Report of HEC meeting – 4 April

University of Liverpool UCU demonstration 1 April

Get the vote out and escalate our action to win

The left on the Higher Education Committee today fought off attempts to wind down the Four Fights and USS disputes.

As activists across the country were intensifying their GTVO efforts to win renewed mandates for action, an alliance of Independent Broad Left and Commons members on the HEC were proposing motions which would effectively end both disputes. If these motions had passed, they would have been a kick in the teeth to every member who has taken strike action, turned out on picket lines and rallies, and voted at meetings and in ballots to defend pensions and to fight over pay, inequality, casualisation and workloads.

Fortunately, this did not happen. All of these motions fell, meaning that they do not go forward from HEC to the agendas of the Special Sector Conferences to be held on 20^th and 27^th of this month.

Capitulation

Four motions designed to kill off the disputes had been submitted. One of them called openly for an end of this year’s Four Fights, while another advocated a ‘pause’. To try and disguise the extent of this capitulation, they included vague proposals about campaigning with other trade unions to tackle the cost of living crisis and supporting local UCU branches to try to make gains in individual institutions on casualisation, workloads and equality.

The joint campaigning with other unions we need is more joint strike action, building on the joint Unison/UCU picket lines at a number of universities during the last couple of weeks. Devolving the fight over casualisation, equality and workloads to individual branches is an abrogation of national leadership and a recipe for defeat, especially in those institutions with hard-line managements or less well organised UCU branches.

Out of touch

Another of the motions called for shelving industrial action over the Four Fights not just for the current 2021-22 pay round, but for next year’s too! It advised concentrating instead on better communication of the Four Fights issues and recruitment to the union. The suggestion that members do not sufficiently understand casualisation, workload and inequality is an insult, while the idea that throwing in the towel would be good for recruitment stands reality on its head. As has been demonstrated time and again, we grow as a union when we fight.

At the very moment that UCU’s criticism of the valuation of USS has been vindicated and the increases in contributions and cuts to benefits shown to be unnecessary, another motion urged us to put our faith in the next valuation of the scheme in the hope that it will allow some of the detrimental changes to our pensions to be reversed. Without the exertion of industrial pressure, this is wishful thinking.

Pessimism

If these motions had been approved by HEC today, it is likely that branch delegates to the SHESCs would have voted them down overwhelmingly. But the fact that such motions are even proposed is an indication of how out of touch with the mood on the ground many HEC members are, and how pessimistic they are about the ability of UCU members to fight and win. These factions believe that they have a better grasp on strategy and tactics than ordinary union members and try to present their proposals as cleverer and more sophisticated than calls for escalating industrial action. One HEC member told us we needed to move beyond the outdated binary language of winning and losing!

Escalation

As it turned out, the only motion to pass and to go forward from HEC was a motion calling for serious escalating industrial action over USS next term. This is now officially HEC’s recommendation to the SHESC, so it will be interesting to see which HEC members are prepared to argue for it.

A UCU Left motion calling for an immediate marking and assessment boycott backed by strike action to deter punitive pay docking was defeated by one vote. But this motion has already been submitted to the SHESCs by a number of branches so will be on the agenda anyway. It is doubtful that the IBL/Commons motions could get through any branch.

However, there is a danger that a marking boycott may start too late to be effective in some institutions, particularly those in Scotland. Information on assessment and exam board dates is currently being collected by HQ, but a motion calling for a boycott to start earlier was ruled out of order for the HEC.

Reballots

What will best undermine the defeatism of these sections of the union are strong reballot results and renewed mandates for action in branch after branch. This will also terrify our employers. With a couple of days left to get the vote out, there’s still everything to play for.

21 March 202224 March 2022

The HE disputes can be won. But members need to take control.

Our Higher Education disputes are at a crossroads. The strikes this week and next are the last we can take on our current industrial action mandate. USS and UUK have imposed their attack on the pension scheme. UCEA is not talking to us over pay and the pay-related issues of our Four Fights.

Strike action now is still important, of course. Strong visible action shows members require a proper pay increase in the face of rampant inflation, and strengthens the union over local casualisation, workload and pay gap demands. But we are not where we should be.

Strategic failures

We have arrived at this point through a series of failures by our union. The majority of these have arisen out of a refusal by the leadership – HE officers, full-time officials and the General Secretary – to implement democratic decisions taken by members. This has resulted in members continually having to make the best of sub-optimal situations in order to prosecute these fights.

The first failure was the refusal to ballot members over the summer and hold a Special HE Sector Conference last August, as instructed by June’s Sector Conference. This meant that despite the urgency of the attacks on USS, the ballot was delayed until October instead of taking place over the summer as Conference wished.

The whole point of the timetable passed at Conference was that serious, sustained action could take place in the autumn term. That is how we ended up with just three days of strike squeezed in before the Xmas break. Not only that, but the notifications to employers cited work-to-contract as the only form of ASOS, allowing employers to claim that non-rescheduling of classes was not part of our action because it had, inexplicably, been listed separately on the ballot paper.

The second failure was the decision by the General Secretary and the majority of the pension negotiators to make a compromise offer on USS. UCU conferences voted for a ‘no detriment’ position on the basis that the valuations of the scheme were flawed and there was no objective basis for increasing contributions or cutting benefits, and if there was a need for more contributions, the employers should pay them.. Abandoning this position meant conceding the central argument in defence of the scheme.

USS retreat

Worse, the General Secretary appeared to believe that a compromise deal was possible in February which could end the dispute. As a result, again contrary to the union’s policy and against the wishes of delegates attending branch delegate meetings, USS strikes were separated from action over the Four Fights, soft-pedalled and delayed again to coincide with meetings of USS JNC at which this deal was supposed to materialise.

This proved to be a staggering miscalculation. True to form, not a single employer representative broke ranks and the cuts were pushed through on the casting vote of the chair. The industrial action taken in February was fractured between the two disputes, giving the green light to UCEA to urge punitive deductions for ASOS, a course of action which some institutions have eagerly embraced.

Throughout, the leadership has consistently minimised the action called. The settled policy of the union is for escalating action to win disputes, and the September Special Sector Conference even supported a motion calling for indefinite action. The point of this was to deter employers from sitting out our bouts of strikes by always notifying at least one batch of action in advance.

Token action

Neither escalating nor indefinite action has been implemented. Ignoring the clear wishes of BDM’s, the majority on HEC even opted for a pattern of regional one-day strikes. This kind of token action has been definitively rejected by Congress, not least when it adopted the report of the Commission on Effective Industrial Action in 2017. Fortunately, the left on HEC managed to salvage a degree of credibility for this action by making it the five-day blocks we are currently engaged in. But yet another delay in calling that action means that some branches find themselves striking out of term-time, and members are rightly concerned about the union’s strategy.

The same HEC meeting voted for a reballot window of five weeks. We have ended up with one of only three weeks, throwing another unnecessary obstacle in the way of our disputes. When questioned about this at last week’s NEC, the General Secretary claimed that HEC’s wishes had been ‘unimplementable’. She was also challenged on the assessment of the disputes in her GS report, where she effectively argues that national disputes are unwinnable because the employers are too well organised and we are too weak unless all branches are out. Her conclusion is that unless we can win an aggregated ballot, we should not fight.

This kind of defeatist talk is not acceptable in the middle of a national battle. It contrasts sharply with the positivity and determination of members who have made considerable sacrifices to wage these disputes. It is also, plainly, wrong. In 2018, our union began the dispute with a third smaller union density, and won against employers who were just as organised! But the union led from the top, balloted on a no detriment basis, involved reps to identify optimum strike dates, and called escalating action.

We can still win

Both these disputes have always been winnable, and despite the set-backs, they still are. But control of them must be in the hands of members. Members have consistently made the right decisions about the strategy required, and UCU Left members on HEC have consistently tried to have those decisions implemented.

The next phase now hinges on the reballots. Assuming we get a good number of branches over the threshold, the Special HE Sector Conferences on April 20th and 27th will set the forthcoming strategy. Branches need to debate motions for those conferences in time for the submission deadline of 6th April. Crucially, we need a marking and assessment boycott along with a plan for strike action, both alongside the ASOS e.g. to hit exam boards, and as a response to punitive deductions. And we need to insist that Conference decisions are implemented!

Those at the top of the union who don’t have the nerve for this fight should stand aside. Now is not the time to throw in the towel. The employers remain extremely vulnerable to targeted and effective industrial action, as the strikes at Liverpool and the RCA have proved. We need to learn the lessons of those disputes and organise to win.

UCU Left open meeting
Winning the HE disputes: For a member-led strategy
6pm Monday 28 March
Register: bit.ly/UCUL-28mar

23 February 202223 February 2022

No Delay: #NoCapitulation2

Escalating indefinite action needs to be called NOW

Friday’s Higher Education Committee (HEC) meets on Friday 25^th February. The employers’ (represented by UUK) decision to slash our pension scheme has now been voted through the USS JNC leaving the HEC with no option but to respond immediately with escalating indefinite industrial action.

It has been clear since 2018 that the employers, and their puppets in USS, were intent on destroying one of the largest, most successful and well-funded pension schemes in existence. Their decision to push through cuts of 35-40% comes at a time when the scheme has never been so well-funded with assets of over £92b, its so-called deficit (even on their own corrupt accounting method) is at its lowest since 2018 and all those who have looked at the scheme with any objectivity have sided with UCU’s analysis that the USS executive are mismanaging the fund (see for example the editor of the Financial Times Martin Wolfe’s assessment).

The fundamental reason for doing so was to jettison a collective commitment to a higher education sector in which students and staff could have confidence on the stability and continuity of the sector for decades to come. However, the drive to marketisation has meant that employers in the pre-92 sector have striven to dismantle any collective protection, the “last man standing” covenant, underpinning the USS scheme and with it the HE sector. This is at a time when it has finally been admitted that the UK Government has indeed been an employer member of the scheme and is therefore bound by the covenant arrangements.

The changes now voted through, and the consequences for its members when the truth is revealed will probably be considered the greatest financial theft and scandal of all time, dwarfing the £38b PPI swindle last century.

What Next?

The negotiating strategy adopted by UCU has failed. UCU has destroyed the intellectual basis for the current valuation and the cuts it entails. USS’s justifications have been shown to be based upon lies, distortions and a lack of understanding of the scheme itself. The employers have merrily repeated USS’s assertions even though they too know they aren’t worth the paper they are written on. Nevertheless, the changes have been voted through via the ever so acquiescent vote of the ‘independent’ (sic) NC chair. Those in UCU who thought intellectual argument would win through, and those who argued to de-couple pensions from pay and the Four Fights because a win on pensions was possible, failed to understand the dynamics of the USS dispute and the employers’ motivations. This sector is not in a financial crisis. We can have decent pay, conditions and pensions. There is no trade off to be made between jobs and pay or conditions and pensions.

UCU’s HEC must now act to mobilise members for the final defence of the pension scheme. We fight now or lose it all together. This means HEC must vote immediately to announce escalating and indefinite action. Any delay leaves branches no time to continue the action before the end of this term. Any delay until after the Easter break leaves us short of time to launch action before most branches’ ballot mandate runs out and any delay means the opportunities to win a further industrial action ballot will be weakened due to members recognising UCU’s leadership has no strategy.

This is in contrast to the members who have, yet again, risen to the challenges of ten days of strike action and repeatedly called for escalating action, The vibrancy of the strikes has given branches confidence to lead the strikes and call for voting Branch Delegate Meetings and a Special Higher Education Conference to do so.

How Do We Win?

Employers haven’t just waited out time limited action but have gone on the offensive over punitive deductions over ASOS in universities such as Queen Mary and Birmingham. Unless UCU responds with escalating indefinite action employers will go further and break the union.

HEC has motions before it for UK–wide escalating indefinite action that must now be passed. But it also has motions before it that seek to undermine the action by replacing UK-wide action with tokenistic regional rolling strikes. These must be withdrawn immediately or rejected wholesale by the HEC. HEC has to come together in a unified call of UK-wide escalating or indefinite strike action to defend our pension scheme and the union itself. Jo Grady was elected to lead a militant campaign to defend the pension scheme to ensure a second capitulation doesn’t take place. #NoCapitulation2.

We now need a genuinely member-led strike. This means voting Branch Delegate Meetings before each and every HEC, an immediate rather than far-distant SHESC and a coupling of the USS and Four Fights disputes in strike action that renders attempts at punitive pay deductions impossible. It also now requires the establishment of a UK-wide strike committee to run the strike where strategies and tactics can be decided by branch delegates. The time for negotiation is over. It is time to strike.

Who Runs Our Union Matters

UCU’s NEC elections end in just one week. UCU Left members stand for member control of the disputes and make the most consistent arguments for how to win them. We urge all members to vote for the UCU Left candidates. Don’t lose your pension. Vote for Juliana Ojinnaka for the Vice President of the union along with other UCU Left candidates for NEC. Details are here.

13 February 202213 February 2022

Escalate the action to win

An injury to one…
FIGHT TO DEFEND OUR SECTOR – DEFEND OUR RIGHT TO STRIKE

The Employers are trying to break our union.

That is what the threat of pay docking for lecture-rescheduling ASOS means.

We face a simple choice — we either escalate to win, demand our union calls more national strike action for longer periods of time, making lesson rescheduling impossible in practice (as in 2018 and 2020), or we leave members wide open to attack.

Members have already voted to fight. Less than a month ago, in branch meeting after branch meeting, members voted for escalating strike action — and in some cases indefinite action. But as members in USS branches walk out the door this week, and members in Four Fights branches prepare for strike action next week, the action that has been called thus far is much more limited.

The Employers sense weakness on the Union’s side. They used the threat of pay docking successfully in their fight over redundancies in Leicester, imposing a settlement on the branch. At Liverpool, the branch went for solid blocks of strike action and was able to hold out to win.

‘Threats of pay deductions were cynically used to undermine our marking boycott in our fight against redundancies last year. It is crucial that we respond swiftly and with determination to ensure that similar threats are repelled in these national disputes.’ — Joseph Choonara, University of Leicester UCU co-chair (personal capacity).

They are now coming for all of us.

Even if you are not yet threatened with 100% or 50% pay docking for “partial performance”, rest assured, if they can get away with it at Newcastle, Queen Mary and elsewhere, they will use it everywhere.

We have been told about clever legal strategies and advice that was withdrawn. Branches were told they can nominate strike action locally. That offer has now also been withdrawn.

On Friday, Jo Grady wrote to members to say she has threatened to declare disputes with individual employers unless they repudiate pay docking as a strategy. The implication is that UCU reballots members over a separate dispute with employers over pay docking. Whether or not her lawyers advised her to do this, this will take far too long.

We need to push back now.

This leaves the union with one, straightforward, option. Call further national strike days in large blocks in the Spring Term in pursuit of both disputes.

Make lecture rescheduling impossible, as in previous strikes.

And escalate the action to win.

What branches can do

Strike days require 14 days’ notice to employers, so time is limited.

Branches faced with immediate pay-docking threats should continue to submit requests for additional strike days in pursuit of one or both national claim.
Branches without an immediate pay-docking threat should invite speakers from branches under threat to strike meetings and general meetings. Adopt a branch!

All branches will recognise that this is a threat to every UCU member.

Therefore every branch should pass motions calling for more UK-wide action on a harder-hitting basis as outlined above.

Each branch should make it clear we pledge to come out with sister branches.

NB. UCU branches are also able to submit motions to the Higher Education Committee (HEC), provided an HEC member ‘adopts’ them. The next meeting is on 25 February. Contact members of the HEC!

1 February 20221 February 2022

Member-led Strikes in a Member-led Union

The announcement of ten more days of strike action involving UCU members in the HE sector is an important step in our fight to defend the sector our members and our students and builds upon the three days we took in December.

Of course as UCU activists we have to get in behind the call and go all out to make sure that the action is as hard hitting as possible.

But there are clearly difficulties with how the dispute is developing which must be addressed if we are to come out victorious. UCU aims to be a member-led union and the disputes must also be member-led. Time and again members in Congresses and Sector Conferences, Branch Delegates Meetings (BDM) and not least legal ballots have shown a determination to take action to push back on marketisation, uniting the union and mobilising for strike action.

But member-led decisions are now being abandoned. Firstly the vast majority of delegates at the recent branch delegates meetings (BDMs) expressed the need to keep the two disputes interlinked.

The action called has two days of joint action but the rest is ‘decoupled’, weakening the unity of the two disputes. Members recognise the need to link the disputes because they see that employers are playing hardball and want to drive through their marketisation agenda at all levels. As one has openly admitted they want ‘blood on the carpet’. Only a strategy the links the issues facing us can challenge the business models adopted in UK HE.

The regional action proposed from 7 March was not even discussed or considered at the BDM and local disputes, such as Goldsmiths, don’t get a mention. Goldsmiths could act as a cause celebre for the whole of our Four Fights dispute, highlighting the failures of a market-driven sector.

There are also problems with the dates of action. For some branches, the strikes fall in reading weeks. And there are branches with a mandate only for USS that won’t be out on 2 March when NUS has called its strike. We want maximum unity with students and shouldn’t be holding classes while students strike.

There are also worries that the union has diluted its goals in the USS dispute. ‘No detriment’ has quietly been replaced by a compromise position in the interests of getting a resolution quickly.

If we are to win these disputes then members need to control them. That is why UCU Left is encouraging branches to pass a motion calling for Special Higher Education Sector Conference (SHESC) so that ordinary members can regain control of the action. Delaying until April, as the General Secretary has proposed, is not a strategy for escalation. We call on branches to pass the motion below calling for a SHESC.

We also believe that branches should request to use their disaggregated strike mandate to join other branches on strike. At the very least all branches with a mandate in either dispute should be on strike on 2 March alongside students.

It’s positive that we have this action to build for. But if members don’t shape the nature of action and control the dispute then we will lose the momentum and unity we gained in December.

It was UCU Left members of HEC who proposed a motion most in line with the will of the BDMs and those branches who passed motions opposing the decoupling the two disputes and demanding escalating indefinite action. Unfortunately, that HEC motion was voted down.

We are at a pivotal moment for our union. The attack on USS is a huge challenge while the ongoing assault on living standards means we can’t put off the fights over pay, equalities, casualisation and workload to some other time.

Our union’s leadership needs to take consultation with its members seriously if we are to win – and members need to be prepared to win back control of these disputes.

Model Motion: Calling a Special Higher Education Sector Conference (SHESC)

Branch] notes

That we are in the fight of our lives over USS and the Four Fights, with a threat to wreck the pension scheme in pre-92 universities and runaway inflation. Casualisation and workload are spiralling out of control due to the consequences of universities adapting to covid conditions, and structural inequality is worsening.
That UCU’s nationally agreed strategy is to keep the action on USS and Four Fights together and to prosecute both disputes concurrently. This was recently reconfirmed by Motion 12 at the last September Higher Education Sector Conference.
That Branch Delegate Meetings on the two disputes both reported a desire for escalating and effective strike action.
That HEC decisions on 19 January are not currently public, but information relayed to union members indicates that action will not be coordinated and branches have not been contacted for their critical dates for effective industrial action.

[Branch] resolves

To call on the UCU HEC to call a Special Higher Education Sector Conference (SHESC) to discuss and take decisions on the USS and Four Fights disputes.
As per 16.11 of the union’s rules, this branch calls for a Special meeting of UCU’s Higher Education Sector Conference to take place at the earliest opportunity in order to discuss and take decisions on the Four Fights and USS disputes.

14 November 202114 November 2021

Branches criticise the General Secretary’s strategy for the HE disputes

UCU Left report on the Branch Delegate Meetings, 12 November

The two Branch Delegates’ Meetings (BDMs) took place on Friday. These had been called after the ballot results on USS and the Four Fights campaigns had been released and over 100 branches were represented.

BDMs do not have constitutional status in UCU but emerged in the original 2018 USS strikes to ensure branches were up-to-date with the most recent developments in the dispute. Crucially BDMs ensure members can feedback on developments in the dispute and that this feedback comes immediately to negotiators and to HEC. As a result BDMs provide an informal mechanism for a kind of direct democracy in UCU. If their views are ignored by the HEC, as occurred after the second ‘#NoCapitulation’ moment in 2019, branches can bring motions of no confidence to Congress. Branch delegate voting is weighted by sector conference delegate entitlements, so the votes of big branches carry more weight than those of small ones.

The BDM on the USS dispute highlighted the extensive knowledge and understanding within branches of the key questions of strategy and tactics. Overwhelmingly, branch delegates reported that they recognised the importance of the timing of the dispute and the need to maximise our leverage on employers and USS prior to the February deadline for the decision on changes to contribution rates. Most delegates reported large branch meetings with members, where the majority view reflected the need to launch serious industrial action prior to the Xmas break. Token action was rejected as simply insufficient. Indeed, even in branches where the GS’s questions had been put out to members in a survey, without debate and discussion, delegates reported responses that were highly critical and questioning, with members objecting to the narrow range of options being offered.

The Four Fights BDM followed a similar pattern, although with more reps ‘in the room’, the format of the meeting was very frustrating for delegates, and large numbers of delegates were not called. This meant two things. First, it was difficult for reps to get an idea of the overall pattern of voting because they did not know what other branches had concluded. The weighted votes of the meetings were not reported to delegates.

But the second problem is that the Four Fights dispute is simultaneously a UK-wide battle and a series of local ones, because whatever is agreed at “New JNCHES” must be implemented locally, and UCEA always claim that local employers will not give them a mandate (basically, because some want to hold on to the worst employment practices, like zero hours contracts or bogus self-employment). The battlelines in the fight over casualisation, workload and inequality are inside every workplace. Branches’ experiences are different, and it is essential for reps to hear what those differences mean. A dispute of this kind relies on a culture of solidarity, and we must factor in local confrontations into the union’s overall strategy.

For example, members at the Royal College of Art are engaged in a bitter local battle over casualisation and workload. At the time of the BDM, RCA UCU members had taken 9 days of strike action and were about to begin 5 days more. But frustratingly they were not called to speak. Neither were Goldsmiths (with 3 weeks of strike action announced) or Sheffield, both branches where the Four Fights dispute intersects with their local disputes over redundancies. Branches benefit from building local campaigns of key demands under the Four Fights umbrella, and using them to build support for ballots and industrial action.

Nonetheless in both meetings, nearly all the delegates who spoke recognised the need to keep the fights together and not decouple them. Some wondered why two separate BDMs had been called. Delegates argued against delayed ballots and aggregation, instead proposing to move to reballot branches which missed the 50% threshold in order for them to join further escalating industrial action as early as possible, before February 2022.

There was criticism of the short ballot window from branch delegates, particularly the large number that missed the threshold by handfuls of votes. Many believe that they actually exceeded the 50% threshold, but delays in the post to Civica meant late postal votes weren’t counted.

Likewise in the USS meeting, branch delegates favoured campaigning beyond strike action, which should already have been underway. On USS, UCU policy is for legal action against USS, a trade union campaign for the defence of defined benefit pensions, and lobbying MPs and journalists. Our defence of USS cannot be understood as a narrow vested interest, but part of a wider campaign against the marketisation of higher education and – because pension attacks are fundamentally an attack on younger workers – an inter-generational defence of the right to a decent retirement for all workers.

Although the results of the BDM voting have not been released, these debates indicated that branches and their delegates reject the proposals coming from the General Secretary and UCU officials. Members recognise the seriousness of the dispute and want the union to respond with the seriousness that the threat requires.

We will know what decisions HEC took on the basis of the BDMs very soon.

23 April 2021

Prepare for action and throw out SWG so-called ‘principles’

You should have received an email from the General Secretary including five principles agreed by a majority of the USS SWG (Superannuation Working Group).

Our current position, as determined by the December HE Sector Conference (HESC) is to
• defend defined benefits (DB)
• negotiate to protect member benefits at the lowest possible contributions
• work with or put pressure on UUK to support our position and defend our benefits.

We should also be campaigning to improve affordability for casualised and other low paid members without reducing benefits – preferably by a tiered-down approach – and campaigning against casualisation and low pay, although that’s not a USS-specific issue. All the evidence shows that current benefits can be paid for out of 26% total (8% member) contributions for at least the next 20-30 years.

So why should we pay more because city fat cats have an overpessimistic, recklessly prudent approach (USS is situated next to the Bank of England)? Why should we pay more than we need to or can afford to or have our benefits slashed? As trade unionists we fight to defend our rights, including for a good pension.

Some of the principles are fine, though they will need to be backed up by action to achieve anything. However, principle (d) – on exploring conditional benefits – and the first part of (e) – on commitments from employers to covenant support – are problematical rather than the solution. They are a reflection that the majority of our leadership are giving ground to the USS and UUK argument that the scheme is in deficit. This is simply wrong. It is the model not the scheme that is in crisis and we shouldn’t be seeking to adjust the scheme to fit with a flawed model. Instead it is the model that needs to change, not the scheme. Benefits can be maintained, indeed improved, with existing contributions. Alternatively, benefits could be maintained and contributions could be reduced for lower paid members to improve affordability and reduce opt-outs.

Many members probably have very limited if any knowledge of what conditional benefits are. They have been discussed on the pension officers’ list and enthusiastically supported by a few members of this list, but policy decisions are made by HE Sector Conference, not the pension officers’ list or the SWG.

There are various ways these conditional benefits could be applied and clearly the details are important. The most likely outcome is that the exact value of benefits would depend on market returns on investments, possibly with a base line of existing benefits. Supporters claim that if USS is doing as well as UCU claims it is, there is nothing to worry about in this approach and it could even lead to reduced contributions for the same benefits. This ignores the fact that it is USS that controls the figures and the investment strategy. Just as the valuation always comes out very negative, it seems likely that official returns will be much lower than expected.

The problems of the current valuation approach are a result of the assumptions and methodology, as well as the move of a proportion of assets to loss making gilts, at least in the model. A variation on this theme would hold for conditional benefits. A significant increase in the risk borne by members might lead to a reduction in the discount rate at a resulting improvement in the figures, but this should not be counted on.

Another version of this could be CDC (collective defined contributions). We threw DC out in 2018 by sustained industrial action. CDC is an improvement, but not that much better.

The problems with the current valuation approach include a lack of smoothing and an excessive focus on investment prices, which are highly volatile. An appropriate use of DB could damp down this volatility, but this is not possible with indexing. Therefore, a few years of poor performance in a system that is overall doing well could have a disastrous effect on indexed benefits and, for instance, lead to members not being able to afford to retire when they had originally planned to do so. Thus conditional benefits is likely to lead to worse pensions than DB.

Timing is vitally important. UCU needs to explore options at the point when we are strongest and not have a ‘knee-jerk’ type reaction to the fact that the employers are consulting on a disastrous plan to slash benefits. It is much too early for us to be making proposals. We have not yet declared a dispute and we are not strengthened by having a positive ballot result. Exploring proposals that move back from our bargaining position as mandated by HESC at this time could be considered to show weakness and lack of confidence in our ability to win. It is therefore tactically a bad idea.

The second point relates to commitments from the employers to covenant support. Of course, we want the employers to be fully committed to supporting and paying their contributions to our pensions for the long-term future. However, for those who are not familiar with the jargon, this is not what this means. Instead it involves accepting USS’s three proposals for measures that they consider will strengthen the covenant.

This has several problems. It means buying into USS’s narrative that the covenant is currently not strong and therefore additional measures are required. This is not correct. The only additional pressure on the employer covenant is the threatened massive contribution increases. The measures may lead to costs to employers. Our experience shows that employers try to recoup costs of this type from members and that this generally lead to job losses, an increase in casualisation, pay freezes and other unpleasant consequences for members. In addition, these measures could be a Trojan horse. They potentially give USS a lot more power over employers and therefore also members than any of us should be comfortable with. Could they use it to sell off a city-centre campus? Who knows? But they are likely to use it in ways we will not like

SWG was told that the principles would be revised if members object. We are therefore encouraging members to write to the General Secretary (reply@ucu.org.uk or jgrady@UCU.ORG.UK) and Chair of the Higher Education Committee (J.E.Mercer@warwick.ac.uk) to object. You may want to include the following points:

Conditional benefits:
• Too early/bad time to make proposals.
• This is a policy change which should be decided by HESC not SWG.
• The need to be very wary of USS and the consequent likelihood this would be worse for members than the current hybrid scheme.

Support for covenant measures
• Buys into USS’s agenda.
• No real need for increasing covenant support, as only pressure on it is threatened contribution increase.
• Employers are likely to try and recoup any associated costs from members.

7 January 202011 February 2020

USS pensions: prepare now for escalating strike action

We enter the new semester knowing, yet again, the resolve of UCU members to fight for the defence of higher education.

Our strikes before Xmas, involving 60 universities and 48,000 staff, were at similar levels – and often higher – than our 2018 strikes. Recruitment to the union is again rising rapidly and involvement on the picket lines and in the Teach-Outs demonstrates the return of the organising spirit that typified the action in 2018.

We now have a further 38 institutions balloting to join the action over USS and the ‘Four Fights one Dispute’ pay inequalities campaigns. These branches all voted overwhelmingly for action first time round, but did not exceed the Tory anti-union law’s 50% threshold for turnout. Escalation of the action to other universities and setting of further dates of strike action will continue to place pressure on employers to settle both the USS and pay inequalities disputes.

On 30 January, the Higher Education Committee (HEC) of UCU meets. It must sanction the call voted on by delegates to the Special Higher Education Sector Conference to launch a further 14 days of escalating action from mid-February over USS. HEC must also link this with the pay inequalities dispute by announcing the same 14 days for this dispute. There must be no wavering in our resolve to fight for the whole sector and leave no one behind in any settlement.

Members’ resolve should not come as a surprise to us, for the simple reason that the underlying problems besetting the sector are not being addressed. We may have knocked back attempts to abolish the defined benefit pension scheme but casualisation, excessive workloads and pay inequalities remain just as intensely as they did previously.

And, it was these issues and more that lay beneath the original USS strikes.

Debt-based Higher Education

The crisis in the sector is one of marketisation, leaving students with unsustainable debts, de-valued education and a workforce at breaking point.

The £9,250 student fee system has led to a speculative and unsustainable debt-driven expansion of the Higher Education sector across the whole of the UK. Even where there are no student fees, such as Scotland, institutions are acting as if they are in the English system and are chasing full fee-paying students from the rest of the UK and internationally.

The UK has adopted the US system of debt-based Higher Education, but it is in crisis just as it is in the US. The UK Government slipped out figures for outstanding student loans just before Xmas of £121 billion (already 87% of the total NHS budget) and expect this to rise to £450bn by mid-century.

The Financial Times on 29 December reported that US student debt has already reached $1.5 trillion, or 8% of GDP. Thousands of students will be left with unsustainable levels of debt and be forced into bankruptcy, just as is now the case in the US. Equally as bad, universities will go bust if the tuition fee is cut as the Augar Review recommended. This will leave thousands of students with an unfinished degree.

In 2019, the biggest private provider GSM London went bust, leaving 3,500 students with no degree or university to study in. The mis-named ‘Office for Students’ claimed it was none of their business, as they did not regulate the company.

Take the Initiative

We now have to learn some lessons. First we need to ensure UCU backs its members’ demands for action to stop the crisis in Higher Education.

This means defending our no-detriment and no-deficit view of the USS pension scheme. The USS valuation is a fraud, and we must not accept any settlement which fails to recognise this and ensure that no future deficit valuation can be artificially constructed. This means an end to Test 1, valuations based on real returns prudently adjusted and no shifting of risk onto members.

We also need to ensure there is no settlement over USS without a settlement of the ‘Four Fights’ campaign. We should not allow employers to play divide and rule.

UCU members also now need to take the initiative in the strike by organising locally and UK-nationally for a strike committee. The #NoCapitulation moment in 2018, when we stopped a sell-out, demonstrated the power of an active member-led union. We need to return to that momentum and ensure elected striking delegates are those taking the decisions on the future of the dispute.

Finally, we need to plan for our strikes by linking up with students, twinning with branches that are balloting to ensure they can join the action and organising branches to meet and vote on support for the 14 days.

JEP2: More Democracy needed

The Second JEP report was released on 13 December with no fanfare and almost no reporting. This is not a surprise as it is a damp squib failing to grapple with the crisis in USS. Whilst it quite rightly rejects ‘sectionalisation’ of the scheme as costly, the undermining of the collective covenant and the unravelling of a single pension scheme across the sector, it suggests regressive changes allowing ‘flexible’ pensions as something to consider.

Worse still, it completely fails to understand the disaster of governance at the heart of USS. Criticism of the involvement of elected members representing UCU members as a stakeholder is completely retrograde. The governance weaknesses it identifies has its origins in too little not too much democracy in USS.

The Second JEP Report would clearly be swept under the carpet by USS and UUK if it didn’t offer carrots to give them opportunities to undermine the scheme. We should not fall for this. UCU should make it clear the recommendations of the Second JEP Report are inadequate to settle the current USS dispute.

We want No detriment, No deficit and nothing less.

Carlo Morelli UCU Scotland President

16 December 2019

The Second Joint Expert Panel Report: Could try harder?

The Joint Expert Panel: Could try harder?

The long awaited second Joint Expert Panel (JEP) report on USS was released on Friday 13^th December.

The Joint Expert Panel was the outcome of the 2018 industrial action by UCU in response to the attempt by Universities UK (UUK) and the USS pension scheme Trustee Board and management executive to replace the Defined Benefit scheme with a wholly Defined Contribution scheme. The 14 days of strike action led to a compromise settlement, the withdrawal of the 100% DC proposal and creation of the JEP by UUK and UCU, chaired by Joanne Segers.

The first JEP report was widely recognised as a scathing criticism of the mismanagement of the USS scheme. The blame for the 2017 valuation and the largest strike in UK Higher Education’s history, which it generated, was placed squarely at the door of the USS Trustee Board and executive management, UUK and the Pension Regulator (tPR). The details of the crisis within USS have been debated widely within UCU by Sam Marsh, Mike Otsuka, Sean Wallis and the current author along with notable reporting by the Financial Times journalist Josephine Cumbo. This piece does not seek to rehearse these debates and any reader unfamiliar with the detail can look at a variety of sources to examine this history. Some useful starting points include:

https://uculeft.org/2019/01/ucu-left-uss-and-the-importance-of-elected-rank-and-file-leadership/

https://uculeft.org/2018/09/jep-reports-what-next/

https://uculeft.org/2018/03/uss-fight-for-nodetriment/

https://heconvention2.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/made-in-westminster/

https://medium.com/ussbriefs/the-2018-uss-valuation-a-wholesale-rejection-of-the-joint-expert-panels-report-ed5241f4a153

https://medium.com/@mikeotsuka/oxfords-and-cambridge-s-role-in-the-demise-of-uss-a3034b62c033

In summary, the proposals in the First JEP Report provided a means to complete the 2017 valuation and reduce total contribution rates to a level below 30%. However, its most significant findings were rejected by USS’s Trustee Board and executive resulting in a contribution rate from employers and employees well above that identified by the first JEP report. This has led to a resumption of struggle: a second large strike ballot, renewed industrial action in November 2019, with more to come. The Second JEP Report slams the failure to adopt their proposals in full saying it represented ‘a missed opportunity to resolve the dispute and provide room for a discussion of the longer-term issues facing the Scheme’ (JEP, 2019, p.4)

The Second JEP Report, focusing upon the valuation methodology and scheme governance was expected to be as analytical in its findings, and in some ways it appears to be. However, in other areas the Second JEP Report seems to have failed to openly address the key barriers to change which could ensure that a stable, financially-secure pension scheme emerges in which the interests of the beneficiaries of the pension scheme, current and future pensioners’ and their dependents are foremost.

In the brief commentary that follows the key positive and negative points of the Second JEP Report are examined. All references, unless otherwise stated relate to this report.

https://ussjep.org.uk/files/2019/12/JEP2-Final-Report.pdf

Collectivity and Mutuality – A unique aspect of USS

JEP places a strong reliance upon the collective nature of the scheme. While the scheme has grown in terms of the number of employer bodies as members, the vast majority of the assets and liabilities continue to derive from a smaller group of pre-92 HE institutions. The expansion of membership while resulting in a more diverse membership body is not considered to be a risk to the sustainability of the scheme. Some 84% of the scheme liabilities are concentrated on the pre-92 sector (JEP, p.25). With this high concentration of liabilities comes a high concentration of contributions into the scheme. As a consequence there is a high level of confidence that the sector will, and should, continue for the foreseeable future as a primarily pre-92 pension scheme. In conclusion JEP strongly identifies the collective covenant and the insurance this mutuality provides as a major unique strength of the scheme.

Employer led proposals for ‘sectionalisation’ of the scheme are extensively examined in the JEP report (see chapter 10). Despite the benign name ‘sectionalisation’ is a means to break apart the scheme into a variety of independent schemes with differing contribution rates and member benefits. Sectionalisation could be at the level of groups of institutions or at the individual institution level. This would break up the core principal of mutuality and sharing of risks, it would increase costs, and it would fragment the sector. Why then is it even being considered? This is driven by larger employers identifying opportunities for more rapid expansion with greater debt financing in an environment where pension liabilities are reduced on their balance sheets. It reflects the increasing tendency of each university senior management team to see themselves as in cut-throat competition with other employers. JEP rightly rejects such proposals stating it ‘would have serious concerns were sectionalisation to be pursued.’ (p.92). Mutuality, and the associated collective covenant, is essential not only for the long-term stability of the scheme but also for member confidence that their pension contributions will lead to a future pension on retirement.

Affordability and Intergenerational Fairness

Member benefits and the affordability of the scheme is looked at within chapter 9. USS faces a relatively high drop-out rate from new members, ranging from 15-20 per cent of new entrants per annum (Fig 12). These members are disproportionately younger, with higher levels of existing debt and on insecure contracts. JEP tentatively examines alternative approaches to differential contribution rates ‘Tiered Contributions’ and reduced benefits for reduced contributions.

The continuation of the scheme with a positive cash flow is dependent upon the scheme remaining open to new entrants and the contribution rates being affordable to newer members of the sector. Current contributions can then be used to pay for existing pensions and additionally build up assets. These assets represent the intergenerational guarantee that future pensions can be paid for today’s active members. Thus, retaining the scheme as an ‘open’ scheme for new entrants is crucial to this approach. Making contribution rates more progressive towards lower paid staff has attractions in addressing affordability but not if it is at the expense of other members of the scheme. JEP assumes any reduction of contribution rates for low paid members must result in increases for other members. Thus JEP fails to recognise a key feature of the scheme – that it is currently not only cash flow positive but on USS’s own evidence in surplus. JEP does not come to a judgement about the current state of the scheme and instead states that;

‘It has been suggested by some commentators that by applying those same adjustments [contained in the first JEP report ed. note] to the 2018 valuation it would be possible to reach a combined contribution level of 26% with the deficit eliminated. The Panel has not undertaken such an assessment itself and cannot comment on the accuracy of this claim.’ (p.22).

Yet JEP has had access to the USS Joint Negotiating Committee papers which, in November 2018, showed that implementing the first JEP report in full on the 2018 valuation would result in a £0.6b surplus and a total contribution rate of 25.5%. That USS is in surplus is not a suggestion of ‘some commentators’ but the confirmed result of a valuation undertaken by USS based upon JEP’s own suggested valuation proposals in the First Report. Under these circumstances lower contribution rates for low paid members are feasible without increasing contribution rates for those higher up the pay scales.

JEP also examines proposals for members reducing their benefits for a reduced contribution rate, a so called ‘50:50 option’. Such an option is not a progressive change, rather a response to the lack of affordability of pensions for low paid, often women in HE. A 50 per cent contribution rate for a 100% benefit accrual should be made available for all staff members for a limited time in their career history to prevent groups, such as those with caring responsibilities, facing discrimination in pension entitlement. In a career average pension scheme, such as USS, any discrimination during a working lifetime is transferred into a discrimination in pension entitlement. USS should be looking toward progressivity not only in contribution rates but also pension outcomes if it is to protect intergenerational fairness.

Governance and Democracy

The report identifies a range of areas where the structure of the USS governance and the Scheme Rules ‘do not foster a cooperative environment within which the Stakeholders [UUK and UCU ed. note] can work well together’ (JEP, 2019, p.4). While the JEP report damningly shares the view that the valuation governance is ‘not fit for purpose’ (p.38) this is in many ways the weakest area of the JEP report. JEP fails to accurately locate the governance crisis within USS and instead seeks to suggest failure is simply a general inability of the mechanism of governance to reach a consensus. The JEP’s starting point of avoiding being ‘critical of any of the organisations involved’ (p.6) means that it’s conclusions occasionally reduce to superficial platitudes rather than guides to long-term change. Still worse there is an encouragement to a reduction, rather than an increase, in democratic control over USS.

USS are reported in 2019 to have identified ‘members and their families’ as the key mission of the pension scheme and JEP strongly support a more ‘member-centric’ move. However, statements without actions of intent are simply examples of what might be termed ‘pensioner-washing’ by the pension scheme. The representative voice of current and future pensioner interest within the governance of the scheme comes from the involvement of UCU as a stakeholder organisation. Yet far from this voice being given greater influence USS has acted to weaken members’ voices. The development of the scheme into a Master Trust, an organisation governed by regulations for a Defined Contribution pension scheme rather than Defined Benefit as USS, is designed in part to minimise member involvement. Master Trust regulations allow UCU to recommend, but not appoint, a Trustee. Similarly, the dismissal of the UCU appointed Trustee Prof. Jane Hutton is not commented upon in the JEP report. Jane provided the only critical testing of the USS executive and was a genuine independent voice on the Trustee Board. Her removal was a direct consequence of her independence and willingness to challenge the USS management executive.

JEP’s primary solution of a set of ‘Shared Valuation Principles’ is insufficient if the USS Trustee Board and its management executive, UUK or tPR intent continues to be to place pensioners interests last. Indeed, the setting out of the Shared Valuation Principles, (fig 7, p.36) itself doesn’t mention pensioner interests only scheme sustainability. Closing the scheme leads to a sustainable outcome not in pensioners’ interests, but this is not ruled out of these proposals.

A final concern is the implication that a consensus failed to emerge simply due to the composition of the JNC. A proposal for a sub-set ‘senior’ stakeholder representatives (pp.50-51) to meet separately would seek to remove those elected UCU members who have fought hardest to retain the union’s policy of no-detriment. Increasing democratic oversight of USS would be a worthy aim but it is only UCU which provides an open democratic mechanism for scheme member involvement in stakeholder policy making.

Conclusion

JEP emerged in 2018 as an independent attempt to resolve the most significant industrial dispute Higher Education has seen in the UK. The attempt to find a technical solution to a valuation in its First JEP Report failed, not due to the inability to introduce JEP’s proposed changes to a valuation but rather a deliberate unwillingness of USS, UUK and tPR to agree to this settlement. As a result a second wave of strike action began in November 2019. The difference this time is that UCU members no longer have trust in a negotiated settlement which fails to recognise the aim of their adversaries in the dispute; namely the theft of their pensions and the undermining of any right to retirement staff may have.

Trust is at an all-time low in the sector as the debt driven neo-liberal marketisation of the sector deepens. The Second JEP Report again provides ample examples of the failures of the USS management of the Scheme and the employers’ intent on breaking apart the arguably most successful collective private sector pension scheme to have emerged post-war. However, it has not recognised the divisions between the differing parties involved for what they are; a struggle over the existence of a collective higher education system, fought out on campuses and picket lines, as well as on the terrain of pension assets and liabilities.

Carlo Morelli

UCU Scotland President, NEC and past UCU USS negotiator

5 November 20195 November 2019

The fight is on

Build the HE strikes: organise to win

UCU has called eight days of strike action over Higher Education pay and USS pensions before Christmas, one full week: 25-29 November, culminating with the next school student climate strike day #29November, and three days: 2-4 December, ending on UCU’s Disability Day of Action.

Once again, UCU Left members on the HEC were instrumental in ensuring that the union stayed on track. Our strategy of balloting on pay and pensions together has paid off, with the biggest ever vote in HE for action over pay, casualisation, workload and equality. Now the strategy is to bring members out, united, on the same days over both disputes. A work to contract begins at the same time.

Across UCU, in branch after branch, members voted overwhelmingly YES for action. The reason that some branches will not be on strike is only that their turnout was below 50% of their membership (the anti-union threshold). For example, De Montfort University got a 74% yes vote but a 49% turnout. King’s College London got 81% yes on a 48.7% turnout, and so on. Before the Tory Anti Union Law, these votes would be considered outstanding!

Despite this, this strike call means that 80% of members in USS institutions are being asked to come out on strike. On the Four Fights dispute (pay, equality, casusalisation and workload), more than 60% of members across the sector pre- and post-92 are being called out.

At the same time, UCU agreed to reballot members in branches whose turnout was 40% or over, with other branches choosing to opt in. Ballots can begin after re-notification to employers, so can coincide with the start of this round of strike action. A second wave of strike action can begin next year.

The fifth of the nominated strike days coincides with the date of the next mass Friday climate strike called by school students. Striking UCU members will now be able to respond en masse to the call by young people for trade unionists to support the movement for urgent action on the climate emergency.

We may also be joined by postal workers in the CWU, who have already voted for strikes before Christmas in defence of jobs and against plans to dismember the postal service.

Our strikes will also take place in the run-up to the most important general election for decades. The outcome of the December 12 poll will determine the future of post-16 education for years to come. The issues we are fighting over – pay, pensions, equality, casualisation and workloads – have all been brought to crisis point by the marketisation of the HE sector driven by the Tories’ neoliberal agenda. Our strikes can bring the issues of the student debt burden and the corrosiveness of competition between institutions to the forefront of the election campaign.

Branches and Regions need to begin preparation for the strike now.

We need the big lively picket lines which characterised last year’s USS dispute. We need imaginative teach-out events which can involve students and UCU members in joint discussion and activity.

And we need striking branches to help with the reballoting effort in neighbouring institutions that didn’t make the threshold the first time around.

The last USS strike saw the union grow by 50% in the branches that took strike action. Members joined to take part in the strike in large numbers, some joining on the picket line. This strike will be a fantastic opportunity to recruit more members to the union and further strengthen branches.

Strike committees & democracy

UCU’s last protracted strike, over USS, was sustained by strike committees in many branches. Strike committees were the backbone of the strike: they organised pickets from day to day, gave members a place to express their concerns and debate the way forward with fellow-pickets, and took initiatives like lobbying UUK and talks – and even protesting outside the union HQ during the #NoCapitulation moment.

Some branches have organised strike committees before, but for others the idea is new. Strike committees are simply open democratic fora, open to all strikers, to conduct the business of the strike. Ideally they should be run daily during the strike – that way strikers know when and where they need to go to debate the lessons and decide on next steps.

NB. Ahead of the strike, branch reps will need to book warm, sizeable rooms for strikers to come to!

There will be a Higher Education Sector Conference on USS in Manchester on Friday 6 December – two days after the strike, to which branches can send delegates. Note that to book delegate space, branches must submit delegate names (may be provisional and swapped later) to UCU by Friday, 22 November.

UCU’s Democracy Congress will take place the next day. (NOTE. The deadline for booking delegates is this Thursday, 7 November.) Many of the issues of how such strikes should be run will be raised at that conference as well.

Teach-outs & themed strike days

The last USS strike showed tremendous enthusiasm for protests and initiatives. Teach-outs with students and staff were extremely popular. These can also generate material for distributing on themed strike days.

In this strike we can also bring back themed strike days – something that UCU did very effectively in the HE pay dispute in 2016.

To be clear, a themed strike day is not a day when we only strike over one issue. (We will strike over pay and pensions each day in USS branches.)

A themed strike day is simply a day when branches or regions adopt an issue and promote it actively on that day – in banners, leaflets, press material etc.

In addition to strike days over pensions, for example, we must have a strike day themed on the Environment on 29 November, linking up with the climate movement!

We can also take actions highlighting pension poverty, poverty pay and long hours, casualisation in its many forms, the gender pay and pension gap, race inequality and migrant rights, and disability inequality and access – the last day of strike action is UCU’s Disability Day.

Running through the core of the disputes, we will spell out our alternative: What the University is For. We all know the market madness lies behind most of the evils we are striking against.

We can invite MPs and prospective MPs to participate in teach-outs. The election is a chance to put a spotlight on the crisis in post-16 education.

Strike funds

Members will be concerned about their personal finances. So we will need an effective communications strategy from Head Office outlining the financial support available and how to apply for it.

UCU has already announced national fund criteria:

£75/day for every union member earning under £30,000 a year from Day 2.
£50/day for union members earning £30,000 or more from Day 3.

Branches should also set up local strike funds (guidance from Head Office will be available shortly), and should reach out to sister unions and supportive organisations to add to these local funds. Many pre-92 HE branches already have local funds, but the same is not true for many post-92 branches. Either way, local funds should prioritise the casualised and lowest paid.

In the run up to the General Election there are likely to be lots of political meetings. Organise strikers to do delegation work. Try to attend and speak at some of these and ask for donations. Ask for a speaker slot at your local Trades Council meeting and at local constituency Labour Party meetings. Contact active pensioner and anti-austerity groups.

Most meetings will be happy to hold a bucket collection for our cause, and every penny will help towards ensuring our members don’t struggle financially while fighting these disputes.

Solidarity & reballots

Both disputes are national disputes with the employers, over pay, casualisation, workload and equality with UCEA; and over USS, with Universities UK. Both employer organisations are supposed to represent the interest of the employers collectively in negotiating with the union. All branches are in dispute, even if they are not on strike.

Branches taking strike action will need solidarity from the wider UCU. They will be striking as a first wave, with the expectation that their colleagues in other institutions will be joining them in a second wave. But for this to work we will need a renewed effort to win the turnouts needed in universities and colleges.

Strikers can visit and enthuse branch meetings, department meetings and even floor-walk with reps to Get the Vote Out – and collect for strike funds.

NB. Venues for strike committee meetings and teach-outs can in principle also be booked in these colleges.

We are one union – and we are united to win these two disputes.