UCU elections: A Pyrrhic victory for Jo Grady as left gains majority of seats

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

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

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

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

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

There is a clear appetite for change within the union.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

22 January 202428 January 2024

UCU Elections 2024

Why you should vote for UCU Left candidates

UCU Left is a large group of leading rank-and-file activists, officers and reps who are committed to making UCU both more effective and more democratic.

The sectors we work in are under attack. Further Education has lost a million course places over the last decade. The employers do not implement national agreements. But UCU’s strategy has been to take action branch by branch, employer by employer, with the vast majority of members left out in the cold.

Higher Education vice chancellors are lobbying to increase tuition fees for home students to £12,000 a year. They say that international student recruitment has been subsidizing teaching, and this is projected to fall thanks to the war in Palestine and the ‘hostile environment’. The market system that encouraged universities to splurge over £10bn on campuses after 2014 is now moving from boom to bust in the face of high inflation. The employers took the end of the Marking and Assessment Boycott as a cue to begin a massive offensive on jobs and conditions — and they are lining up for more next year.

We need a union leadership that faces up to that offensive. This means organising now at the grass roots, in our branches, building solidarity between branches under attack. But it also means electing leaders who will implement the democratic decisions of Congress and Sector Conference, and not pick and choose the ones they like.

We believe in member-led democracy. Unlike the factions supporting the current General Secretary, UCU Left members see conference decisions as ‘sovereign’ and believe our obligation as elected representatives is to carry them out.

Indeed, we believe that democracy in our union should be even more thoroughgoing, to ensure that when members take part in a strike or decide to boycott marking, they have real control over the future of that strike or MAB, through a directly-elected strike committee elected and recallable by members themselves. This is what happens in the best-organised branches in local strikes, and we should be scaling up this type of direct democracy in all our national disputes.

Read our opening leaflet

Meet our candidates

Select a candidate photo below for more information about them.

General Secretary – Saira Weiner Vote #1

Saira says:

I am standing for five principles:

Democracy – to defend the democratic structures of UCU
Control from below – so members have a real say
Strengthen the grassroots – empowering branches to defend members
Transparency and accountability – everyone in office is accountable
Trusting members – I will implement the decisions members make

My website • My manifesto • My election leaflet (PDF)

Vice President (from FE) – Peter Evans Vote #1

Peter says:

If elected, my objectives include:

Democracy – support rank and file organising and implement conference decisions
Equality for our 4 nations – bring UCU closer to the nations and level up
Workers’ rights – defend pay, conditions and pensions and the right to strike
Education – resist mergers and course closures, and defend academic freedom
Equality – fight oppression and ensure equality is the heart of our bargaining
Health – Covid is not over, work with our NHS colleagues to defend health
Internationalism – defend LGBTQ+ people around the world, welcome refugees and stand with Palestine

My website • My election leaflet (PDF)

UCU Trustee

1
Mike Barton

Ordinary members of the NEC

UK-elected FE

1 Naina Kent	2 Dharminder Chauhan
3 Saleem Rashid

UK-elected HE

1 Peta Bulmer	2 Saira Weiner
3 Alan Barker	4 Donna Brown

London and the East HE

1 Sean Wallis	2 Richard Wild
3 Roddy Slorach	4 Christina Paine

Wales HE

Philip Allsopp

Representatives of Women Members FE

Regine Pilling

Safia Flissi

Representatives of Women Members HE

1 Julie Hearn	2 Lesley Kane
3 Saira Weiner	4 Christina Paine

Other candidates

If you have unused preferences after voting for UCU Left candidates, we recommend using them for the following other candidates:

General Secretary: Vicky Blake

HE London and East HE: Dr Rhian Elinor Keyse, Nico Rosetti, Cecilia Wee

UK-elected HE: Grant Buttars, Marian Mayer, Dr Rhian Elinor Keyse, Sam Morecroft, Cecilia Wee

20 January 202420 January 2024

UCU Elections: time to transform UCU

large demonstration outside King's Cross railway station with UCU banners

Saira Weiner is standing for UCU General Secretary - click to view her campaign website — Our candidate for General Secretary: **Saira Weiner**

Peter Evans is standing for Vice President (from FE) - click to view his campaign website — Our candidate for Vice President: **Peter Evans**

Post-16 education is in crisis. Successive Conservative governments have slashed funding and ramped up a process of marketisation and privatisation across the sectors. That’s why UCU members have been at the forefront of resistance and on the picket lines across Higher and Further Education.

Even with a likely Labour victory at the next general election, we believe that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won’t reverse this trend and rebuild education without massive pressure. This means we urgently need to develop a political and industrial strategy that can defend post-16 education and make real gains for all our members.

As an education union, we must deal with industrial matters but also we are the champions of education. We must deal with the wider political issues that face our members, students and wider society. We have just seen tens of thousands of HE members go through a bruising dispute for the ‘Four Fights’ (pay, workload, equalities and casualisation) including extensive strike action and a Marking & Assessment Boycott.

But despite the bravery and commitment of our members in the face of intransigent employers and punitive pay deductions, the stop-start strategy and outright opposition to democratically made decisions by our present General Secretary meant we failed to breakthrough.

The fantastic victory achieved on USS pensions was achieved off the back of extensive strike action, in the face of the General Secretary’s argument that it wasn’t the right time to fight.

In FE despite historic votes for action the chance to build a serious fight over both pay and national bargaining was squandered yet again by the GS’s supporters who remain convinced that national action is impossible and at best local deals can be achieved.

We’ve seen a wave of redundancies in the wake of the HE dispute. At Brighton University, UCU members engaged in the longest ever strike in UK HE history (129 days) in defence of jobs. This was a dispute of national significance but the branch received inadequate support from the national union machinery. This can’t continue – UCU must implement a serious national strategy to win UK-wide disputes and must support every branch.

But at present UCU’s national initiatives lack a clear strategy or clear leadership. This is why we believe it is important to stand candidates who offer a real alternative, not just more of the same.

UCU Left supporters are standing in the National Executive (NEC), Vice President – FE (VP) and General Secretary elections to ensure there is a root and branch change to how UCU operates. Our candidates are dedicated members with proven track records in their branches. Many have played a leading role in building national resistance and have led local disputes in defence of jobs and conditions.

We need a union where rank and file members have a voice and lead their own disputes through democratically elected strike committees, Branch Delegate Meetings (BDM’s) and the decisions of Congress.

We have been through a transformative experience over the last year – we need to transform UCU.

Saira says

“I’m a member of a post 92 University and standing for General Secretary. The victory over USS Pensions shows that a serious industrial strategy can win for all sectors, including post 92 Universities, FE, Prisons and Adult Education. Our members have repeatedly called for UK wide action to defend and extend our terms & conditions, and to fight for the future of education. We need to be bold. We need to transform UCU so that grassroots member’s control our union and disputes – our democracy must be strengthened. I will ensure this happens. ”

Peter says

“I’m currently the NEC rep for LGBT+ members (FE) and Chair of the LGBT+ national standing committee. I’m a lecturer in Business at West London College where I am UCU Vice Chair. I’m in the Labour Party, and an activist within the Labour left. If elected I plan to bring UCU back to local membership with rank-and-file organising, building elected strike committees and implementing Congress decisions. We need more democracy in order to address the challenges we face. ”

Vote #1 Saira Weiner for UCU General Secretary

I am an experienced activist at branch, regional and national levels. UCU needs to be transformed by democracy and solidarity in action, so I will focus on delivering:

Democracy for a real member led union

We urgently need a democratic transformation in UCU, where members taking collective action are in control of their disputes. To ensure this, strike committees should be used to ensure members’ views are heard, and actions are coordinated. Union democracy requires well-organised branches meeting regularly, debating questions and motions before voting on them. Collective debates are essential because we need collective solutions. Moreover, when decisions are made through our democratic structures, it is the role of union officials to carry them out.

A strategy to build solidarity

Our union’s strength hinges on our ability to defend members. Therefore, we need a strategy based on militancy to build membership solidarity and action. While negotiations play a vital role, we must be prepared to take action when necessary. We won’t win unless we fight, and we need to mobilise members fully with the backing of the whole union to win.

In HE, post-92s are under attack due to hikes in TPS employer contributions. We need to restart our national dispute and put pressure on the government to Pay Up For Post-92. In FE unmanageable workloads and the lack of national binding bargaining is breaking the sector and leaving branches to fight alone – we need a national strategy to win back national collective bargaining. In ACE we need a serious campaign that reverses the government’s funding cuts and ensures a national lifelong learning strategy. And in Prisons we must ensure Health & Safety is taken seriously and ensure smaller class sizes. Across all our sectors we need to fight against casualisation that erodes members’ conditions.

Liberation for all

I will campaign to ensure every member is able to play their part and flourish in our union and in our workplaces.

We face an incredibly right wing government that systematically scapegoats vulnerable groups for their own failures. Their racist policies towards migrants and refugees have targeted our students and staff. I will defend the rights of our colleagues and their family members to stay in the UK by opposing racist immigration controls and demanding practical financial support for visa fees.

We are witnessing a horrendous war in Palestine. Our members are facing harassment for speaking out against the atrocities – we have to stand up for free speech and oppose any witch hunting of our staff and students. We must stand firm against all forms of racism, including antisemitism, and show support and solidarity with the most downtrodden in society – racism within the wider working class is a recipe for ruin.

UCU must continue its work to oppose homophobia and transphobia. We must protect the concepts of freedom of speech from those who seek to distort it.

Our workforce is structurally segregated – women; members racialised as black and our disabled members are concentrated in precarious roles or in positions with little opportunity for advancement.

We need to turbo charge the Gender, Race and Disability Pay Gaps ‘Four Fights’ campaign and we need an anti-casualisation campaign in FE and ACE that campaigns to ‘level up’ and liberate everyone treated as second-class citizens in our institutions.

Climate injustice and inaction threatens our lives, livelihoods and our working conditions. In UCU we joined the student climate strikes, XR protests and campaigns against new oil and gas. We need more of this and should support and build a climate movement that mobilises the huge demonstrations we need alongside the direct action to prevent new carbon intensive projects.

Solidarity as a central tenet of our union

No one changes the world by themselves, but when tens of thousands of us join together we can begin to make a difference. As UCU members, we show solidarity with students and other workers – we are not just fighting for ourselves but the future of education and research.

We gain confidence from each other. FE members were inspired by HE members, and lifted by the teachers’ strikes. I will encourage a culture of solidarity throughout our union. When members face redundancies in one department or college, we need to rally around to ensure they win.

I will fight back against the anti-strike laws that are under the guise of so-called “Minimum Service Levels”. We should back our members if they break these unjust laws. As GS I will work with other unions to campaign against these attacks on trade union rights and to deliver hard-hitting coordinated strikes to push back the Government’s offensive.

Getting results for our members

We are an incredibly strong group of workers, and we need to inject some confidence into our union organising.

Our love of education and determination to help individuals, keeps our students in our courses. We need to channel the same passion in our industrial and equalities strategies to ensure we gain results.

We need to strengthen branches, officers, committees and reps, and develop regions to help coordinate between them, share ideas and take initiatives.

We need the National Executive of our union to play its part in acting as a tribune of branches, holding the General Secretary to account and ensuring policy is enacted.

If elected, I commit to take home the average UCU members wage – not the £110k+ that is offered.

Read Saira’s full manifesto

Testimonials for Saira Weiner

“My vote for General Secretary will go to Saira Weiner. Saira is not only a fierce defender of a true member-lead union, but also a leader able to achieve synthesis, successfully manage challenging circumstances, balance different views and work effectively with lay reps and staff, as she has demonstrated as the Chair of ROCC, Chair/Vice Chair of North West Region and previously Chair of the Women’s Standing Committee.

With extensive branch leadership experience, Saira knows first hand the challenges activists and members face. Working at a post- 92 institution, she has experienced the results of the marketisation of education and barriers they create for academic and academic related post-16 education staff. She has been working closely with members across the HE, FE, ACE and Prison education, both through regional work as well as through NEC, to support strategies and tactics which will allow for pay and conditions to improve. Saira will conduct her role with fairness and inclusivity, and will be committed to accountability, democracy and militancy.

It is an honour to call Saira a friend, and to be able to vote for her in these elections.

Do use your vote, do support UCU Left candidates! ”

Maria Chondrogianni
UCU Vice President (University of Westminster, HE)

“I support Saira Weiner for UCU General Secretary as she is someone who stands up for what she believes in and wants to improve education for all.

In FE, we need a GS who will think about a strategy that can win for all of our members rather than an atomised campaign with branches left fighting to improve conditions by themselves. This approach sows the idea that it’s not possible to fight back nationally – it is, and Saira is clear that the national union can provide support and confidence for all members. ”

Carly Grundle
UCU Branch Treasurer, Westminster Kingsway College (FE)

“I’m backing Saira Weiner for UCU GS. We need a GS who understands that the scale of the crisis facing HE means that unless our union mounts a strong united fight, we will not only continuously suffer pay erosion, but we’ll see the fracturing of national bargaining and the destruction of our terms and conditions.

We need a GS who respects the decisions of the unions democratic bodies and implements them swiftly and fully, rather than imposing her own ideas instead. We need a GS who understands that a strong ballot result is just the first step and that winning a dispute requires empowering members to take the level of industrial action necessary to shift intransigent management.

Saira Weiner will do this. She believes that a union is its members and that a GS must be answerable to them. ”

Mark Abel
UCU Branch Chair, University of Brighton

Read more endorsements for Saira on her campaign website

Keep up the strikes!

Our Union, our Disputes, our Sector in Danger

Solidarity is the way to rebuild
Build the reballot
We need to debate the action we need to win

Our Higher Education strikes this week are essential for the future of our union. Every single striker, every day of strike, every protest and every demonstration matters. We need to do our best to ensure that our actions are coordinated and open to everyone.

Activists want to fight. In non-striking branches many members voted to keep up the action. We need to link together (or ‘twin’) non-striking and striking branches. We can build solidarity by fundraising, by delegations visiting picket lines, and by inviting speakers into branch and section meetings.

Solidarity is essential. You would not know this from UCU’s website, but members in some branches, notably Brighton, Queen Mary, Manchester and Liverpool Universities, are suffering from huge deductions from pay. The whole union must rally around those branches. We need to flood the hardest-hit branches with donations (see links above).

Turn our anger into action

The employers are rejoicing at the self-inflicted and unnecessary retreat in the JNCHES dispute led by the General Secretary and her acolytes in the union’s Higher Education Committee (HEC).

What kind of union calls action and then asks branches whether they would like to opt out on the eve of the strike, indeed, when many Scottish universities were already out the door? Whether you were in favour of the strike last week or not, the retreat has done more damage to the union than had we attempted to hold the line and seen members fail to observe it. Unions are nothing without collective action.

UCEA could not believe their luck when the officials incorrectly withdrew strike action notices from Newcastle and London South Bank Universities despite their branches deciding not to opt out. This error flows from the thwarting of member democracy by the leadership of our union, of which #OptOutGate is just the latest example.

But the stakes are too high to allow justified anger at our union leadership to undermine our action. We have to build the action, to show that ordinary members will continue the fight however much our union leaders falter and fail. We need to use the strike wave to build solidarity for members in branches hardest hit by deductions. And we need to carry that fighting spirit into the reballot campaign.

Right now, visibility matters. We need to organise the largest pickets on campus we can, and call on branches that are not on strike to offer both political and practical solidarity. Regional demonstrations and protests, such as Thursday’s protest outside UCEA’s HQ in Central London, are crucial in bolstering members’ confidence.

Inflation has not miraculously evaporated. We have had 11.7% of the value of our pay wiped out in the last two years (August 2021 to 2023, against RPI). Over this period we have lost pay at a rate nearly three times faster than the previous twelve years (August 2009 to 2021), when pay fell by 25%.

Casualisation continues to divide our members by hierarchies of precarity. Had we won this summer, new lecturers and teaching assistants could be starting the term with proper contracts right now. We could be looking at a negotiated settlement with workload and pay gaps treated as a serious sector-wide issue.

We can’t afford to wait. Our members are struggling to pay the bills right now, and we need to fight back.

Meanwhile employers in pre-92 universities are looking greedily at the USS pension scheme to see how they might profit from a union on the back foot.

We have to win the reballot, because the alternative is to invite defeat. In the process we must debate the kind of strategy needed to win.

The employers’ annus horribilis

We need to wipe the fake smiles from VCs’ faces.

The employers have had a terrible year. Our UK-wide strikes took out weeks of teaching. Our UK-wide marking boycott prevented thousands of students graduating and progressing. Meanwhile, tuition fees are frozen while inflation rages. And there was nothing the employers could do.

That is why VC Senior Management Teams have been so brutal in their approach to pay deductions. Some have climbed down, either entirely, to a lower cap or to various methods of self-declaring hours. But others, including Queen Mary and Manchester, are clearly out to make an example of staff.

Nonetheless in all of the chaos right now, we must take stock of what we have actually achieved. We have driven a coach and horses through the Government and VC’s HE market system. To work around the MAB, Vice Chancellors were forced to bypass long-established academic standards and quality control.

Not only was this decision contrary to the statutory Office for Students’ requirements for universities’ Degree Awarding Powers, it is incredibly damaging for UK HE Plc. Vice Chancellors have publicly trashed “the brand” of UK Higher Education in a way not seen since Gerald Ratner memorably described his stores’ products as “crap”.

They are dependent on MABbing staff for our expertise to reinstate this quality control as we mark. And VCs cannot afford for us to do this again.

We know our sacrifices last year did not break the employers. The unfortunate truth is that the militancy and heroism shown by ordinary members was not reflected by a similar resolve in our union leadership. The employers successfully gambled on the hesitations and mistakes of our General Secretary and her supporters on the HEC.

What went wrong?

Every member now cites the failure of the union’s HEC to implement a summer reballot. But that failure was not inevitable: it was the consequence of a sequence of decisions of the HEC, advised by officials reporting to the General Secretary. Since Congress, a small majority of the HEC is held by members of the ‘IBL’ and ‘Commons’ factions.

Branch reps voted at the May Sector Conference for a summer reballot, commencing as soon as possible. This could have been done promptly had the will been there. There was no such delay or controversy for the spring reballot. Why the dithering about the summer one, when members would inevitably be carrying the MAB and the employers would be weighing up the risks of waiting us out?

In fact, procedurally, the process was straightforward. The formal decision lies in the hands of HE officers, and HEC is obliged to implement Sector Conference policy. The one decision that might have been passed to HEC (the precise framing of the ballot) was not a matter of principle requiring a debate at a meeting a month later. In short, had the General Secretary and her supporters not blocked it, the summer reballot could have been set in train soon after Congress at the end of May. Even with as much as six weeks’ preparation and process delay, ballot papers could have been arriving in members’ homes and pigeon holes by mid July.

Even if a decision were delayed until the HEC meeting on 30 June, there was no ground for not treating the implementation of the Sector Conference motion as a formality. Instead the General Secretary insisted that HEC also consider her proposal for a November ballot as if it could be treated as an alternative to implementing the Sector Conference decision. (Deliberately not implementing a Sector Conference decision is against Rule 18.1 of the union’s rulebook.) And then her supporters carried a motion about national negotiations over deductions, filibustered, and the meeting ran out of time.

What last week revealed about what might have been

Last week’s HEC meeting showed two things.

First, HEC meetings can be called very quickly – in 24 hours if required.

Second, there seems to be no legal barrier to stop strike action being called and then stood down branch by branch.

Yet it was unspecific ‘legal advice’ that was used to block the implementation of motion HE5 at April’s Special Sector Conference which called for strike action against pay deductions being called and potentially stood down according to each employer’s response. Friday’s mistakes aside, ‘legal objections’ were not the real impediment to implementing a more militant united and protective approach to the MAB. We could have boxed in the employers from the start, and forced them to concede much more quickly or escalate our action.

We could have brought the dispute to a head and forced negotiations on the national claim.

The point of this review is not to recriminate about the errors of the General Secretary and her supporters. It is to remind ourselves that there was an alternative strategy, one that was agreed by the Sector Conference of our union. This was a strategy which would have united members and could have won the dispute.

Democracy, indefinite action and the alternative strategy

So-called ‘indefinite’ action sounds frightening. But we have just had two years in which very many members took a particular form of UK-wide indefinite action – a marking boycott with no end date.

If we compare what happened in the summers of 2022 and 2023, one fact jumps out.

In 2022-23, branches ran their own MAB campaigns. They were compelled to negotiate locally, but that gave them control over their own dispute. The outcome was overwhelmingly positive, with a series of local wins, branches strengthened, and only Queen Mary management imposing deductions for MAB participation.
But in 2023-24, branches were left to soldier on with no real say in the dispute. The Special Sector Conference had voted for fortnightly BDMs or (ideally, a national strike committee) to run the MAB. But this was not implemented. The General Secretary and her supporters on the HEC did not want to give up control.

Branches could not negotiate their way out of the MAB individually, but at the same time they had no say over the national dispute. When national negotiators were directed to go and negotiate return of deductions rather than press forward on the national claim there was uproar.

Democratic rank and file control is not an optional extra! That is why regular Branch Delegate Meetings empowered to direct the dispute were a crucial component of the strategy (see motion HE5 above).

Whether we are discussing indefinite strikes like in Brighton, or an indefinite marking boycott, ‘indefinite’ simply means that the members stay out until they win. For this type of action to work, members have to be in control.

Members have to decide what a ‘win’ looks like – not the HEC or the General Secretary.

Where next?

It is unsurprising that right now very many members feel angry about the way the dispute has been conducted. The main part of that anger is the growing realisation that the so-called leadership, the GS and the majority of the HEC, simply failed to lead.

The MAB applied huge leverage and pressure to the employers, but the failure to trigger the reballot meant the employers could decide to wait us out.

But there was an alternative strategy, based first and foremost on member-led, branch democracy being put in control of the key decisions of the dispute.

Strong branches know they can take action and often beat their employer. But that is because the branch is in control of the dispute. Our union structures don’t allow us to apply that logic of branch control to national disputes. As the scale of our action has increased, and as we take indefinite forms of action, the question of democracy becomes inescapable.

The dispute last year was dominated by top-down interference in both the action and the negotiation process. Instead of these interventions demonstrating the General Secretary’s superior competence, they exposed her failings, and presented the union as unnecessarily divided in front of the employers.

We need to win the reballot. But at the same time we cannot continue like this.

We need democratic renewal, starting in branches.

It is our union. It is time to take it back.

17 August 202317 August 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

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

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

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

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

15 March 202315 March 2023

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.

2 July 20222 July 2022

HEC report 1 July 2022

HEC unites around a programme to rebuild the disputes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Planning the disputes

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

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

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

Making sure boycotting branches win

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13 May 202213 May 2022

Now not Never! HEC report (12/5/22)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17 February 202219 February 2022

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?”

20 January 202220 January 2022

UCU Left report from Wednesday’s HEC meeting

HEC must listen to members –
Start the fight now on USS and Four Fights

No decoupling of the disputes
Escalating action now

The Higher Education Committee (HEC) met on Wednesday 18 January to take decisions about further action in the two linked USS and Four Fights (casualiation, equality pay gaps, pay and workloads) disputes. The USS and Four Fights branch delegates meetings the previous day were intended to inform HEC members of branch views and enable them to take decisions based on them.

Tuesday’s Branch Delegate Meetings (BDMs) discussed four questions provided to branches in advance and the four HEC motions provided on the day. The mood of the BDMs was very clear. Their branches wanted the two disputes to remain linked and very strong action to start as soon as possible. There was strong support for escalating the action, indefinite action and even for action to disrupt the whole semester.

The majority of delegates were broadly in agreement with an HEC motion from two UCU Left members (Marian Mayer and Marion Hersh) on escalating indefinite action in both disputes simultaneously and starting as soon as possible. Versions of this motion had already been passed by a number of branches. There was also general, though not unanimous, opposition to two motions from Independent Broad Left members of HEC targeting action only at some employers.

The motion calling for escalating and indefinite action ended up being seconded at HEC by UCU President Vicky Blake, who referred eloquently to the BDMs. Despite the strong direction given by both BDMs, HEC narrowly voted against this motion. The other two motions were withdrawn. Instead, a series of recommendations were passed which effectively decoupled the two disputes by agreeing totally different types of action for them, one of which had not even been proposed or discussed at the BDMs. The wording of the decisions leaves considerable uncertainty as to the details of the action in both cases and how this would be finalised. In particular, no starting date was decided for Four Fight action and the decision-making mechanism remains unclear.

UCU Left supporters on HEC are very concerned and angry about this outcome. It bears no relationship to the strong sustained action starting as soon as possible that most BDM delegates recognised was needed to win these disputes.

The sector is at a crossroads. We cannot afford to see the pension scheme slashed nor can we afford to allow our pay to be cut when inflation is running at over 7%. Returning to token action will only encourage employers to go ever further with casualisation, pay discrimination and excessive workloads.

Unlike some on the HEC, we believe these disputes can be won. Members have overcome the anti-union hurdles time after time and shown their opposition to the destruction of our sector. We have overturned poor decisions by our leaders before. We call on branches to organise emergency general meetings as soon as possible to call for a Special Higher Education Sector Conference followed by a recall HEC to adopt a strategy in line with the views of branches and capable of winning these disputes.

We need a leadership that responds to members’ willingness to fight and has the courage to see our disputes through to victory. UCU Vice President and NEC elections open next week. Find the UCU Left candidates here.