Tag: democracy

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Strategy, democracy and the GS election

UCU General Secretary-incumbent Jo Grady has made a number of claims in her election campaign.

In particular, she says that were she re-elected she would treat her strategy, as outlined in her manifesto, as being ‘endorsed’ by members, and expect all members of the union, including elected members of the NEC, to follow it.

This is profoundly undemocratic for obvious reasons.

Strategy

The first problem with her approach is that the strategy itself cannot work. Any industrial strategy based on a limited industrial action programme set in advance is certain to fail simply because the employers will change their response depending on what the union does! The saying “no plan survives contact with the enemy” is attributed to Moltke the Elder, a German WWI general, but the point is well made.

You don’t need to look very far to see obvious examples. The strength of the Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) in 2022 and the early part of 2023 lay in the fact that the employers did not know who was participating and therefore how to respond. On the other hand, the weakness of the MAB in 2023 came from the paralysis at the top of the union as Jo Grady and her supporters left members to hang out to dry over the summer.

Jo Grady herself had to abandon her ‘build now, fight later’ strategy in the summer of 2022 when rising inflation propelled members to support the #ucuRISING campaign.

Changing economic circumstances meant that it was politically unsustainable to advocate such an approach, and instead she had to call for members to vote to take action over pay. But she had no plan to follow through. She bypassed elected negotiations, agreed to stop negotiations over pay with the employers and tried to divert negotiations onto pay-related matters at ACAS.

Despite the rhetoric, Jo Grady has no militant strategy to defend our sectors. But worse, as a top-down leader who sees members’ industrial action as a walk-on-part in stage-managed actions, she struggles to adapt her strategy to face new challenges, such as the current employers’ offensive over jobs and conditions in HE. Moreover, it is profoundly mistaken to see industrial militancy as something which can be turned on and off like a tap. Union members will take action when they are confident they have a union leadership which listens regularly to members and which is capable of following a consistent industrial action strategy. But Jo Grady’s tenure of the General Secretaryship has been marked by stop-start inconsistency and demotivation of members.

Democracy

The second problem with her approach is that it is undemocratic. Trade union democracy is far more developed than Westminster elections: elections take place annually, replacing half of the executive committees each time, and policies made at national union conferences are binding on the executive.

In our union the rule is simple: members make policy decisions, and executive committees carry them out. This rule applies to union branches and to the national executive committee structure of our union. Congress is binding on NEC and HE and FE Sector Conference resolutions are binding on HEC and FEC. Rule 18.1 says

18.1 The National Executive Committee shall be the principal executive committee of the Union, and shall be responsible for the execution of policy and the conduct of the general business of the Union between meetings of National Congress, and shall abide by decisions passed at National Congress, subject to the Rules. The HEC and FEC shall abide by and implement the decisions passed by their respective Sector Conferences.

By contrast, governing parties in Westminster make decisions in cabinet. In some cases, parties impose policies that were never in their manifestos. Famously, in 1997, following a landslide election, Tony Blair introduced £1,000 university tuition fees, in order to begin a process of marketisation of Higher Education, a proposal entirely absent from the Labour Party manifesto. One can point to numerous other examples!

What Jo Grady is demanding is a centralisation of power around her manifesto that is incompatible with the rules of the union. If she and her supporters wished to make her proposals they would be obliged to win a vote in a quorate union branch meeting, put the motion to Congress or Conference, and then win a vote in those meetings. She wants to bypass both members and debate.

The General Secretary has tried to impose her strategy on the union three times already, and whenever it has been put to a vote, she has lost heavily. Now she is trying to wrap it up in the mantle of her GS election campaign.

But a small proportion of members tend to vote in this election, and they do so by choosing between candidates, not detailed strategy documents. Her strategy has no popular support, hence her attempt to present a vote for her as a vote for her strategy.

If you have not voted yet in the elections, please do vote!

What is increasingly at stake in this GS election is not just a vote for different candidates, but a vote for the future of our union as a democratic and effective union..

Do we want a member-led union which builds on the best of our democratic processes, where the General Secretary does what members tell her to do? Or do we want a union where democracy is reversed, and the members are expected to do what the General Secretary wants?

The alternative

We need to face up to the reality of industrial relations in post-16 education. The days of partnership with management and quiet words in the ear of the Head of Personnel have long gone — if they ever existed. Vice Chancellors want to see “blood on the carpet” and a weakening of our union. They have shown they don’t care about students or the quality of their degree teaching or marking. Most Further Education principals don’t implement national pay offers.

Our pay and conditions are under assault by university and college employers thanks to increasing inflation on top of a toxic combination of market competition, division, and a race to the bottom.

We should not underestimate divide and rule. Not every member is made redundant simultaneously. Some may be prepared to take voluntary redundancy if they don’t see a prospect for a fightback. Not every member takes part in industrial action at the moment.

We need to develop a culture in our union which encourages members to meet together, stick together and participate in strikes together.

To defend our jobs and rates of pay, we must organise members at the grassroots of the union and build members’ confidence to take action. Crucially, this means being honest. It means not abandoning them when the chips are down. Our members need a leadership who will support them when they resist. This means following through on decisions when they are made, like reballoting over the summer.

We have to rebuild UK-wide disputes because otherwise we are forced into fighting over what every individual employer tells us they can afford. Our employers will plead poverty. This is a recipe for a Hobson’s Choice between jobs and pay. HE will become more like FE just as our FE colleagues are attempting to get national pay bargaining back on the agenda.

Nothing argued here is “against strategy”: rather UCU Left is opposed to counterposing the idea of a strategy to the task of real-world organising. In fact, a serious industrial strategy means organising to fight on the terrain where the employers are weak and we are strong. It means, for example, preparing the political ground for industrial action, such as targeting professional bodies accrediting courses before a MAB.

But the best way to guarantee members have confidence in an industrial strategy is simply this: they themselves must be part of developing it in practice under the changing conditions of the struggle.

This means increasing democracy. We need members to have democratic control of strike action and MABs, continually day-by-day, week-by-week, through the development of strike committees in branches, and, in national disputes, linked up UK-wide.

The basic principle that members who take action should control that action is unanswerable.

But this is not just a moral imperative. We should never underestimate our strength.

As a group of workers, we are immensely strong. Other people can’t easily teach our courses or mark our students’ work. If we increase participation in our action, we can be more solid and effective still. That is why the HE employers pulled out all the stops to try to break our action last summer, risking their public reputations and their wider employment relations with staff. It is why FE employers pay better levels of pay to members in better organised and more militant branches.

But for members to have confidence in collective action they need to control it.

In a truly member-led union, democracy and strategy go hand in hand.

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What happened to the ‘national’ FE dispute?

Westminster Kingsway picket line 2023

Last week saw UCU members in FE on strike over pay, workload and national binding bargaining (i.e. a pay rise that is paid to every branch). The strikes were well supported with large, vibrant pickets – many members were out for the first time. Billed as a national ‘Respect FE’ campaign members were initially excited to be on the offensive, but the campaign failed to provide this national fightback. What happened?

In March, an aggregated consultative ballot led to a historic result – a 51% turnout with a resounding 87% YES vote for national action. Members were angry. Pay, in real terms, has declined 35% since 2009, staff are increasingly ground down by unmanageable workloads and micro-management. A quarter of teachers leave within their first year, and two thirds of current staff would leave the sector if they could. FE is in crisis and a fightback is more urgent than ever.

For the first time since incorporation in 1993, when colleges severed their links from local government and became individual entities, the threat of national action brought the possibility of regaining national binding bargaining. In the national pay talks in June, the Association of Colleges (the body that represents the FE employers) agreed to ‘exploratory’ talks.

However, this opportunity was squandered. In March nearly 150 branches were balloted, by the statutory ballot in late August only 88 branches were. This ballot was held at a time when FE staff are incredibly busy with the start of term and enrolling students. 13 branches were pulled out during the ballot as they reached below inflation pay deals. By the end of the ballot period, only 32 branches beat the anti-trade union 50% threshold. The national leverage UCU had, was gone.

So how did this ‘national’ campaign start to fall apart?

According to the General Secretary Jo Grady and her team it was for three main reasons. First, the AoC recommendation of 6.5% in September was timed to undermine the vote. Second, that pay was the most important issue for members and that national binding bargaining wasn’t resonating with them. Third, that branches were not ready for strike action. We do not agree with that assessment and instead argue it was due to a lack of leadership and a flawed understanding of how to build a successful national campaign.

At the Respect FE Rally held on the first day of strike action (where no striking worker was on the platform of 7 speakers) the GS argued we needed to win 100% of our members to the arguments and that’s where we now needed to focus our attention. However, rarely is a strike supported by 100% – it only requires a majority of members. Action taken by some can then provide confidence to others.

Moreover, despite publicly supporting the national campaign, almost half of the Further Education Committee didn’t even participate in the ballot. In some of these branches, they had beat the 50% threshold, but still they settled for local deals well below inflation without firing a shot. This sent a clear message that the priority was local branch deals rather than fighting to level up the whole sector and make sure no branch was left behind.

Before the consultative ballot and throughout this campaign, there has been a call by some within the national FE leadership and within some branches to maintain and respect local branch autonomy. They argue that the national union can’t “tell branches what to do.” Of course, the national union can never tell members that they have to strike – but they can provide leadership and solidarity that can give branches the confidence to take action and fight for better deals. We would question, what do they want autonomy from? Do they want autonomy from the national union? If so, it begs the question – why are they in a national union at all? A basic principle of trade unionism is our collective national strength. We are much weaker when we fight on a branch by branch basis. The majority of colleges will not even implement the AoC recommendation leaving the majority of our members with a cost of living pay rise. As a union our power lies with our ability to take national action.

It is not surprising that the AoC outmanoeuvred UCU with their pay offer. The national office made little reference to workloads, an issue that is leading many to leave the sector. And they did even less to raise and popularise the idea of a national binding bargaining. Many members still ask what this is despite the 9-month campaign.

The GS openly stated it had been difficult to popularise national binding bargaining as it wasn’t “sexy”. Well, most things in FE trade unionism aren’t “sexy”! But what are members calling for? Not to be left behind school teachers pay deals, which are based on national binding bargaining. Not to be struggling to pay their bills and struggle to have a good standard of living. Not to be working 12+ hours for free due to gruelling workloads.

We need a radical change in UCU’s national industrial strategy within FE. Otherwise, the sector will continue to be left behind and divided with members left alone fighting their individual employers.

Regi Pilling (FE Women’s Rep NEC & UCU Branch Secretary at Westminster Kingsway College)
Alyson James (UCU Branch Chair at Westminster Kingsway College)
Outcheuma Ezekiel (UCU Branch Rep at City and Islington College)

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What is going on in the HE national negotiations?

Summary

  • These talks concern ending the Marking and Assessment Boycott
  • Pay, casualisation, workload and pay gaps are not on this table: at best, these talks may lead to restarting negotiations
  • Employers are not making an improved pay offer, but have offered a ‘review of sector finances’
  • We need to launch the summer reballot, not just for leverage now, but to keep up pressure in the autumn
  • Democracy is essential: any offer must be put to a Branch Delegate Meeting before going to HEC and an e-ballot

On Friday, members received an email from the General Secretary about the talks with UCEA. A rather cryptic ‘joint statement’ between UCU and UCEA has been published on UCEA’s website.

Members are engaged in a Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) in order to persuade employers to increase their offer on pay and engage in meaningful negotiations over casualisation, workload and pay gaps.

We all know that the MAB has been difficult to carry out. On top of the professional and personal sacrifice, it is extremely stressful for staff. Members are facing up to threats of 100% pay deductions and often prolonged deductions. These threats have already been carried out in many cases, and some members have even received zero pay!

But we are doing this in order to move the employers on the demands of the dispute. The scale of this action and its impact is due to the cumulative anger in the sector of staff who have seen employers hold down pay and continue abusive practices of casualisation and overwork. The MAB is less like a strike and more like an underground organised movement that has included staff who did not take part in strike action in the past.

The joint statement says

Today’s exploratory talks between UCEA, UCU and the other joint unions’ side secretary were constructive, although there is still significant ground to be covered. We have explored obstacles to resuming negotiations and bringing an end to the Marking and Assessment Boycott, with both sides recognising the complexity of the issues. Both sides welcomed the positive tone of the discussion and have identified dates for further urgent talks. Further discussion will also take place with the Joint HE Trade Unions to consider the scope and remit of a review of sector finances.

This statement after the first day of negotiations follows a letter from UCU General Secretary Jo Grady to UCEA two weeks ago. In this letter she set out terms of reference for an ‘interim agreement’ and the following approach to negotiations:

  • Any suspension will require UCEA to recommend an immediate end to punitive pay deductions and a return of deductions to members.
  • Any suspension will require a commitment from employers to recognise staff’s entitlement to leave and to a reasonable workload on their return to normal working.
  • Any interim agreement will be subject to consultation with UCU members.
  • University staff have already rejected the 5% pay award UCEA began imposing in February (2023), and continue to demand that UCEA improve pay to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.

The employers have refused to talk to the unions about pay since they declared the pay offer for August 2023 as ‘final’ in February. They placed preconditions on negotiations on casualisation, workload, pay gaps and ‘the review of the pay spine’ (considering whether to delete and adjust salary points at the lower end of the national pay scale) that ruled out any industrial action by any trade union for the duration of those negotiations.

So why are they talking now, and what does this ‘positive tone’ refer to?

Decoding the statement

In order to decode the statement we have to read the bullet points in Jo Grady’s letter. This sets out UCU negotiators’ brief as to negotiate an end to the MAB.

On the one hand, an agreement to stop and return any deductions made would obviously be welcome. But if the employers wish student work to be marked by staff who set assessments and taught the students in the first place, it will be essential anyway!

With the exception of Queen Mary, which faced significant strike action, and Goldsmiths, which was in a parallel local dispute over redundancies, no deductions were made for MAB participation last year. Although this negotiation is more complicated with 145 institutions at the national table rather than at 30 local ones, the realpolitik is essentially the same.

But what about actual positive movement on the issues of the dispute? What is the substance of the statement?

The final bullet point is unclear. It seems only to ask the employers to note that the unions continue to demand an increased pay offer, but not to commit to it.

The UCEA statement says ‘[f]urther discussion will also take place with the Joint HE Trade Unions to consider the scope and remit of a review of sector finances.’ But ‘a review of sector finances’ means ‘open the books’ at best. It does not put new money on the table. Given the financial speculation and capital overspend that many universities have engaged in over the last decade, this review could easily turn into a platform for the employers to plead poverty. It is likely that many will.

UCU is currently negotiating the end of the MAB without demanding a concrete commitment from the employers to move on the Four Fights – the entire point of the dispute. By contrast, branches in the MAB last year were able to extract concrete commitments from their employers, and in some cases additional payments, as a condition of ending the MAB.

What can we do at this critical point in our dispute?

We have to stop our union giving away our leverage. It is not enough to say ‘hold the line’ if these negotiations will be the end of the line!

The first step is to call a summer reballot and demand that other Sector Conference decisions are respected and implemented, as members have a right to expect. It is possible, within UCU rules, for the relevant officers to trigger the ballot. Of course this should have happened at the last HEC meeting, however, the agenda item which would have triggered the ballot was ‘timed out’ by other business.

The reballot must begin immediately. If the employers are kicking negotiations over pay into next term, we need those talks to begin in the context of a credible threat of industrial action. Other trade unions, including UNISON, are lining up to take strike action next term.

Launching the reballot will also send a strong signal to the employers in the current negotiations that members expect a better deal right now.

The second step is to demand that any offer from the employers is put to an official Branch Delegate Meeting (BDM) before an HEC meeting is convened to discuss it. This is the very least we should expect, and has been how UCU has consulted over negotiations since 2018. Yet it seems that sections of the UCU leadership are averse to doing this. Could it be that they worry that branch reps won’t stand for a sell-out?

Calling a BDM is a basic requirement. Local branches negotiating the end to the MAB last year put offers to branch meetings and debated whether the offer was good enough. But there was no official BDM called ahead of the last HEC meeting which voted (by a majority of one) to approach the employers with these conditions.

Democracy is not an added extra. It is essential to our union’s health and strength. Whether one thinks that an ultimate offer is a good or bad one, we must not let our union slide further into undemocratic practices. Nor must we permit the undermining of reps and activists who have led the MAB in the branches, and every single member who is holding the line for their union right now in the face of management intimidation.

Passing motions

An example model motion is the following (passed at KCL on 12 July)

MAB for the win!

This branch believes that

  1. the MAB is currently exerting huge pressure on the employers
  2. now is not the time to offer concessions
  3. the offer of an ‘interim agreement’ sends a dangerous signal that we have no stomach for the fight.

This branch calls for

  1. an urgent BDM to discuss the MAB
  2. the decisions of Sector Conference to be respected and implemented, including the summer reballot, which should begin immediately.

This branch resolves to contact our geographical and UK-wide representatives on HEC to explain the way they voted on the key motions at last Friday’s meeting and under what circumstances they would vote to overturn decisions made by HE Sector Conference.

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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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No more ‘pauses’ – no suspension of action! Strike to win!

Tuesday’s #UCURising reps briefing has caused a huge amount of confusion ahead of our six days of strike action.

No new information about progress in the talks materialised.

All we learned was that there ‘may’ be some progress on USS, and that ‘some agreement’ is close on how the issues of casualisation, pay gaps and workloads might be addressed in the future.

  • Pay: The only pay-related item currently on the table is compression of the pay spine (the result of higher increases on lower spine points reducing pay differentials between them). Correcting this is unlikely to put money in UCU members’ pockets, and may make only a small difference to the lowest paid. There has been no further offer from the employers over headline pay. Members still face a two-year 15% pay cut against inflation.
  • USS: On USS there has been an interim statement with employers agreeing to prioritise benefit restoration ‘if it can be done in a sustainable manner.’ However, there has been no firm commitment to benefit restoration, and a lot could still go wrong.

In other words, there is no offer that represents tangible progress in the disputes, and there is not likely to be one this week.

In spite of this, it seems that branches will be asked to elect delegates in preparation for an ‘emergency’ BDM which may take place as early as this Thursday, and be followed by an ‘emergency’ HEC to take decisions on the action.

Why? The only reason can be that the General Secretary and the President-elect want to call off our strikes. The silence from HQ about these six days of action has been deafening.

Jo Grady has learned, however, that calling off strikes unilaterally produces a negative response from members. Instead, it looks like an emergency BDM will be used as a mechanism to try and bounce the HEC into calling off the action.

Democracy takes time

We are in favour of holding BDMs to update members in the course of disputes and to involve them in decisions about action.

But as of March 15, no-one apart from a select few even knows what is on the table!

A BDM called at no notice to discuss an ‘offer’ which does not yet exist — and which delegates will barely get sight of in advance — is even less democratic than some of the recent BDMs have been.

To be effective and democratic, BDMs need to be preceded by branch meetings at which the issues are discussed, votes are taken and delegates are elected and mandated. This ensures that members can consider the arguments for and against, delegates vote according to branch positions and decisions, and don’t just represent themselves.

This kind of democratic process will be impossible ahead of a BDM on Thursday. Members are mobilised for the strike. Many are attending Budget Day demonstrations on Wednesday and will have no time to meet.

Indeed, the only reason for the rush to do this on Thursday seems to be because the NEC meets on Friday all day!

We have to go forward

What is at stake is not just a few days of strike action but the future of the entire dispute.

We need to insist that no more of our planned strikes are called off. The GS’s ‘pause’ set back our campaign by destroying our momentum and causing confusion among members. We lifted the pressure from the employers at the crucial time, with the inevitable result that the employers imposed a pay award comprising two years’ worth of pay cuts instead of just one.

We have already wasted too much of this six-month mandate to call off more strikes. Every time we do, the employers are emboldened.

Strike. Vote. Win.

Strikes now at the end of term have substantial leverage with the employers because they prevent remedial ‘catch up’ teaching ahead of exams next term (in some universities this is the last week of teaching). Were we to stand down action next week, it would lead to immediate demands on members to catch up with teaching and undermine our own strikes. Of course we are not just a union of lecturers. But teaching is time-constrained, and it is a mistake to think otherwise.

But ultimately the main message will be obvious. Cancelling strikes tells members and employers that the union is not confident of winning. The pressure on employers is immediately lifted. And it will make it harder to win the reballot we need to mount a marking and assessment boycott next term — and harder to carry it out, for fear of a repeat of more start-stop sabotage.

No Capitulation. Unity is Strength.

Build the Pickets. Keep up the Action.

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For action that can win – shut down the campuses!

After weeks of silence and prevarication, the General Secretary has finally announced the decisions on industrial action taken by the Higher Education Committee (HEC).

We welcome the news that the marking and assessment boycott (MAB) is to be notified to start in January. But at the same time Jo Grady has undermined our unity by publicly declaring her opposition to all-out strike action just one hour before negotiations with the employers began!

Why did HEC take the decisions that it did?

HEC voted for an early marking boycott because, as twenty branches proved in the summer, it is a powerful weapon that needs to be used before our ballot mandate expires. At the time, the GS opposed that decision, telling us that the majority for a MAB at the Branch Delegate Meeting (BDM) was not big enough. We are glad she has changed her mind.

The decision for all-out indefinite strike action was taken because HEC members understand we are in the fight of our lives. We have taken blocks of action before and the employers have dug their heels in and waited it out. Members have watched the post and rail bosses do the same in response to the CWU’s and RMT’s action. The BDM was not allowed to consider all-out action, but this is how we carry out Jo Grady’s promise to ‘shut down the campuses in Semester 2.’

This is not ‘playing in the hands of our employers,’ but taking action that can win. Pacing ourselves by spreading out the action over months will not work in circumstances where the bosses and the Tories are determined to hold the line. The cost-of-living crisis has raised the stakes. If we fail to break through, our employers will have carte blanche not only to continue cutting our pay, but to impose mass sackings and contract changes. The future of our union is at stake.

Democracy

To win these disputes members need to be in control. They have to know that the union’s leaders are accountable and that the decisions of our elected bodies are not going to be ignored. We need strike committees in every institution with delegates empowered to make decisions on our disputes at a UK-wide level.

UCU Left members were among the majority at HEC that voted for a January marking boycott followed by all-out indefinite action. We were right to do so. We have a powerful mandate for action. We can’t afford to waste it.

If you support action that can win, vote for UCU Left candidates in the forthcoming NEC elections.

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How many times must members be surveyed before they are permitted to fight?

Branch reps in mandated UCU branches were astonished to read yet another email on Monday from HQ asking them whether or not members were ready to launch a marking and assessment boycott. They were asked to respond in 24 hours.

Branches had been told to expect an email of Frequently Asked Questions about the marking boycott. But in this email there was no statement about how the boycott would be actioned and members supported. Nothing about the mechanics of the marking boycott and how strike action might back up ASOS – only that deductions ‘would face the immediate threat of strike action’.

It is not surprising that ordinary branch activists, reps and members feel abandoned. From the very start of this dispute rank and file reps have had to fight to push it forward, and ever since the last ballot mandate, the General Secretary has made it clear she favours not using it. Branches feel surveyed to death!

After delayed SHESCs, branch delegate meetings and HECs, and delays in issuing the mandate so that in many branches marking has mostly been done, members can see that the GS does not want the marking boycott to go ahead.

Democracy in our dispute

Perhaps most shockingly, the message asked reps whether their branch would continue to fight if others dropped out, either because the timing was wrong or members did not feel supported. The email sought to undermine the very premise of trade union collective action in a national dispute. This is a profoundly anti-democratic proposal.

The democratic solution is to call an urgent branch delegate meeting for branch reps with a mandate, to thrash out what the union should do. That is precisely what Motion 6 at both SHESCs called for.

Until such time as branches collectively decide to stand down a marking boycott, it should go ahead. In the meantime, there is no time to lose. No action should be stood down, and HQ should get their FAQs out!

Twinning, solidarity and keeping up the fight

Branches currently without a mandate need to invite reps from branches with a mandate to ‘twin’ and raise funds to support whatever action they decide to take.

Members not taking action should be encouraged to think about serious donations, such as a day’s pay for every week that a branch is boycotting. This way we can ensure members who do face pay docking are supported.

And we need to start preparing the ground now for a long reballot over the summer, to bring as many branches out as possible together at the start of term.

The stakes are extremely high. On the one hand we can all see universities like De Montfort and Wolverhampton attempting to make cuts in Higher Education.

On the other, the employers can be forced to concede over Four Fights, pay and pensions. The employers are exposed over their complicity in making unnecessary USS cuts, and some are prepared to offer huge bribes to staff to break the strike. We can win, but we need to stand together.

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Seize the Time, Don’t Abandon the Fight

We all know we are in the fight of our lives.

But the General Secretary’s ‘new plan of action for the four fights dispute’ is a radical-sounding document that abandons the Four Fights dispute until a year’s time, and pulls back from defending the USS pension scheme at the very moment the employers are cutting it back.

It is unsurprising that union reps are speaking out spontaneously against this plan.

We are told that continuing action at this point would be ‘conservative’, whereas the ‘radical and militant’ response to the greatest attack on our standard of living for 30 years is to… halt the fight for a year! Inflation is hitting 9 percent, but our union’s leadership is telling its members – with a live dispute and mandate – to put up with it, and fight another time!

Reading this document, you wouldn’t have thought that the union had just recorded overwhelming majorities for strike action and ASOS. Reps are lectured on ‘democracy’ after winning votes!

We are told that this is the way we can increase union density, but this flies in the face of our own union’s history. In 2018, pre-92 HE branches grew by 50% in a couple of months as they readied for strikes. That happened because members want to know the union will defend them, individually and collectively. On the other hand, shutting down the national fight against casualisation sends precisely the wrong signal to members on casual contracts.

The General Secretary is counterposing union recruitment to industrial action. Her theory of the ‘supermajority‘ says that the reason why strikes win is because union density is high. But this is not correct. UCU was a third smaller in the pre-92 USS ballot in 2018 than in 2021. And some branches with high membership density – like Goldsmiths – are under remorseless attack.

In fact, industrial action is won by workers when employers recognise that refusing to concede to union demands will be more costly than any perceived benefits. That cost can be economic (e.g. damaging reputations and recruitment, etc), but it can also be political (causing a political crisis for the employers, as in 2018). 

For everyone who has stood on the picket lines in the wind and rain, and spent weeks fighting to get the vote out, the General Secretary’s pre-prepared ruminations will be a massive disappointment.  On the other hand, members who voted for action but failed to take it themselves will read it as a signal that the union is not serious. 

Democracy

Jo Grady was elected after her predecessor, Sally Hunt, sought to abandon the USS fight. She was elected as an expression of UCU members’ will to resist. However her response to the present attacks on UCU members looks little different to Sally Hunt’s.

The latest round of ballots saw members once again vote overwhelmingly for action. Had this ballot taken place before the Tory Anti-Union Law of 2016 was introduced, we would be all able to take strike action. Branches have asked their members whether they support strikes and ASOS. And they have voted Yes!

Even if you are in a union branch that failed to get over the Tory threshold and cannot take action, with very rare exceptions, in branch after branch members have overwhelmingly voted for action. That’s democracy. 

It is wrong to interpret non-votes as no votes. Firstly, it is anti-democractic in principle. This is why quorums for general meetings are low, to ensure that members turn up and participate in debates and vote for and against motions.

Secondly, it is not consistent with the evidence. Members do not vote for a variety of reasons, as anyone who has engaged with a Get the Vote Out (GTVO) campaign can report, from lost papers to house moves and pre-arranged leave. This explains why branches with well-organised GTVO campaigns chasing and nudging members to vote have been repeatedly able to get high turnouts. It is also why Yes vote percentages tend to be remarkably stable even when turnout fluctuates. 

The three-week ballot insisted upon by UCU HQ, at the end of the second term and into the Easter break, left many branches close below the 50 percent threshold. Another week would have brought more branches over the line, and two more weeks, as voted for by HEC, could have changed the picture enormously. 

Some members complained that replacement ballot papers arrived at home on the final Friday, and rep reports show members saying they were voting right up until the end. The ballot deadline combined with the postal voting process cut voters short.

A plan to win

The General Secretary is now trying to lobby union reps and activists over their heads, to persuade branches to stand down the action that members have just voted for. Yet a calibrated plan and a mobilisation of the whole union could win these disputes. 

At the current time, some 40 branches can still take action on exams in Term 3. Everyone knows this action will need the whole union to rally around.

  • A marking boycott organised on a ‘Liverpool basis’ requires a positive outward campaign across the membership to sponsor strikers, fundraise on a massive scale, and ensure that every participant knows the whole union is behind them, practically and financially.
  • Members in non-striking branches would be more than willing to contribute to sponsor colleagues. These branches need to organise too. The USS rank-and-file legal challenge shows the scale of fundraising we need.
  • And a ballot over the summer in the context of a hard-hitting fightback makes sense. It could see us all ready to take on the employers right at the start of the autumn term.

The General Secretary says this is a war. But you don’t win wars by telling the enemy you are too weak to fight, and would they mind if we came back in a year?! The attacks on Goldsmiths colleagues, and the employers’ general intransigence show that they are likely to see such a declaration as a sign of weakness.

We are now told that despite previous attempts to de-couple the USS dispute from Four Fights that it’s OK to keep them coordinated – as long as we fight in a year’s time! But this makes no sense. Why would giving the employers free rein for a year make them more likely to reverse the changes? With the next valuation in 2023, backing off now looks like an invitation to the employers to push for 100% Defined Contribution!

Even USS Limited admit there is no need for ‘Deficit Recovery Contributions’, and that these could be spent on members’ pensions. This represents an open goal – if we fight.

Debating the way forward 

Members deserve a serious strategy. Instead we are told is to ‘keep our powder dry’ while the university employers drive through attacks on staff and students alike. Demobilisation is a recipe for defeat and demoralisation, not union-building.

We cannot allow the work by UCU reps and members to be wasted. We need to stand up for union democracy and stand by the ballot.

Two meetings have been called to debate the way forward:

In our strikes and ballots, members learned to trust each other, not the official union machine.

We are the union, and we need to fight for the future of our sector.

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Democracy Now! How can members control our disputes?

The issue of union democracy has again become important in the context of UCU’s higher education disputes.

Many members are wondering how the Higher Education Committee (HEC) could blatantly ignore the views expressed at the previous Branch Delegate Meeting (BDM) when they took decisions about our forthcoming industrial action.

No delegate argued for decoupling the two disputes, and no delegate made the case for rolling regional one-day strikes. And yet that is what HEC voted for.

Fury at this democratic deficit has led to branches passing motions for an emergency Special HE Sector Conference and to a demand for a further Branch Delegate Meeting, with voting powers, before the next HEC meeting.

Democracy is the life-blood

Democracy is central to fighting industrial disputes effectively. This is because unlike an army, those making sacrifices to fight cannot simply be ordered around. Union members need to feel that we have a stake in the battle and a say in how it is conducted. If members believe that the strategy will be ineffective, or that their leaders will settle for less than they should, support for the dispute will quickly erode.

Democratic involvement is not an optional extra. It is essential to being able to win.

The last time a row about democracy exploded in UCU was in the USS dispute in 2018. The famous #NoCapitulation revolt by members stopped the the then General Secretary signing a shoddy deal. To avoid motions critical of the GS being debated at Congress later that year, the leadership unplugged the microphones and turned out the lights. Congress ended early, but not before it had set up a Democracy Commission comprising elected union members to propose ways to enhance democracy in the union.

Dispute committees

One of the proposals drawn up by the Democracy Commission was for dispute committees to be set up in every dispute, composed of delegates from each of the branches involved. The dispute committee would debate the strategy and tactics of the dispute and no decision about the conduct of the dispute could be taken without its approval. Dispute committees would ensure that control of disputes was in the hands of the members fighting them and prevent settlements that the majority of branches opposed.

Unfortunately, at the Democracy Congress in December 2019, this proposal narrowly failed to gain the two-thirds majority required to bring it in. Opponents argued that it undermined the authority of the HEC and the Further Education Committee (FEC) — which was precisely the point — and that holding such meetings would be impractical and expensive. The pandemic has taught us otherwise.

Nevertheless, it is already constitutionally the case that the National Executive Committee’s (NEC) role is to enact the policy set by members, not to determine it. What mechanisms do we have to ensure that it, and its two subcommittees, HEC and FEC, behave democratically? Continue reading “Democracy Now! How can members control our disputes?”

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Report on NEC Briefing on Section 44 and collective action

UCU’s National Executive Committee met for the first time this year on 22nd January for a “briefing” and discussion on the potential for collective action in colleges and universities in defence of members facing the risks of in person activity during the worsening Covid-19 pandemic. We were disappointed that NEC members were not allowed to bring motions or make any policy decisions at the meeting but pleased that we were able to discuss some of our key concerns

The meeting was reminded of legal protections offered in the Employment Rights Act 1976 and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 providing individual workers with the right to refuse to work in an environment within which an immediate danger to life exists and imposes a requirement on employers to take reasonable steps to ensure employees’ safety. Referred to in abbreviated form as ‘Section 44 and 100’, UCU has developed a range of draft letters members can use to demand the right to refuse to undertake in-person activities:

https://www.ucu.org.uk/covid19letters

NEC members heard a detailed report on how the National Education Union successfully mobilised its members in halting the re-opening of schools earlier in January. As a result Gavin Williamson was forced into a humiliating climbdown and closed schools just one day after opening. The NEU were hugely successful because of the on-going discussions and involvement of members taking place at all levels. The strong leadership shown by NEU and its NEC in campaigning for mass use of Section 44 and 100, by encouraging members and non-members to submit letters to their school Heads, and the co-ordination of this through their branch and reps network, was crucial to this. NEU’s level of organisation is far beyond what UCU is doing. In NEU processes for industrial action ballots have been fast tracked and steamlined, and all NEC members are required to work with local branches to co-ordinate the use of Section 44 and 100 letters and then report back to the NEC, to ensure accountability of elected members. Branches and reps at local levels are organising WhatsApp groups to facilitate immediate communication with members. As a result, NEU have been able to repeatedly call national meetings of thousands of reps at just a few days’ notice and held a historically unique meeting of 400,000 participants.

The briefing also heard from the UCU General Secretary and other officials about the actions the union has taken in supporting individual members; including Jo Grady’s welcome public statements calling on universities and colleges to move away from in-person activities or face industrial action from UCU. These include the success at Northumbria University which was the first union branch in the UK to successfully ballot over section 44 and 100, and at individual colleges, such as New City College, where the UCU branch replicated the initiatives of the NEU and rapidly stopped in-person teaching last week without a ballot. Notwithstanding these individual examples, the overall approach of the UCU leadership has unfortunately been in stark contrast to the mass mobilisation, national strategy and strong collective action taken by NEU. In general, UCU’s strategy has been to focus upon individual rather than collective approaches, placing a servicing rather than an organising model at that heart of our response. We have not matched anything in NEU and more problematically not attempted to emulate their experience. We have struggled to get the nationally elected bodies to meet and members meetings are top down affairs restricting engagement and discussion. Even our NEC emergency meeting was a ‘briefing’, with only a short time for discussion and devoid of any potential for decision making. Astonishingly in the face of the public health crisis, the NEC is not set to meet again until 19th March.

Following the briefings NEC members had the opportunity to discuss the UCU response to the pandemic.  Across the NEC there was extensive frustration over this servicing model approach which clashes with the understanding of the lessons taken from the Strike School which recognises the importance of bold, decisive action and the mobilisation of the membership at the heart of our approach to winning demands. It was argued repeatedly by NEC members that this is impacting especially hard on our Black, disabled, women and casualised members, as we are well aware that inequalities have been reinforced due to the Covid crisis. These frustrations were not directed at staff, who are recognised as working as hard as the members in ensuring the union operates in the midst of the pandemic. However, it was recognised that the NEC does need to look at the extent to which our staffing is sufficient for an organising union.

NEC member after member across the board spoke of the increasing dangers of the working environment in both FE and HE, and in our communities, with moving references to the loss of friends, family and colleagues to COVID.  Many reps expressed the view that there is no time to wait, and UCU leadership needs to urgently build collective action to assert our right to work safely. Disappointingly the General Secretary made no commitment to take on-board elected representatives’ concerns, focusing instead on the logistical challenges of organising mass online meetings. It is clear from NEU’s experience that not only is such mobilisation possible, it is also essential.

Fortunately, due to pressures from NEC members, both FEC and HEC are due to meet over the next few weeks. These need to move quickly to change the direction of the leadership of the union. While most universities and colleges have very limited in-person activity the current branches resisting job cuts and the return to in-person working show the need for urgent, nationally co-ordinated, robust action by UCU. The terrible deaths of our members, such as Donna Coleman at Burnley College, cannot be allowed to be replicated by our managements which will put ours’, and our students’, health at risk for their profits.