The results of UCU’s NEC elections were announced on Thursday. Many UCU Left candidates were successful – congratulations to all of them. And thank you to everyone who took part, whether by standing as a candidate or helping to get the vote out.
UCU Left will still be in a minority on both the FEC and HEC, as it has been in this current year. Although this is disappointing, it is not the whole picture as our vote has been maintained and increased in several seats. In FE, UCU left won just under 50% of the seats.
The VP election in HE and FE were won by the right. Despite the usual attempts to red-bait the UCU left candidate, in FE our VP candidate received a very respectable 35% of the vote. In the HE VP election, despite a three-way fight, our candidate came second with 40%.
Unfortunately, the problem of low voter turnout was repeated in this year’s election.
In both Vice President elections, the most high-profile national positions, turnout was only 8.5%. For instance, only 9,351 valid votes were cast for the Vice President from HE seat. This means that over 100,000 members didn’t vote for that position, which shows a serious level of disenfranchisement. This occurred in last year’s elections where turnout was also only 8.5%.
In 2024 the turnout was higher, at 15.1%, but the General Secretary election also took place at the same time. But in 2023, voter turnout was 10.7% which is and previous years it was 12 – 13% for the national seats.
Low turnout is not unique to UCU, unfortunately it is common across many trade union elections. But we do need to reflect on the internal issues and political context within UCU that may be contributing to such a low participation level.
Many members feel disconnected from the union precisely at the time when they need greater clarity and leadership from it. Additionally they struggle to see how they can shape the national union, in order to gain further support and action.
Yet we are also seeing members actively involved in social movements such as Palestine solidarity, anti-racist organising, and other campaigns. Therefore, this is not an inactive membership. Rather, it is a membership that doesn’t always see the union as relevant to these struggles. Therefore, this is a key challenge that we need to overcome.
The national union must reconnect with the membership
Across all our sectors there is a disconnect between the union and the membership.
Without a Left majority on the NEC, the national union has mostly ceased operating as one. Particularly in HE decisions have been prioritised according to a localised branch-by-branch defensive approach rather than seeking to bring a coordinated national response. This puts increasing pressure on Branch Officers and leaves smaller branches with fewer experienced reps to flounder. Branches that are wanting to fight are left to mobilise members, manage publicity and engage external interests – this will only further disconnect members from the national union.
Moreover, challenging Starmer’s government in Westminster over the issues in HE has become an afterthought. And this is also true in FE and Adult Ed, although we have tried to implement a nationally coordinated approach, this has failed to materialise.
There are some overarching themes, yet there are also slight differences within FE and HE which we discuss below.
Further Education
Turnout in Further Education has historically been lower than in HE. Increasingly like HE, FE organising operates largely at the branch level, members are often disconnected from national structures. Many rarely see the national union acting directly to improve their conditions, so national elections can appear distant or irrelevant.
However, there is a growing understanding that we need to fight on a more collective basis. At last year’s Further Education sector conference, delegates voted overwhelmingly for national strike action – on a 2:1 basis. This was an important step forward.
FE members are dealing with high workloads and poor pay, leading to many staff leaving the sector to teach in schools or return to industry. Yet, fewer people are entering FE teaching, and the existing workforce is ageing, with fifty percent expected to retire in the next five years. These pressures are creating a serious recruitment and retention crisis, which cannot be dealt with branch by branch.
When UCU Left FEC members tried to ensure FESC motions were implemented, our minority position continually limits what we can achieve. Our proposals frequently fall by a single vote. The right has voted against our motions time and time again, leading to delays, frustration, and the weakening of the recent national campaign.
However, this has also led to FE UCU Left candidates performing strongly in this year’s NEC elections. Particularly with higher turnouts in the London & East FE seats, where UCU Left won both positions against two right-wing candidates. This success was also repeated in the national seats too.
The UCU Left led the campaign for national binding bargaining , which has gained significant traction within the union. We now need to build a wider base and strengthen our networks to ensure that the campaign this year does not fizzle out to a few branches involved in localised battles.
UCU Left did well in the adult education seats reflecting their work in initiating a campaign to defend Adult Education. The 400 strong student staff lobby of parliament has started a serious campaign to stop the cuts in the sector.
The threat to ESOL and Adult Education has become even more politicised. Greater Lincolnshire, now controlled by Reform UK, has proposed cutting ESOL provision from 2027 on the basis that it does not benefit “native” people. This is blatant racism and a direct attack on education, and it must be challenged forcefully and without hesitation.
Once again, it was our UCU Left FEC members who pushed the union to issue a press release on the issue and to support the organising of a lobby outside the council meeting when the vote took place.
UCU Left believes that members must be in control of disputes, rather than decisions being left to national and regional offices. Disputes are strongest when members themselves shape the strategy and direction of the fight. This is why UCU Left members argue and vote for strike committees where members can have greater involvement in debating and actively driving disputes.
Moreover, to have a greater impact, disputes need to be collectivised. When we strike together, we demonstrate our collective strength and increase the pressure on employers.
Higher Education
Higher education is currently facing a huge crisis, with the wave of redundancies showing no signs of stopping. There have been successful local campaigns pushing back against cuts, such as at Newcastle and Dundee, but the crisis is national in scale and requires a national strategy.
The current funding model has failed, as we (among many) predicted it would. Universities are protecting senior management, their salaries and business models, while making workers pay the price. In some cases, institutions are also using a climate of cuts and restructuring as an opportunity to push through other attacks, such as attacks on pensions or weakening internal governance.
In HE, a big factor that explains the fall in votes is the defeat of 2023. The Right gained a slim and blocked taking more strike action. Members then were stuck in a marking boycott without the leverage of further industrial action and the employers could wait out the action.
This defeat led members to withdraw from participation. Anger with the national union applies both to activists and ordinary members.
Some results belied the votes cast. In the election for national HE representatives, Left candidates obtained an impressive 49.5% of first preference votes after eliminations elsewhere (including the independent lefts of 16.7%). But this translated into the left taking only one out of five seats due to the way that transfers (second, third etc preferences) worked out.
The market crisis in Higher Education continues through phases. In 2023/24 we saw a period of attacks on a full third of HE branches; in 2024/25 the employers changed their tactics and focused on a smaller number of (mainly pre-92) universities, including Brunel, Dundee and Newcastle; then over the last year, we have seen the number of attacks and local strikes ramp back up from the start of term. This year we have also seen opportunistic attacks on TPS pension scheme at Southampton Solent and Northumbria.
First, employers have gained confidence from UCU’s retreat from national disputes after 2023. But despite the scale of the cuts, universities which made redundancies in 2023/24 also saw student recruitment fall faster than elsewhere.
Second, total student numbers fell by 2.5% between 2022/23 to 2024/25 (HESA). Although this fall was slight, universities are often operating on small margins. Perhaps most damaging to university finances, the main fall was in international student numbers (12% over the same period).
Third, although pay has been cut in real terms, only around half of university budgets is now spent on staff costs. These ‘non-staff costs’, mainly capital projects, have risen faster with inflation even as pay has failed to keep up. The employers are responding to this crisis by seeking to expand in various ways, including to chase student recruitment internationally, set up London campuses, or to engage private companies to teach pre-university students in the UK.
UCU Left candidates were and are at the forefront of resisting these attacks as well as being prominent in seeking to get the union back to balloting for a national dispute. Our candidates have been high profile in branches and regions as well as national campaigns.
Where next?
All elected UCU Left NEC members will be fighting to ensure our union is leading campaigns at home and abroad.
We will be fighting to unite the strikes in HE to stop redundancies. In FE we will be fighting to ensure that – this year – there is a real campaign over securing a national binding agreement , pay and workload.
And in both sectors we will be fighting for a national political campaign around the value of post-16 education to match the industrial campaign in response to the multiple crises we face.
We will campaign inside the union to launch a response to the rise of mass youth unemployment, which now has risen to one million – we must take on the challenges that are facing society.
We will continue to ensure that our union is at the centre of the campaign to stop the far right and we will do all we can to build the Together Alliance national demonstration on March 28th.
We will also continue to make sure that UCU is at the forefront of ending the genocide in Palestine and to stop Trump’s war in Iran.
If you agree with what we are doing then join UCU Left and ask your colleagues to join – to build a stronger and more effective campaigning union.