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.