This week you should have received your electronic ballot over pay (email sent on 21st July) More than ever, we need a coordinated fight to save the HE sector.
Some members have asked why we should focus on the UK-wide pay ballot when branches are facing compulsory redundancies and job losses?
The two issues are connected, the same employers who are cutting jobs are also holding down pay, increasing workloads and relying on insecure employment. Every redundancy means fewer staff doing more work. That leads to heavier workloads without extra pay and damages the quality of education we provide to students.
But also, see the two graphs, which clearly show that pay has continued to fall. In Figure 2, it shows the spine points, with most UCU members being in 26 – 51 category. In terms of 2021 money, we are now working nearly 2 months for free and yet there are unprecedented job losses. Therefore, it is simply not the case that we can save jobs by not fighting over pay. When we don’t fight for better pay, they still come for our jobs. Our employers feel emboldened and attack our conditions and jobs more, and we feel weakened.
That is why we need colleagues to vote to reject the pay offer and vote YES for industrial action.
This ballot campaign is the most straightforward legal route to taking UK-wide industrial action that could put the higher education funding crisis firmly on the national political agenda.
Why should we reject the offer?
The pay offer is yet another real term pay cut compared to inflation, and is worth around 1% less in real terms.
All five higher education trade unions (UCU, EIS, UNISON, UNITE and GMB) are consulting members about a dispute over pay, creating the potential for coordinated action across the sector.
Campaigning nationally over pay is entirely compatible with taking local action to defend jobs. This is not a zero-sum game as national and local campaigns strengthen one another.
We also need to take the fight to the Government. Universities cannot continue to absorb a funding crisis by cutting jobs, depressing pay and increasing workloads. The Government must take responsibility for a crisis that requires a UK-wide solution.
If this consultative vote returns a strong YES for industrial action, together with a high turnout, it will give the union the momentum and confidence to move to a full statutory ballot.
A strong UK-wide pay ballot is about showing employers and government that staff across the sector are organised, united and prepared to stand together. That strengthens every branch fighting redundancies.
No branch should be left to fight alone; we need UK-wide solidarity and leverage.
By voting in the pay ballot, you are helping to build the collective strength we need to defend fair pay, secure jobs, reasonable workloads, and the future of higher education.
Please vote, encourage your colleagues to vote, and help us build the strongest possible mandate. Every vote strengthens our collective voice.
The newly constituted Higher Education Committee met at the end of last month, based on the last round of NEC elections.
We are all too keenly aware of the crisis facing HE with increasing numbers of universities facing threats of hundreds of compulsory redundancies and pension loss and slashing, cuts and closures, as well as the ongoing problems of casualisation and workloads. Insufficient finance, university mismanagement and prioritising things like new buildings and overseas campuses over staff have all played their role in this crisis. However, financial issues are not the only cause and even universities that are doing quite well financially, such as Glasgow, are proposing austerity measures.
Minutes of previous HEC meetings.
The question of when the open letter to Bridget Phillipson would be circulated was raised in relation to the minutes of the previous HEC meeting. This is the second iteration of an open letter intended to press the Secretary of State for Education who has presided over an unprecedented devastation of HE and whose White Paper encourages the employers to go even further.
It was first policy to circulate the open letter in December 2024 and it also since then there should have been weekly inter-branch meetings for those in dispute to allow our side to learn from each other and coordinate a fight back against the employer’s offensive. Why are branches left on their own to work out whether they can mount an effective MAB (some branches have done this successfully)? Why are the lessons of successful branches not generalised? What about the effectiveness of academic boycotts? What about the conduct of the employers in collective consultations over redundancy? How to weave a branch narrative to get sympathetic press coverage? What forms of industrial action impact the employers? What will make the employer need to pay compensation to students? There is an enormous level of frustration with the failures of with the national union.
Heads of Bargaining’s Report
As has been the case since the end of the MAB in 2023, the committee secretary’s report should have read like a catalogue of courageous branch resistance without a UK wide industrial strategy to oppose the employers offensive. Equally, Congress only a month ago voted for UK-wide industrial action (motions HE11, B27). All this was passed over in silence.
Instead, the report focused exclusively on the pay round this year and the 2% offer from the employers. The recommendations passed to consult members electronically over the summer. Opposition to industrial action from the right of the HEC was extremely strong, claiming to speak for the membership, ignoring that it is a basic democratic principle to respect majorities of votes cast. Majorities voted for industrial action last year over pay, only to be denied by anti-union laws on thresholds for industrial action that will be soon removed. The recommendations of the committee secretary’s report were to reject the employers’ pay offer of 2% (well below average pay rises of 3.5% and below CPIH inflation of 3% likely to rise due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz) and consult the membership in a summer indicative ballot. This at least offers a route to UK-wide industrial action so vital to challenge the devastation in the sector even if the bureaucracy are desperate to avoid any UK-wide action.
HEC Strategy discussion
The new Vice-Chair of HEC indicated that he alongside senior full-timers of the union had formulated a three-year strategy for Higher Education. It has three phases: consolidation, build, transform. It predicts a new funding model for Higher Education in year three. In effect, this is a major departure from policy voted at Congress. Indeed, the vice-chair and his allies have put considerable effort into gainsaying the democratic sovereignty and effectiveness of Congress. In reality, the document proposes a top-down approach: parliamentary lobbying, surveys, pauses for density-building, namely new gloss on what Commons have argued since 2022. The document is right that a case does need to be made for Higher Education in the age of AI, growing authoritarianism, the rejection of expert knowledge and an assault on the humanities.
However, the document profoundly misreads the current situation and the urgency of mounting concerted action against job losses, course closures, subsidiary companies, pensions theft and restructuring. This September another massive wave of cuts is very likely when student numbers in budget set in February do not materialise. Expect many more Nottingham’s, Goldsmiths, Exeter’s, London Mets. Last year, there was a 7.7% fall in international student numbers prompting what we have seen since. This year, the demand for study visas is down 30%.
The OfS admitted that 24 Higher Education providers could become insolvent this year and that a third were in the danger of such in the next three years. The strength of the industrial response from branches has provided the strongest lobbying possibilities for an unpopular government under enormous pressure. Consider how many constituency MPs depend on votes from staff and students. Why, for example, is there a Labour MP in Exeter in a sea of Lib Dem or Conservative constituencies? To illustrate how industrial action creates political leverage, the picket lines of the BMA have put Wes Streeting under enormous pressure.
Part of the evidence provided for the strategy was a series of regional meetings with hand-picked branch activists constructed into a report that had such methodological problems of sample bias that any self-respecting academic should distance themselves from. There is very strong dissatisfaction with HQ as a consequence of leaving members high and dry in the summer MAB of 2023 with no summer re ballot. This is the second attempt to rewrite that history as ‘evidence’. It would be nice if union resources were not wasted in this way.
Secretary of State Working Group
The HEC working group on the dispute with the Secretary of State has been paused. The working group organised a member consultation meeting shortly before Congress and consideration of UCU commissioned legal advice. Two sets of legal advice were obtained and shared with the working group, whereas HEC was only told the conclusions from this advice. These stated that any action would have to be restricted to England and that a dispute with SoS over the redundancies crisis is not possible as against current law. Many of those on HEC previously in favour, voted to no longer seek further legal advice.
Initiators of the SoS dispute across a number of branches hoped that it would form an urgent alternative form of the industrial action needed in the sector to one structured around pay. Congress 2026 passed HE3 to pursue the dispute. It is up to the HEC majority to explain what they propose as a meaningful alternative strategy of industrial action to defend the sector. UCUL voted against overturning Congress policy on this.
Pensions
The Teachers’ Pension Scheme (for post-92 universities) has been subject to an opportunistic assault from employers (Coventry, Northumbria, Southampton Solent, London South Bank, Sheffield Hallam) complaining about their contribution rates. Subsidiary companies have been a favourite method of getting out of the TPS. Government decisions on contributions rates are expected to make themselves visible in the next weeks. Employers have so far been blaming increased costs of TPS for the planned use of sham subsidiaries and cuts to jobs. Should contributions rates fall, UCU Left members of HEC believe UCU must ensure that contribution reductions are passed on to members in the form of retractions of job cuts and potentially a pay increase. In addition, and given the incredible haemorrhaging of staff across institutions, UCU Left members of HEC argued that UCU must write to all HE employers asking for a a moratorium on job cuts for the academic year 2026-27. The revaluation of the scheme means that the contributions are likely to fall significantly showing the opportunism of these employers. It also means headroom against the cuts and for a pay increase.
Sheffield Hallam UCU’s remarkable victory in defeating the attempt to introduce a subsidiary company for this purpose brought acclamation from the HEC. It is a truly an inspiring victory and much needed hope.
Higher Education Sector Conference Motions
HEC were presented with a document of the motions that passed at Congress. This document tracks implementation of motions across the year.
HEC Motions
UCUL members proposed a motion to defend jobs and the sector. The chair ruled this out of order on a technicality rather than facilitate a discussion on what could be legally possible through prior negotiation and revision with the proposers of the motion as is past practice. It is noteworthy that one of the movers is in a long-running dispute over job losses and made a powerful plea that such branches are not left to fight on their own.
Call on Branches to Take Collective Action
It is problematical that HEC did not make any decisions which would lead to a ballot and industrial action or otherwise put real pressure on employers about the jobs crisis. However, it is members, not HEC, that are the union. Members can put motions to their branches to call a special sector conference to discuss action to resolve the crisis and if at least 20 are received with the same wording, then UCU is required to do this. Branches can also coordinate action and support each other, as well as continue to put pressure on HEC.
The Further Education Committee (FEC) met on Friday for its first meeting since the new committee was elected. Members could reasonably have expected the meeting to focus on implementing the decisions taken at the Further Education Sector Conference (FESC) in May.
Instead, the committee was presented with proposals that abandoned those democratically agreed decisions and attempted to implement motions that had actually been defeated, thus delaying any national action over pay, national binding and workload agreements until October 2027!
This was an extraordinary and deeply troubling position for the Secretariat (the national official) to bring to the FEC, who made clear to the FEC that these proposals were going against what was agreed at the May conference. Nevertheless, FEC members were able to prevent this attempt to overturn conference policy.
What did FESC decide?
Delegates representing around 100 branches voted to escalate the New Deal for FE campaign through an England-wide aggregated ballot in 2026/27. Motions FE4 to FE7, together with their amendments, set out a strategy for winning that ballot by producing branch resources and building a strong industrial and political campaign.
The decisions of FESC could not have been clearer. FESC is the sovereign democratic decision-making body for UCU FE where members elected by their branches, debate and vote on political and industrial strategy. It is then the responsibility of both the union’s officials and the FEC to implement those decisions as effectively as possible. Those decisions cannot simply be set aside because some people disagree with the outcome.
However, at Friday’s meeting, the Head of FE, supported by those who brought motions unsuccessfully to May’s conference to delay taking any action, attempted to do exactly that. The paper presented proposed abandoning the planned 2026/27 aggregated ballot altogether. Instead, an entire year would have been spent preparing for a ballot in Autumn 2027. If this had been agreed, it would have fundamentally overturned the democratic decisions taken by conference only weeks earlier.
Moreover, the paper would have effectively implemented one of the few motions that was actually defeated at FESC: Motion 2 from Bolton College, presented by UCU’s new Vice President. That motion proposed delaying the campaign, holding branch briefings in the autumn, and convening a Special FE Sector Conference in early 2027 to merely decide the national grounds of dispute and ballot arrangements.
Conference delegates clearly rejected that approach. In the debate, many argued that delaying the campaign would effectively abandon this year’s pay claim and that members could not afford another year without national action.
What was particularly alarming was that, when presenting the paper, the Head of FE openly acknowledged that he knew it conflicted with FESC policy. That should concern every UCU member, whether individuals agreed with the decisions taken at FESC or not. Once officials or committees begin deciding which conference decisions they will implement and which they will ignore, member democracy is placed in jeopardy.
Why we can’t delay
In the attempt to overturn FESC decisions, the Head of FE argued that the union was not yet prepared. He stated that while around 100 branches were represented at FESC, another 60 to 80 branches were not sufficiently engaged. He also said he wanted to build greater consensus before proceeding and pointed to the NEU’s campaign, arguing that they had spent a year preparing before moving to a ballot. However, these arguments miss the bigger picture.
The NEU is a much larger union, with around half a million members, making it the largest education union in Europe. Whilst UCU FE only has around 27,000 members and so the amount of time needed to organise is clearly different.
More importantly, it’s simply not true to say that preparations haven’t already occurred.
Back in 2023, an England-wide e-ballot over pay, workload and binding national bargaining produced an 87% YES vote on a 51% turnout. However, moving to a statutory industrial action ballot was defeated by just one vote at a Special FESC April that year. The New Deal for FE campaign was launched in spring 2024 around the same core demands. And at FESC 2025, delegates voted to move towards an England-wide aggregated industrial ballot to begin September 2025 to escalate the campaign.
But in implementing those decisions, the union delayed with the ballot closing mid-November, and industrial action pushed back until January. Those delays led branches being bullied into accepting local pay deals and weakened confidence in the national campaign. At the national strikers’ rally in January, many members expressed frustration that they had voted as part of a coordinated national campaign, yet only 17 colleges actually took action.
We cannot afford to repeat that experience. When members vote for a strategy and the national union fails to deliver it, members will of course disengage. It will breed cynicism about the value of the national union, encouraging members to focus solely on local disputes.
Yet local action alone has not, and cannot, secure the improvements our members need. FE pay remains around 20% lower in real terms than in 2010. The teaching workforce is around 25% smaller, while student numbers have increased substantially, driving workloads ever higher. Inequality across the sector has also continued to grow, with pay and conditions varying dramatically between colleges.
Many members recognise that reversing this trend requires coordinated national industrial action. This will give members and branches a stronger collective voice, increasing pressure on the AoC and the government, and recognises that the crisis in FE is fundamentally about national funding rather than simply the decisions of individual college managements.
The political opportunities
The Head of FE and the FEC majority also failed to recognise the importance of the current political moment. It is very likely we will have a new Prime Minister within weeks. Expectations have been raised amongst our members by the resignation of Starmer and an expectation that the government will move in a new direction that favours working people. We need to act fast to apply pressure on a Burnham led government if these expectations are to be realised.
At the recent National Joint Forum between the unions and the AoC, the employers’ position on binding national bargaining had shifted significantly. Three years ago, they described themselves as “agnostic” towards binding national bargaining, which in practice meant opposition. They are now no longer ideologically opposed and are instead identifying practical barriers that can be overcome.
The AoC has also written to the government arguing that FE funding is inadequate, expressing disappointment at the lack of support for the sector and calling for a national binding agreement for the sector.
There is now an opportunity for employers and unions to jointly press the Labour government to deliver on its commitment to provide funding the sector so desperately needs.
So what did FEC decide?
Three motions were ultimately passed that rejected the approach set out in the Secretariat’s paper. They committed UCU FE to:
begin preparations immediately for an aggregated ballot, starting no later than the beginning of October;
produce a clear campaign timeline designed to win that ballot;
support branches by using national communications, producing campaign materials with clear demands, organising local and regional meetings, and making GTVO resources available; and
organise a parliamentary lobby and a national demonstration during the autumn term calling for increased FE funding.
The immediate threat of abandoning conference policy has been defeated, but members cannot be complacent.
Branches and regions must now hold the FEC and the union’s officials to account. A democratic, member-led union depends on conference decisions being respected. If members vote for a strategy, they have every right to expect the union to implement it. Our task now is to ensure those decisions are carried out in full.
Congress is the annual supreme decision-making body of UCU. For two days delegates from across UCU’s sectors debate together, and then there is one day where FE and HE divide into separate sector conferences. Congress is crucial to the union’s democracy as members, voted by their branches from across the country come together to debate and vote on motions from branches. The results of all votes can be found here: https://www.ucu.org.uk/Congress26
This year, delegates in both sector conferences voted to ballot members for strike action. In Further Education, an aggregated ballot will ask members if they are prepared to strike in pursuit of pay, national binding bargaining, and workload agreements. Whilst in HE members voted to ballot members for a UK-wide fight over jobs and to progress a Secretary of State dispute.
These decisions are essential; it is clear that a juggernaut of cuts is heading our way. In HE, well over 30,000 jobs have gone in the last three years, 15,000 of them in the last year alone. This looks set to worsen dramatically after the Parliamentary Education Select Committee warned that 24 universities could go insolvent in the next 12 months, potentially shutting up shop overnight.
In FE, decades of underinvestment have seen more than 25,000 jobs disappear, wages cut by 30% in real terms, and workloads spiral out of control.
Both sectors face extremely tough times ahead. Both sectors need a real injection of government funding.
Delegates at FESC and HESC made it absolutely clear that fighting college by college or university by university will not stem the tide of these attacks. They voted for the union to organise nationally aggregated ballots in the autumn term to resist them.
Unfortunately, the leadership of the union, both full-time officials and the majority of lay members on the NEC, do not support delegates’ decisions. They argued that UCU could not win a national ballot at this time and that more (and more) time was needed to prepare.
In FE, the newly elected Vice-President attempted to win support for a motion that would have put off making any decisions – not just on action, but even on what issues to fight on – until a Further Education Special Sector Conference sometime in early 2027! This would effectively have meant abandoning this year’s national pay claim, despite it already having been submitted to the employers.
The IBL/CUD supporters became increasingly frustrated as they lost every motion that attempted to delay action or narrow the dispute, and as delegates repeatedly voted for national industrial action. They attacked and patronised delegates from the rostrum, claiming delegates didn’t understand what they were voting for and even going so far as to describe delegates as “cruel” for supporting nationally coordinated action.
In HE, reps from branches fighting redundancies expressed anger and distress that the union’s “strategy” amounted to waiting for branches to come under attack and then responding afterwards. This frustration was made even more acute by the announcement from the Education Select Committee warning of mass closures and redundancies.
Therefore, members voted for a national strategy and to ballot for industrial action over redundancies. It was explained that, to do this, the union would need to put a demand to every employer requiring them to affirm there would be no redundancies for a period of 12 months, or they would face a ballot and potential industrial action.
Alongside this, delegates voted for UCU to organise a political campaign to defend HE involving every branch in the UK.
It was also agreed to take forward a dispute with the Secretary of State for Education in England.
However, it is clear that the majority on the NEC, with the support of the nationally elected officers, will do all they can to ignore sector conference decisions. They will do so not simply because they are pessimistic about members’ willingness to fight back, but because many in the leadership are opposed to strike action itself.
There is a political current embedded within UCU that resists strike action and always has. Currently, its representatives argue that the “time is not right”, while insisting that they “really do support national action – just not right now”. This is simply the latest excuse. They have opposed motions calling for strike action on every occasion over the past 20 years.
Unfortunately, this group forms the majority on the NEC (IBL/CUD and Commons members). Some may genuinely believe that striking is not something education unions should be doing, that it is somehow not “professional”. They fear that national strike action would take the union beyond their control.
They also argue that we need “greater density” before action can be taken. However, our biggest periods of growth as a union have consistently come when we are preparing for and taking strike action. We are seeing growing membership in Goldsmiths, Edinburgh and other branches in dispute. Even branches not directly involved in disputes saw membership increase during the last national ballot period.
Of course, strikes are not the only campaigning tool we should use. Mass lobbies and demonstrations play an important role in any campaign. However, without industrial action, we will not be able to prevent government and employers from destroying our sectors.
War, austerity and the rise of the far right
The debates at Congress were framed by the ongoing drive towards war, rising military and arms spending, and the growth of the far right. Delegate after delegate explained the importance of organising resistance to cuts in jobs and pay, in order to deny the far right a hearing, both within education and in wider society.
Delegates supported motions defending migrant rights and protecting ESOL and adult education from cuts by Reform UK. A motion from Liverpool John Moores University to build on the success of the Together Alliance and deepen this work was also passed. Congress voted to defend the right to protest through campaigning and by working with organisations such as Amnesty and Defend Our Juries.
Several amendments and motions developed UCU’s anti-war agenda by opposing war with Iran and the attacks on Lebanon and Palestine. Delegates passed an amendment to Motion 1, Education Policy: Valuing Post-16 Education, calling on UCU to submit a motion to TUC Congress opposing conscription. This is essential as states across the world ratchet up military spending and introduce new forms of conscription. In Germany, there were even attempts to introduce what amounted to a travel ban on 16–44-year-olds wishing to leave the country for more than three months.
This motion against conscription will build on the successful UCU motion carried at last year’s TUC Congress, which overturned TUC policy supporting increased arms spending. UCU has the ability to make a real difference within the wider trade union movement, and subsequently wider society.
Unfortunately, many motions fell off the agenda, including Motion 46, Demilitarising Higher Education – Welfare over Warfare, from the University of Warwick. Further work will be needed to challenge the militarisation of post-16 education.
The strength of feeling on these issues was also reflected in the fringe meetings. The liveliest and best-attended fringes at Congress were the Stand Up to Racism and Wages Not Weapons meetings. This demonstrated delegates’ willingness to take political positions that address the wider circumstances facing our members and communities.
The General Secretary’s opening remarks at Congress reaffirmed her commitment to campaigning against war and the far right. She spoke at both fringe meetings and has played an important role in supporting these campaigns.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the NEC majority, many of whom declined to attend these events and are not prominent in these campaigns either locally or nationally. The threat of war and the rise of the far right are real. The union must unite around these issues, whatever disagreements we may have on other questions.
A dysfunctional union
For many delegates, this year’s Congress was a frustrating experience. Very few motions were debated. This was partly due to challenges to the ordering of the CBC report, with delegates contesting decisions to rule motions and amendments off the agenda. However, it was also due to repeated failures of the voting equipment, lengthy delays in obtaining results, and filibustering from the right.
The staff dispute involving members of UNITE continues. It was a disgrace that members of staff in GMB threatened to shut down Congress, if a motion from Goldsmiths University supporting the UNITE staff dispute was discussed. We cannot allow representatives of staff unions to dictate what elected delegates are permitted to debate.
Surely it cannot be beyond the capacity of a professional trade union, staffed at leadership level by experienced trade union officials, to resolve a dignity-at-work dispute that has now continued for two years.
The chaos that dominated much of Congress will only deepen cynicism within the union. Members work hard to write motions, debate them in branches, submit them to Congress and prepare supporting speeches. Yet when they arrive at Congress, they find themselves unable to debate them. Many will inevitably question the level of democracy within our union, and this is a question that we will need to address.
Attendance at this year’s Congress, particularly in HE, was markedly lower than last year. Members are already asking what the point is in participating in the union’s democratic structures if this is how they are going to be treated.
UCU’s dysfunction reflects the wider passivity of the union in the face of the crisis engulfing post-16 education. To break this impasse, we must campaign to ensure that the motions passed by Congress are implemented and push the union outwards rather than allowing it to remain dominated by internal infighting and pessimism.
Many delegates commented that the chairing of Congress was significantly better than the hostile atmosphere they had experienced at previous Congresses. Maria Chondrogianni, now Immediate Past President, is a class fighter who understands first-hand the scale and urgency of the challenges we face in our workplaces and society. That makes a real difference.
We need more rank-and-file activists like Maria in these positions. Throughout her presidency, she consistently backed members in union committees, on picket lines and in negotiations. There is little doubt she will continue to do so as Immediate Past President and as a branch rep.
Next steps
Over the past couple of years, branches that have fought back have often won important victories. What is clear is that if we do not attempt to fight back, we will certainly lose.
Despite the difficulties of Congress, the overall mood was one of regrouping, rebuilding national industrial action, and combining it with a strong political campaign. There was a real sense of hope and determination that we should, and can, resist these attacks.
More delegates joined UCU Left this year than at the previous two Congresses. This reflects a growing mood among members to get organised, challenge the pessimism within the bureaucracy, and push for national industrial action.
We need to maintain that hope and determination, build a stronger UCU Left, and ensure that UCU takes the action necessary to defend post-16 education.
Congress is next week – it is a key point in the year when members get together and decide on what the national union should be doing. Congress must rise to the multiple challenges we face and vote for national strategies and action that can defend and protect post-16 education.
With the recent announcement that 24 universities could be insolvent in the next 12 months, and the wave of redundancies and course closures – the time is now for a national campaign. In Further and Adult education, underfunding and cuts is leading to a crisis in the sector. And this is all in the context of the growth of the far right and Reform UK, global instability due to Trump’s wars and economic uncertainty and attacks on our rights in the UK.
UCU Left Congress caucus
To discuss key debates and motions (for UCU Left members who are delegates at Congress). Tuesday 26th May, 5.30pm in the Ripley Suite, Crowne Plaza Harrogate, HG1 1XX (online option also available: https://tinyurl.com/c35vmxc3)
UCU Left Public Meeting: Resilience and resistance in a time of crises
Wars in the Middle East continue to rage, with devastation on a horrifying scale. While the UK governments, and others, attack the right to protest to in order to silence opposition. Reform UK and the far right have grown and become emboldened, exploiting fears and creating division. But resistance is possible. The anti-war movement in Britain continues to grow, people continue to strongly defend their right to protest and mass mobilisations have weakened the far right. When people organise collectively, we can fight back and win.
Across post-16 education, the crisis is deepening. Universities face financial collapse, pensions are under attack, adult education has been cut again, and FE remains chronically underfunded. We need collective action & solidarity to defend our sector and fight for the future of education.
Come and join the discussion about how we can organise and resist.
In Thursday’s elections, the racist Reform UK party made a historic breakthrough whilst Labour’s vote collapsed. Reform UK took the most votes, most seats and overall control of most councils. In Wales, Plaid Cymru have formed a minority government, with Reform coming second. Labour lost control of the Senedd for the first time and have a tiny fraction of the seats.
There is a lot of hand wringing, soul searching and recriminations inside the Labour Party, as a leadership challenge to PM Keir Starmer hots up. But it is not difficult to understand why Starmer is despised on the doorstep and why Labour is in meltdown.
The Labour Party has been losing its working class base for some time. The exception was the brief moment when Corbyn won the leadership of the party – he put forward radical policies and it showed that working class support could be re won. But instead of this we’ve generally seen a Labour Party that has aped Tory policies; with the maintaining of the means-tested winter fuel payments as one of its first acts, followed swiftly by an attack on PIP payments.
This process was started under Blair and has been taken even further under Starmer. He has attempted to outdo Reform UK from the right. Echoing every racist lie about immigrants, cutting benefits of the most vulnerable, enthusiastically supporting genocide in Palestine and continuously lying about his appointment of the completely corrupt Mandelson as the US ambassador.
In this context, when the change that people expected from a Labour government has not been delivered, it is not surprising that sections of the working class look to Farage and the far right for solutions. The far right feed off despair. Working people have suffered the biggest cuts in their living standards for over a decade, and this has been hardest felt in areas that never recovered from Thatcher’s attacks in the 1980s.
The rage that results from these attacks makes it easy for far right and racist political leaders to scapegoat immigrants for the increasing poverty they face. It is much easier to blame the refugee holed up in a hotel than it is to take on a much bigger and more powerful force like a government or an employer.
If there isn’t a lead given to collectively resist cuts in wages, job losses, closure of their local A&E, care home or library – people are left isolated. And the far-right have played on this isolation.
They have been enabled to become this significant force by mainstream political parties and media outlets, who pump out their lies about immigrants. Unlike left wing ideas that attempt to cut against the mainstream ideas in society, the far right simply take ideas of the mainstream to their logical conclusion.
However, the Green Party success gave a glimpse of what an alternative could look like. They campaigned on left wing policies and received their best results ever. What this shows is that when a confident left wing alternative is put, which is anti-racist, blames the rich and unapologetically, condemns genocide – then working people will vote for it.
The question is how long will the Greens’ stay red? Their history in running local councils has been to push through government funding cuts rather than leading a fight against them. Already, there are some in leading positions who are looking to water down policies to ensure the Green Party is a ‘serious respectable’ political party. If this happens, we know where this will lead them.
The success of the Greens really shines a light on the fiasco the leadership of Your Party made in setting up their organisation. With a few notable exceptions, independent socialist candidates lost out to the Green Party, and fared badly in the elections.
There was such excitement at the announcement of the creation of Your Party, with over 800,000 people signing up within a couple weeks. This gave a sense of the potential for a resurgent new left wing force. Unfortunately, this excitement was dashed almost on take-off, amid very public falling outs. The leadership of what is left of Your Party really must take responsibility for failing to provide a significant socialist challenge to Reform UK in these local elections.
How do we build hope?
These election results are a serious warning. Reform UK councils will give us a clear example of what a Farage-led government would look like. They’ll push through cuts, close care homes, attempt to undo equality policies, close support networks for the most vulnerable and continue their scapegoating of immigrants.
When we speak about “offering hope” we don’t mean this in the empty way Starmer does. Hope comes when working people feel that they have the power to stop attacks on their communities. When they feel that they can take back control of their lives from the suffocating control of their employers. And when they don’t fear outsiders, but welcome them as fellow human beings that help enrich their lives.
This kind of hope can only be brought about through collective resistance to this government’s attacks. It is when working people act collectively, so they feel they have the power to change things themselves. Then the government and employers don’t seem all powerful, and can be forced to change direction.
March 28th saw a half a million people take to the streets to oppose the far right. This was the biggest anti-racist march in British history. This must be at the forefront of our minds when beginning to work out how we move forward from these local actions to marginalise the far right forces in Britain.
On 16th May, the fascist Tommy Robinson is mobilising another ‘Unite the Kingdom’ to march through the capital. He has called the demo on this day as a challenge to the movement they most fear – the Palestine movement. All the main pro-Palestine, anti-war and anti-racist campaigns have joined forces to make this march enormous – to demonstrate once again that the majority are not falling for the racist lies.
But the Trade Union leaders must also take responsibility for allowing Farage to make inroads into our workplaces and communities. Failure to organise a UK-wide campaign to stop the cost-of-living crisis involving mass lobbies of Parliament, strikes and demonstrations has made it easy for Farage to play on fear.
Organising strikes without challenging racism at the same time will mean divisions within the working class will remain. But without UK-wide strike action against the cost of living crisis and the mass rise of youth unemployment, the anti-racist movement will be built on sand. We need the power of the organised working class now more than ever. The impact of Trump’s wars is already being felt, and it will increase as Starmer attempts to make us pay for Trump’s wars.
If we are to marginalise far right political forces in Britain, then we need a mass anti-racist organisation built in every workplace, alongside an insurgent organised labour movement challenging the cost-of-living crisis. Keir Starmer, or whoever is leading the Labour Party, must feel the pressure from the collective power of the working class.
The NEU have announced that they will be organising a national ballot of their members in the early Autumn over funding and pay. We all must get behind this call and join them on the picket lines, not fighting while divided, college-by-college or university-by-university but united, all together across the UK.
This is an urgent task. We need to campaign in every union for our leaders to take up this fight.
With just three weeks until the local elections, more than 5,000 council seats will be contested across England, alongside elections for the Senedd and Scottish Parliament.
Reform UK now has 8 MPs, 983 local councillors, and representation in both the Senedd and Holyrood. In May’s elections Reform UK will be standing in 95% of the local council elections – that’s as many as Labour.
Nigel Farage has made clear that success at these elections is intended as a “stepping stone to change in national government.” We cannot let this happen.
Reform UK is a racist party. They want to slash public services, erode workers and all the progressive rights we’ve run – whilst blaming all of society’s problems on migrants.
The half-a-million-strong Together Alliance demonstration showed the scale of opposition to Reform UK’s nasty, divisive politics. We now need to turn that energy into sustained action by encouraging everyone who attended—or was inspired by it—to get involved with Stand Up To Racism campaign to stop Reform UK.
Please reach out to your colleagues and ask your branch leadership to share Stand Up To Racism resources with all members.
We need everyone involved in campaigning to stop Reform UK.
Half a million people descended onto the streets of London on March 28th to show their opposition to the far right and to make clear that anti racists are the majority in Britain.
They came from every corner of Britain. This was a movement built in towns, cities and villages from across the UK. The atmosphere on the march was one of relief and celebration that those on the streets of London where not alone, they were not the isolated ones. Those who had been peddling hate and division were the ones in a minority.
The assembling of an alliance of hundreds of different organisations alongside brave local anti-racist campaigners who have turned out week in week out to stop the fascists using violence to intimidate and scare asylum seekers, produced a powerful force capable of bringing out huge numbers on the day.
The success of the demonstration was brought about by the unity of different movements determined to stop the far right. The movement to free Palestine and stop the war in Iran, the movement to stop climate catastrophe, and throughout the demo placards and chants made clear opposition to misogyny and sexism and support for trans and women’s rights.
One of the most significant aspects of the day was the mobilisation of the trade union movement. Organised labour turned out. It acted as a spine that went right through the march. All the major unions had their own bloc. There has not been such an impressive mobilisation of trade unions in some time. Tens of thousands of trade unionists marched in their designated blocs giving a real sense of our class power.
The multiple crises of war, climate, cost of living and austerity has brought about a powerful movement that can stop the far right and fascists in their tracks and can pose an alternative of peace and justice for all.
Deepen and broaden the movement
To do so we will need to take the energy and dynamism of yesterday’s demo into our college and universities. UCU was out in force on the march. The national leadership ensured that members were encouraged to attend and that resources were spent on ensuring that UCU was proud and visible. We know that in every college and university there are those who can be lured into believing that Farage is an alternative, frustrated by the capitulation of Starmer’s Labour government to the agenda of big business.
We should aim to set up workplace Stand up to Racism groups. Join the UCU Stand Up to Racism WhatsApp group to share ideas of how to build anti racist networks in your college or university. Can we get colleagues out into our communities to join the Don’t Vote Farage campaign in the May 5th local elections?
On May 16th we have another test. Outrageously, but not surprisingly, the police have turned down the Palestine movement’s request (made back in December) for a demonstration ending in Parliament square to commemorate the Nakba. The Palestine coalition has put out this statement. Instead they have granted permission to Tommy Robinson to hold a protest in Whitehall.
We will need to ensure that we march and show our strength against Robinson to ensure we maintain the anti-racist momentum from Saturday’s demo.
We also need to make sure that we turn the energy of Saturday’s demo into organising resistance to redundancies and pay cuts. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost in our universities. Our employers in FE and universities will now use the war in Iran as an excuse to offer below inflation pay rises. In Lincolnshire Council, where Reform have a majority, they have cut funding to ESOL courses.
If we are to give hope to the one million 16-24 year olds who are not in work, education or training we will need to organise a national campaign across the sectors to defend post 16 education and resist further pay cuts. This needs to happen urgently.
March 28th 2026 can be a turning point, a fork in the road leading us to a new direction of hope and change. We need to organise to ensure it does.
– Sean Vernell, incoming NEC member (2026-28)
House Against Hate gig in Trafalgar Square, 28 March 2026
It’s now only a few days until what looks set to be one of the biggest demonstrations against the far right in many years. Let’s make sure the UCU bloc is big and loud – bring your banners and your colleagues! 📍We’ll meet at midday at “Start Zone C, Position 7” https://maps.app.goo.gl/Dg4jCd2QxSTELULQ7 🚌 If you’ve not got transport yet, you can find coach tickets here https://www.togetheralliance.org.uk/getting-there 🪩 At the end of the march, Trafalgar Square will be turned into one big free party with artists such as Ben UFO, Jessie Ware, Hot Chip, A Guy Called Gerald. More details here https://share.google/ZGdl358T7sHo0Qr6Q
Who is organising it? Saturday’s demonstration – Together Alliance – is being built by a very broad alliance of trade unions, faith groups and civil society organisations. It’s our chance to stand together in love, hope and unity. Why is it being organised? In September, Tommy Robinson brought over 100,000 people to London for his “Uniting the Kingdom” demonstration. Not everyone attending was racist, but the speeches were deeply racist, and the event was organised by far-right figures. Reform UK are currently topping opinion polls. They already control 10 councils and are aiming to take more. In places like Greater Lincolnshire, Reform-led councils are cutting ESOL provision from 2027, claiming it does not support “natives”. Society may feel increasingly divided, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Where communities have mobilised against Reform UK in local elections, they have successfully challenged their narrative and shown that they do not represent the interests of working-class people. Why is it good to march with your trade union? 1. It gives us confidence and to others in UCU that we will stand up to racists & fascists, and we are right to do so. 2. It demonstrates to the government and politicians that we will oppose their racist narratives and divisive, damaging policies. 3. When the demo is covered by the media and seen by passers-by – a large, visible trade union bloc helps grow the movement by encouraging others to join us and get active. 4. It sends a signal to our union leaders that members are ready to take on the far right in the workplaces and on the streets. That’s why it is important to stand together as our UCU bloc. Please bring your banners and your colleagues. ✊🏽 Marching as our union bloc shows we’re organised. We will stand together in our workplaces and on the streets. We stand united.
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.
