/UCU-national-heads-of-department

Higher Education Committee members: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/2677/Higher-education-committee

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HEC report 1 July 2022

HEC unites around a programme to rebuild the disputes

The Higher Education Committee met on Friday to discuss the state of the industrial action campaigns over Four Fights and USS. It was the first opportunity for HEC to meet since the HE Sector Conference and a Branch Delegate Meeting.

After some debate, HEC voted overwhelmingly (with only 6 votes against) to support a strategy involving updating the grounds of dispute, triggering dispute procedures, and building a serious campaign for action in the Autumn term, with a conjoined ballot if the employers do not move. 

HEC had been asked to address a complex picture. At Sector Conference on June 2 delegates had voted for motions calling for two long aggregated ballots over both disputes, one over the summer from early June (i.e. immediately) intended to provide a mandate for action in the Autumn term (HE6), and one from October to January for a mandate into June (HE7). These motions were agreed by Conference to be entirely compatible and if both were successful would put the union in a position to call action over these disputes at strategically key times over the academic year.

However Motion HE6 was not implemented and instead a Branch Delegate Meeting was called on Monday prior to HEC. Delegates were asked a series of questions that were only circulated the previous Wednesday. HE officers had no input into these questions, some of which directly contradicted the position of Sector Conference.

It had also been intimated to members that voting for a summer ballot would face legal challenges, and unsurprisingly that meant that the proposal for an already-delayed summer ballot was supported only by a minority, even though it had been supported by three sector conference votes. (This legal advice was never given to BDM delegates, HEC or HE officers.)

HEC was presented with the results of this consultation. The process was obviously democratically flawed, but HEC took the view that given the need to win an aggregated ballot it was essential to be mindful of the view of members.

Meanwhile, other trade unions have been gearing up to take action over pay and the Cost of Living crisis. With 3% likely to be imposed in August, and inflation at 11%, UNISON has said that they will ballot HE members over the 2022-23 pay claim over the summer from the end of July. The school teaching unions NEU and NASUWT intend to ballot in the early autumn.

Planning the disputes

HEC voted to establish updated grounds of dispute over Four Fights and USS and thereby avoid any risk of legal challenge.

HEC voted for a first ballot in early autumn which would permit UCU members to take action alongside UNISON and schoolteachers. There must be a campaign of action, led by the General Secretary, to build this ballot.

HEC also agreed to run a second ballot to end in early 2023 to ensure a marking and assessment boycott mandate into the exam period. Branches have been learning from the boycott campaign this year and a much bigger marking boycott may turn into a reality.

Making sure boycotting branches win

HEC also voted to call on UCU to actively and publicly support those branches currently engaged in a marking boycott right now.

HEC was told that Queen Mary UCU members are facing the threat of losing 42 days’ pay over two months. It is essential that the whole union rallies around.

Branches still in boycott include Queen Mary, RCA, Bournemouth and Goldsmiths.

HEC noted “the effectiveness of locally-organised marking and assessment boycotts, backed up by twinning campaigns to obtain USS statements and local demands under the Four Fights umbrella and defy pay docking — despite UCEA calling for 100% deductions since 2006.”

HEC made it clear that it is strategically imperative to ensure these disputes win and are seen to win.

HEC demanded that these disputes are prioritised internally within UCU and publicly, with publicity emphasising that UCU nationally stands behind branches and members facing pay-docking. As part of this the General Secretary was asked to make a declaration of unequivocal support for boycotting branches and to call on the whole union and wider trade union movement to offer solidarity.

Beyond this, boycotting branches must be consulted about next steps, including financial support for local hardship funds and potential legal action.

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UCU Left NEC report, Friday 17th June 2022

Friday’s UCU National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting was the first meeting of the newly-elected committee after Congress.  The General Secretary gave her report, which she also recorded for broadcast. 

HE disputes

The General Secretary was questioned on the line in her report saying that new grounds need to be established for both the Four Fights and USS disputes. She replied that advice suggesting that the ballots would be vulnerable to legal challenges needed to be taken seriously, and that we should consider new grounds for dispute anyway in light of developments such as the imposition of USS changes on 1st April.

The danger is that this becomes another reason to justify the delaying of the ballots called for by the recent Sector Conference. These ballots can be simply authorised by HE officers but, so far, no officers’ meeting has taken place since Congress. Jo Grady said that UCU was ‘waiting’ for the HEC on 1st July, but an HEC decision is not necessary. If new grounds are needed, they can be drawn up quickly. UCU Left HE officers again made it clear that they are ready to meet with minimum notice to authorise ballots.

Jo Grady also argued that reaching the 50% threshold in an aggregated ballot was not good enough. She believes we should be aiming to achieve 60% or 70% turnouts, and that requires us to ‘pause and reflect’. Of course, it is true that winning a ballot requires a serious campaign, ideally starting before the ballot opens, but at the moment nothing is coming from HQ.

In other words, despite failing to win support for her strategy of increasing membership density before relaunching our national disputes, the General Secretary is still trying to postpone future action until next year at the earliest. The problem is not her opinion, but the danger of delay creating demoralisation and a fait accompli.

Apart from removing UCU from the growing trade union revolt against the cost of living crisis, which is set to include our sister education unions, it would leave an increasing number of HE branches – among them Dundee, Goldsmiths, RCA, Wolverhampton, De Montfort, Roehampton, Huddersfield – to fight alone against vicious attacks by their local managements. 

Motions from members

The University of Wolverhampton dispute was made a dispute of national significance. The university is imposing wholesale course closures, halting recruitment of students and has launched a massive ‘voluntary’ redundancy scheme. This is a major attack on working class regional higher education.

A motion calling for UCU to support the legal challenge to USS crowdjustice campaign (L5) and engage with the members who have launched case was carried at NEC, so this is now backed by the entire union.

A motion against the racist Nationality and Borders Bill called on the GS to lobby the TUC for a day of action against the bill.

Other motions passed included solidarity with Just Eat strikers (in a subcontractor called ‘Stuart’), to review regional representation for prison educators and to launch an anti-casualisation toolkit framed around organising effective legal advice to challenge contractual abuses.

A late motion calling on UCU to submit a call to EHRC to extend Equal Pay claims to other protected characteristics (currently sex discrimination only) was ruled out of order on grounds it need not have been submitted late and it involved a significant amount of work.

TUC Demonstration

UCU banners and delegations joined Saturday’s TUC demonstration called in response to the cost of living crisis. The demonstration was big and lively, and featured an impressive contingent from the RMT as they prepare for national strike action this week. 

A range of unions are now balloting or preparing to ballot over the drastic falls in the value of the pay current being experienced by all workers. To stop the Tories and the bosses using inflation to further drive down wages and working conditions, we need to get behind the railworkers and do everything we can encourage a widespread workers’ revolt against the cost of living crisis.

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Now not Never! HEC report (12/5/22)

HEC met at a crucial time in the HE disputes with a marking and assessment boycott due to start in just over a week. To avoid undermining the dispute by revealing sensitive information to the employers, we cannot divulge details of the motions discussed and the results of the voting. However, members should not expect any outcomes from HEC which decisively alter the present situation.

What is still required is that the full range of decisions passed at the SHESCs is implemented without further delay. We need strike dates to be notified to the employers for branches that intend to use their mandate for a marking and assessment boycott. Without these in place we have no defence against punitive deductions. We urgently need the circulation of detailed instructions and guidance on how to carry out a marking and assessment boycott. And we need a campaign of fundraising in branches without a mandate to support members whose pay will be docked. 

If this doesn’t happen, it will be clear that the General Secretary and the full-time officials are trying to undermine the possibility of action taking place this term, against SHESC policy. We know that the General Secretary believes that we cannot win our disputes at the present time. Having lost the argument for a lengthy pause in the action, she is now trying to achieve the same result through delay, confusion and demoralisation.

Branches that believe they can successfully implement a boycott should renew their demands on the HE officers and the officials at HQ for strike action to be notified, indicating their chosen start date. They should demand the guidance on marking and assessment boycotts that we are told is being prepared. And they should seek assistance on twinning with branches not taking action so that the raising of funds can begin.

The Left on the HEC argued that it would be disastrous for action to be called off. Taking no action this term would demoralise members and embolden the employers. We need to avoid this happening.

We also note that the incoming HEC and NEC will have a different make-up, which may mean different decisions are taken at these committees in future.

But we also need to ensure that reballots take place over the summer to enable us to hit the induction periods at the start of the autumn term. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past when the ballot timetable allowed us to take our first action only a few weeks before Christmas.

Annual Congress and Sector Conference is coming up on 1-3 June. We would encourage branches to submit late motions to HESC on implementing the results of SHESCs, further strike action, re-balloting fundraising and the fighting fund.  Motions which refer to events and decisions which took place after the deadline should be accepted as late motions. 

UCU Left will host a meeting to discuss the Congress agenda on Monday 23 May, 6-7.30pm. All delegates and non-delegates welcome. Register here: bit.ly/UCUL-CongressPreMeet.

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TUC 21: Unions must build and make calls for UK-wide action

Liverpool Strike

In less than two weeks’ time trade union leaders from across the whole of the trade union movement will meet to discuss the way forward. The Trade Union Congress will be held online but motions are to be discussed unlike last year when only the General Secretaries of each union met.

The congress takes place in the context of a Tory government in crisis. The defeat of US and British imperialism by the Taliban has sent shock waves through the establishment both here and in the US.  The IPCC report on climate warned that urgent action cannot be delayed. It is a ‘Code red for humanity’, stated the report, as we head towards the COP 26 talks hosted by Johnson’s government in November

On the domestic front millions of workers are seething. Hundreds of thousands have seen their loved ones die of Covid unnecessarily, wages have been cut, working conditions deteriorate and many have lost jobs or face redundancy in the coming months.

It’s not just those who never voted for Johnson who have exposed his lies and negligence. The account by the despicable Dominic Cummings of his time as the key advisor to Johnson showed how corrupt and incompetent Johnson and Hancock are, especially in their handling of the pandemic leading to at least 155,000 deaths so far.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that many are asking the question: How does Johnson and his government survive? 

Many of the explanations offered for this don’t stand up to scrutiny, recycling earlier flawed explanations about the Northern working class. In fact, many of the events of the last few months show a very different appetite from ordinary people to that represented by Johnson’s government.  Much of the liberal press put Johnson’s survival down to the stupid northern working class filled with hatred towards immigrants and loathing of the metropolitan elites who connect with his populist style of politics.  Whilst some people do mistakenly blame migrants for their impoverishment, the vast majority did not vote Tory. More working-class people in the north either vote Labour or did not vote at all, rather than vote Tory.

The deep resentment, disillusionment and sheer rage towards all politicians, including Johnson, is as palpable in these towns as it is in towns and cities in the south. 

The litmus test of a progressive society, as Leon Trotsky once argued, is how far all forms of oppression had been removed. By this key measurement our society is rapidly moving backwards. As the government launch their culture wars, we have seen a rise in racism, sexism, transphobia and ableism. But we have also seen inspiring resistance to the attempt to divide us.  Patel and Johnson did not foresee working class footballers with mass support in working class communities – many from northern communities – leading the resistance to their attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement. 

The real reason why this government survives, despite being one of the most incompetent and openly corrupt in history, lies with the lack of opposition to it. It is the lack of leadership which explains how the Tories survive.

Starmer’s moving right show

The starting point to understand why the government survives must begin with the leader of the opposition. Sir Keir Starmer’s election victory has led to a shift to the right in the Labour Party. The strategy adopted by Blair of triangulation – winning the middle ground – is firmly in place.  Aping Tory policies, foreign and domestic, in an attempt to prove to the employers that he can be trusted, means that not only can he not put a dent in Johnson’s government but he demoralises Labour’s base as well. 

The witch-hunt of the left within the Labour Party, another attempt to prove Starmer can be trusted, has led to over 120, 000 members leaving the Party since his election. (In comparison, only 26,000 left when Corbyn was elected!).

The expulsion of Ian Hodson, President of the food workers’ union, BFAWU, is a declaration of war and the TUC must make a public statement condemning Ian’s expulsion from the party.

The opposition led by Corbyn, in contrast, created a new ‘common sense which put the employers on the defensive when faced with resistance. Having a leader of the opposition who was firmly committed to a progressive left-wing programme and who would publicly appear on picket lines and campaign platforms made a big difference when it came to organising resistance. Starmer’s approach has the opposite impact, by distancing himself and the Labour Party from support for strikes and campaigns, he gives confidence to the Tories and employers to push through attacks and cuts. 

0rganising resistance during the Pandemic 

Despite the obvious barriers placed upon trade unions’ ability to organise and resist employer and government attacks during the pandemic, tens of thousands of union members have resisted. In workplaces up and down the country union members and workers participated in action, forcing the government to put in place health and safety measures which protected us all.

The government’s resistance to wearing face masks, implementing social distancing measures and opposing or delaying necessary lockdowns were all successfully challenged by a trade union response. We learnt quickly how to organise remotely.  Zoom meetings allowed mass participation of members at branch and workplace level with the NEU taking the use of such methods of organising to a new high with over 80,000 members participating. The NEU campaign forced the government to close schools and move to a second lockdown at the beginning of January this year through threatening to use Section 44.

More lives would have undoubtedly been lost if trade union reps in many sectors had not organised in the way they did. 

But tens of thousands did die, unnecessarily, because the government was far too slow to take the necessary action. They needed to be forced into action rather than implementing the measures that the WHO and scientists, here and abroad, were arguing for. 

The government tried to incorporate the sense of social solidarity that emerged early in the pandemic, by joining in with the weekly clap for the NHS. This was a crude attempt to gloss over the class inequalities that were emerging within the public health crisis. You are much more likely to die from the virus if you are poor, black or have disabilities. The poor died as they tried to keep our public transport, health and education services running, whilst the rich did nothing but get richer at our expense. Billions of pounds of government contracts with zero accountability were given to friends of ministers, often for work which was never fulfilled.

The pressure, therefore, to buy into the ‘we are all in it together’ mantra, needed to be avoided if the movement was going to be able to continue to force the government to act to protect lives.  This is why it was a mistake for Francis O’Grady, TUC General Secretary, to appear in a photo opportunity with Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, outside Downing Street celebrating the furlough scheme.  

This played into the government’s hands. It helped them to disguise the class inequalities that were emerging and the disastrous impact of decades of previous under-investment and privatisation of the welfare state. By so doing it made it more difficult to organise along class lines especially when employers and government began to use the pandemic to cut jobs, fire and rehire, erode working conditions and freeze pay. 

It was reported at our last NEC that UCU has held more industrial action ballots than any other union. The vast majority of them overwhelmingly broke through government TU ballot thresholds. The latest to do so impressively were fifteen FE colleges.

This is something the UCU should be proud of. In some cases, these ballots did not reach strike action with employers agreeing to the union’s demands, after the result of strike ballots. Others such as Brighton and Liverpool did go to strike action.  Brighton won and Liverpool after taking, so far 24 days of strike action have got the number of jobs threatened down from 47 to 2. 

There will be a wave of strikes in FE starting from September followed by a new UK-wide ballot on pay, pensions and workload across both of the sectors in the new term.

It was out of these localised campaigns in post 16 education institutions that a new and highly effective rank and file network emerged – the UCU Solidarity Movement (USM). Through organising countless online meetings, solidarity twitter storms and days of action USM has been successful in organising financial and moral solidarity to all those engaged in action. It is a model that fits the situation we face and needs to be generalised across the movement to provide the support and solidarity needed for those that are in dispute. 

Localised disputes growing

Outside of the post 16 education sector impressive local strikes and campaigns have also been successful.  The Manchester bus workers struck against fire and rehire and the Uber drivers’ won a court battle to be classified as workers rather than self-employed, meaning they are now entitled to sick and holiday pay. Strike action by Rolls Royce workers at Barnoldswick saved jobs and stopped the plant closing, and teachers at Leeway’s School in Hackney successfully fought and won trade union recognition.  Construction workers at Hinkley Point used old style flying pickets to prevent deskilling and won. 

These local disputes reveal the determination and sacrifice of union members to achieve justice over pay and conditions. Outsourced cleaners working at the Royal Parks in Central London who are members of the PCS and UVW have started two weeks of strike action over a range of issues. This is just one example of an ongoing strike that urgently needs our support.

Again, some of these disputes don’t reach strikes before the employers concede. The latest example of this is the IWGB who declared a campaign to bring outsourced cleaners in house at London School of Hygiene which was enough to convince the employer to do so.

Whilst the general level of strikes remains low there is clearly a growing appetite for action over pay, jobs and conditions, which these localised disputes reflect.

As employers look to sack more workers as furlough comes to an end, fire and rehire tactics are used by employers to undermine working conditions and the government continues to freeze public sector pay, the need to resist this assault will become even more urgent. The question for the trade union movement is – can this assault on workers be defeated on a local, site by site strategy alone, or will UK-wide action be needed? 

Although many local disputes win, they are not sufficient to turn the tide on a generalised and ongoing working-class assault. 

Turn local appetite for action into a UK-wide movement. 

It is clear that the political opposition led by Starmer will continue to fail to lay a finger on Johnson and the Tories. The opposition that can remove him from office is the trade union movement. 

The Unite General Secretary election resulting in the victory of the left candidate Sharon Graham signals the desire of the rank and file for a break from a leadership that makes grand political gestures but fails to deliver action. Graham stood on a platform of a ‘return to the workplace’ to build a union that can resist the employers’ attacks.  Graham’s victory reflects a wider change at the top of the unions. The recent Unison NEC elections have resulted in the left winning the majority of seats. 

Graham is the first woman to become the GS of Unite. Her success also reflects a wider shift. Unison, UCU and BAFWU have all elected women GS’s over the past few years. As confidence grows amongst women in society to challenge sexism in the workplace, more women are being elected to top union positions.

It is true that union membership is still six and half million less than the high point of union membership in 1979. Union density, especially in the private sector is low. It is encouraging to see that union membership has been growing during the pandemic but rebuilding union membership cannot simply be left to union recruitment drives and encouraging local disputes. More importantly this strategy will not push back the Tory and employer offensive on pay, jobs and nor will it rebuild our welfare state and transform our economy to avert the climate crisis. To do so we need the trade union movement to be felt at a UK-wide level.It is, unfortunately, unlikely that this year’s Congress will launch a mass UK-wide campaign over pay, jobs or the climate crisis with calls for UK-wide days of protest and demonstrations, let alone strikes. But this is what is needed if we are able to stop the Tory and employer onslaught that is gathering pace. It is quite clear that the government and the employers have a strategy to ensure that it is working people who will pay for the public health crisis through ten more years of austerity. We will not defeat this through site-by-site disputes alone. 

The localised disputes that are taking place are over the same issues: pay, insecure contracts, jobs and fire and rehire. It would be very easy to launch a UK-wide campaign that connects with millions of workers across all sectors and encourages them to resist.

To make this a reality the left within the unions will need to organise. To ensure all those local disputes are won, solidarity networks in every union should be organised to make sure that those on strike get financial and moral support. 

We will need to campaign for UK-wide ballots to take place over pay, jobs and insecure contracts. Many within the movement are worried about launching UK-wide ballots fearful that they will fail to meet the Tory union ballot thresholds. The CWU and UCU have shown it is possible at a UK-wide level. Of course, the bigger unions will find it more difficult to achieve – but not impossible. 

Even if the first attempt is not successful it is not a signal for the employer/government to launch an offensive. Not passing a threshold is not the same as losing a ballot where the workers vote against action and when the employer/government can use the lack of support for action as a green light to launch an offensive. However, this is not the case when thresholds are not met, rarely are votes not close to the threshold and the votes in support of action are usually massively in favour of action.

We are going to have to bite the bullet on organising UK-wide ballots. We can’t simply accept the Tory trade union laws means UK-wide action is off the agenda.  We need to be far more tactical about what kind of ballots are organised. A disaggregated ballot might give some unions a better chance of getting bigger numbers involved in action, which might fall short of UK-wide action but will allow the stronger areas to lead a fight for the rest of the union.

This is better than no action at all, or at best lots of disconnected localised disputes, which even when successful don’t generalise outside of that particular workplace leaving workers in the same sector facing the same attacks. 

Successful local disputes do not automatically lead to more victories. They need to be generalised so that others can learn from their experience. This is where the solidarity networks are so important, to allow successful experience to be shared. 

This process would be far more effective if UK-wide action, which pulls together all those who face the same attacks in one UK /regional/city wide dispute. Failure to do so will mean those who are successful at a local level will be left isolated allowing the employer to dust themselves off and come around for another attack in the future. 

Our fight for decent pay, secure contracts and jobs is framed within the wider fight for a just transition of our economy and an end to the marketisation and privatisation of the welfare state. The stakes are high. The trade union movement has the power and organisation to rise to the challenge the government and employers have laid down. Let’s use it to transform lives.

Sean Vernell UCU NEC and TUC delegate

Source: Socialist Worker