strike – Page 2

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?”

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!

31 August 20213 September 2021

TUC 21: Unions must build and make calls for UK-wide action

In less than two weeks’ time trade union leaders from across the whole of the trade union movement will meet to discuss the way forward. The Trade Union Congress will be held online but motions are to be discussed unlike last year when only the General Secretaries of each union met.

The congress takes place in the context of a Tory government in crisis. The defeat of US and British imperialism by the Taliban has sent shock waves through the establishment both here and in the US. The IPCC report on climate warned that urgent action cannot be delayed. It is a ‘Code red for humanity’, stated the report, as we head towards the COP 26 talks hosted by Johnson’s government in November

On the domestic front millions of workers are seething. Hundreds of thousands have seen their loved ones die of Covid unnecessarily, wages have been cut, working conditions deteriorate and many have lost jobs or face redundancy in the coming months.

It’s not just those who never voted for Johnson who have exposed his lies and negligence. The account by the despicable Dominic Cummings of his time as the key advisor to Johnson showed how corrupt and incompetent Johnson and Hancock are, especially in their handling of the pandemic leading to at least 155,000 deaths so far.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that many are asking the question: How does Johnson and his government survive?

Many of the explanations offered for this don’t stand up to scrutiny, recycling earlier flawed explanations about the Northern working class. In fact, many of the events of the last few months show a very different appetite from ordinary people to that represented by Johnson’s government. Much of the liberal press put Johnson’s survival down to the stupid northern working class filled with hatred towards immigrants and loathing of the metropolitan elites who connect with his populist style of politics. Whilst some people do mistakenly blame migrants for their impoverishment, the vast majority did not vote Tory. More working-class people in the north either vote Labour or did not vote at all, rather than vote Tory.

The deep resentment, disillusionment and sheer rage towards all politicians, including Johnson, is as palpable in these towns as it is in towns and cities in the south.

The litmus test of a progressive society, as Leon Trotsky once argued, is how far all forms of oppression had been removed. By this key measurement our society is rapidly moving backwards. As the government launch their culture wars, we have seen a rise in racism, sexism, transphobia and ableism. But we have also seen inspiring resistance to the attempt to divide us. Patel and Johnson did not foresee working class footballers with mass support in working class communities – many from northern communities – leading the resistance to their attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement.

The real reason why this government survives, despite being one of the most incompetent and openly corrupt in history, lies with the lack of opposition to it. It is the lack of leadership which explains how the Tories survive.

Starmer’s moving right show

The starting point to understand why the government survives must begin with the leader of the opposition. Sir Keir Starmer’s election victory has led to a shift to the right in the Labour Party. The strategy adopted by Blair of triangulation – winning the middle ground – is firmly in place. Aping Tory policies, foreign and domestic, in an attempt to prove to the employers that he can be trusted, means that not only can he not put a dent in Johnson’s government but he demoralises Labour’s base as well.

The witch-hunt of the left within the Labour Party, another attempt to prove Starmer can be trusted, has led to over 120, 000 members leaving the Party since his election. (In comparison, only 26,000 left when Corbyn was elected!).

The expulsion of Ian Hodson, President of the food workers’ union, BFAWU, is a declaration of war and the TUC must make a public statement condemning Ian’s expulsion from the party.

The opposition led by Corbyn, in contrast, created a new ‘common sense which put the employers on the defensive when faced with resistance. Having a leader of the opposition who was firmly committed to a progressive left-wing programme and who would publicly appear on picket lines and campaign platforms made a big difference when it came to organising resistance. Starmer’s approach has the opposite impact, by distancing himself and the Labour Party from support for strikes and campaigns, he gives confidence to the Tories and employers to push through attacks and cuts.

0rganising resistance during the Pandemic

Despite the obvious barriers placed upon trade unions’ ability to organise and resist employer and government attacks during the pandemic, tens of thousands of union members have resisted. In workplaces up and down the country union members and workers participated in action, forcing the government to put in place health and safety measures which protected us all.

The government’s resistance to wearing face masks, implementing social distancing measures and opposing or delaying necessary lockdowns were all successfully challenged by a trade union response. We learnt quickly how to organise remotely. Zoom meetings allowed mass participation of members at branch and workplace level with the NEU taking the use of such methods of organising to a new high with over 80,000 members participating. The NEU campaign forced the government to close schools and move to a second lockdown at the beginning of January this year through threatening to use Section 44.

More lives would have undoubtedly been lost if trade union reps in many sectors had not organised in the way they did.

But tens of thousands did die, unnecessarily, because the government was far too slow to take the necessary action. They needed to be forced into action rather than implementing the measures that the WHO and scientists, here and abroad, were arguing for.

The government tried to incorporate the sense of social solidarity that emerged early in the pandemic, by joining in with the weekly clap for the NHS. This was a crude attempt to gloss over the class inequalities that were emerging within the public health crisis. You are much more likely to die from the virus if you are poor, black or have disabilities. The poor died as they tried to keep our public transport, health and education services running, whilst the rich did nothing but get richer at our expense. Billions of pounds of government contracts with zero accountability were given to friends of ministers, often for work which was never fulfilled.

The pressure, therefore, to buy into the ‘we are all in it together’ mantra, needed to be avoided if the movement was going to be able to continue to force the government to act to protect lives. This is why it was a mistake for Francis O’Grady, TUC General Secretary, to appear in a photo opportunity with Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, outside Downing Street celebrating the furlough scheme.

This played into the government’s hands. It helped them to disguise the class inequalities that were emerging and the disastrous impact of decades of previous under-investment and privatisation of the welfare state. By so doing it made it more difficult to organise along class lines especially when employers and government began to use the pandemic to cut jobs, fire and rehire, erode working conditions and freeze pay.

It was reported at our last NEC that UCU has held more industrial action ballots than any other union. The vast majority of them overwhelmingly broke through government TU ballot thresholds. The latest to do so impressively were fifteen FE colleges.

This is something the UCU should be proud of. In some cases, these ballots did not reach strike action with employers agreeing to the union’s demands, after the result of strike ballots. Others such as Brighton and Liverpool did go to strike action. Brighton won and Liverpool after taking, so far 24 days of strike action have got the number of jobs threatened down from 47 to 2.

There will be a wave of strikes in FE starting from September followed by a new UK-wide ballot on pay, pensions and workload across both of the sectors in the new term.

It was out of these localised campaigns in post 16 education institutions that a new and highly effective rank and file network emerged – the UCU Solidarity Movement (USM). Through organising countless online meetings, solidarity twitter storms and days of action USM has been successful in organising financial and moral solidarity to all those engaged in action. It is a model that fits the situation we face and needs to be generalised across the movement to provide the support and solidarity needed for those that are in dispute.

Localised disputes growing

Outside of the post 16 education sector impressive local strikes and campaigns have also been successful. The Manchester bus workers struck against fire and rehire and the Uber drivers’ won a court battle to be classified as workers rather than self-employed, meaning they are now entitled to sick and holiday pay. Strike action by Rolls Royce workers at Barnoldswick saved jobs and stopped the plant closing, and teachers at Leeway’s School in Hackney successfully fought and won trade union recognition. Construction workers at Hinkley Point used old style flying pickets to prevent deskilling and won.

These local disputes reveal the determination and sacrifice of union members to achieve justice over pay and conditions. Outsourced cleaners working at the Royal Parks in Central London who are members of the PCS and UVW have started two weeks of strike action over a range of issues. This is just one example of an ongoing strike that urgently needs our support.

Again, some of these disputes don’t reach strikes before the employers concede. The latest example of this is the IWGB who declared a campaign to bring outsourced cleaners in house at London School of Hygiene which was enough to convince the employer to do so.

Whilst the general level of strikes remains low there is clearly a growing appetite for action over pay, jobs and conditions, which these localised disputes reflect.

As employers look to sack more workers as furlough comes to an end, fire and rehire tactics are used by employers to undermine working conditions and the government continues to freeze public sector pay, the need to resist this assault will become even more urgent. The question for the trade union movement is – can this assault on workers be defeated on a local, site by site strategy alone, or will UK-wide action be needed?

Although many local disputes win, they are not sufficient to turn the tide on a generalised and ongoing working-class assault.

Turn local appetite for action into a UK-wide movement.

It is clear that the political opposition led by Starmer will continue to fail to lay a finger on Johnson and the Tories. The opposition that can remove him from office is the trade union movement.

The Unite General Secretary election resulting in the victory of the left candidate Sharon Graham signals the desire of the rank and file for a break from a leadership that makes grand political gestures but fails to deliver action. Graham stood on a platform of a ‘return to the workplace’ to build a union that can resist the employers’ attacks. Graham’s victory reflects a wider change at the top of the unions. The recent Unison NEC elections have resulted in the left winning the majority of seats.

Graham is the first woman to become the GS of Unite. Her success also reflects a wider shift. Unison, UCU and BAFWU have all elected women GS’s over the past few years. As confidence grows amongst women in society to challenge sexism in the workplace, more women are being elected to top union positions.

It is true that union membership is still six and half million less than the high point of union membership in 1979. Union density, especially in the private sector is low. It is encouraging to see that union membership has been growing during the pandemic but rebuilding union membership cannot simply be left to union recruitment drives and encouraging local disputes. More importantly this strategy will not push back the Tory and employer offensive on pay, jobs and nor will it rebuild our welfare state and transform our economy to avert the climate crisis. To do so we need the trade union movement to be felt at a UK-wide level.It is, unfortunately, unlikely that this year’s Congress will launch a mass UK-wide campaign over pay, jobs or the climate crisis with calls for UK-wide days of protest and demonstrations, let alone strikes. But this is what is needed if we are able to stop the Tory and employer onslaught that is gathering pace. It is quite clear that the government and the employers have a strategy to ensure that it is working people who will pay for the public health crisis through ten more years of austerity. We will not defeat this through site-by-site disputes alone.

The localised disputes that are taking place are over the same issues: pay, insecure contracts, jobs and fire and rehire. It would be very easy to launch a UK-wide campaign that connects with millions of workers across all sectors and encourages them to resist.

To make this a reality the left within the unions will need to organise. To ensure all those local disputes are won, solidarity networks in every union should be organised to make sure that those on strike get financial and moral support.

We will need to campaign for UK-wide ballots to take place over pay, jobs and insecure contracts. Many within the movement are worried about launching UK-wide ballots fearful that they will fail to meet the Tory union ballot thresholds. The CWU and UCU have shown it is possible at a UK-wide level. Of course, the bigger unions will find it more difficult to achieve – but not impossible.

Even if the first attempt is not successful it is not a signal for the employer/government to launch an offensive. Not passing a threshold is not the same as losing a ballot where the workers vote against action and when the employer/government can use the lack of support for action as a green light to launch an offensive. However, this is not the case when thresholds are not met, rarely are votes not close to the threshold and the votes in support of action are usually massively in favour of action.

We are going to have to bite the bullet on organising UK-wide ballots. We can’t simply accept the Tory trade union laws means UK-wide action is off the agenda. We need to be far more tactical about what kind of ballots are organised. A disaggregated ballot might give some unions a better chance of getting bigger numbers involved in action, which might fall short of UK-wide action but will allow the stronger areas to lead a fight for the rest of the union.

This is better than no action at all, or at best lots of disconnected localised disputes, which even when successful don’t generalise outside of that particular workplace leaving workers in the same sector facing the same attacks.

Successful local disputes do not automatically lead to more victories. They need to be generalised so that others can learn from their experience. This is where the solidarity networks are so important, to allow successful experience to be shared.

This process would be far more effective if UK-wide action, which pulls together all those who face the same attacks in one UK /regional/city wide dispute. Failure to do so will mean those who are successful at a local level will be left isolated allowing the employer to dust themselves off and come around for another attack in the future.

Our fight for decent pay, secure contracts and jobs is framed within the wider fight for a just transition of our economy and an end to the marketisation and privatisation of the welfare state. The stakes are high. The trade union movement has the power and organisation to rise to the challenge the government and employers have laid down. Let’s use it to transform lives.

Sean Vernell UCU NEC and TUC delegate

Source: Socialist Worker

27 May 202028 May 2020

Report of Meeting of Higher Education Committee, 27 May 2020

Members of the UCU’s Higher Education Committee (HEC) met online for a half-day meeting to discuss the union’s position towards the two disputes, including the Four Fights offer.

HEC voted:

To support the Day of Action on 1 June called by the National Education Union (NEU) focusing upon casualisation in HE.
To call a Special Higher Education Sector Conference in early July (Motion 3, passed nem con) to discuss formulating campaigns and a draft sector-wide claim to address the threat of redundancies and pay cuts currently facing the sector. This could be a real opportunity to rebuild the fightback over casualisation begun in the Four Fights dispute.

The main part of the meeting attempted to deal with the Four Fights offer from UCEA. This is marginally improved over the offer before the last 14 days of strike action was called, but real questions about its implementation have been raised. There is no increase on pay. However, the wider problem is that instead of addressing casualisation, equality and workload problems, universities are actively looking to sack casualised staff, take no action on pay gaps and to intensify workloads!

The questions HEC had to address were:

should we accept or reject the offer,
should HEC put the question to members, and
what are the key strategic priorities for the union?

The HEC meeting took place after some short but quite extensive consultation with branches that was reported to the two Branch Delegate Meetings the day before. These branches voted with weighted votes.

In the Four Fights dispute, the meeting recorded 96 votes to Reject the UCEA offer and 55 to Accept. But a second question caused considerable debate.

This asked whether HEC, a Higher Education Sector Conference (HESC) or ‘the members’ should decide about the offer, with a clear majority voting for the latter.

This might lead one to conclude that the democratic thing to do would be to put out an offer that branches had called on HEC to Reject out to members — but with a recommendation to Reject! This certainly was the line taken by Jo Grady and the ‘IBL’ faction.

However, there were several clear problems with this interpretation.

Delegates complained about Q2 simply because it was not a question that they had been asked to put to branches. If they voted to Reject, they believed that was sufficient.
Until the morning of the Branch Delegate Meeting, officials had told reps that an HESC was out of the question.
The question had no option “do not accept, do not reballot now, but rebuild the dispute” — the position that a majority of branch delegates reported their branches had arrived at.
In the meeting, few branch delegates reported that the option of “ballot members with a recommendation to Reject” was the position arrived at by their branch meetings.

It is worth noting that Sally Hunt was heavily criticised for interpreting questions of a branch delegate meeting in order to end the USS dispute in 2018.

HEC representatives all agree that whatever mechanism was involved, members would be consulted as part of building a new fightback. But the differences between Left and Right turned on the questions of when and how.

After a debate, HEC voted on an emergency motion to call an online Higher Education Sector Conference to debate this issue. This was lost on a tied vote 20:20. However HEC had already voted to organise a Sector Conference to debate a new sector-wide claim to UCEA (Motion 3). Given that there is no agreement to rush to reballot, the sensible position would be to address these issues at that conference.

HEC then moved to vote on a recommendation from the national officials to put the offer to members. This fell 18 votes with 21 votes against. Due to lack of time remaining motions were remitted to the next HEC meeting.

Where does this leave the union?

There may be another call to have an HEC meeting. Alternatively it might be felt that the best way forward is via the Special Sector Conference supported already (see above).

We would advise branches to call online General Meetings in the next two weeks. Many are fighting their local employers in any case.

We need to renew the debate in the branches about how to take the Four Fights dispute forward. This can feed into the Special Sector Conference in July, and pass motions which may be submitted to HEC in the interim.
Branches can submit motions (of 150 words or less) to the HEC via an existing HEC member (UCU Left members of the HEC can be contacted to do so). Branches can also submit motions directly to the national Head of Higher Education, but these would be recorded only for information.)

Other motions were passed, including supporting a campaign over fair rents and a ban on tenant evictions, an issue that particularly affects low-paid staff and students, and to launch an organising campaign in support of casualised staff.

In the immediate, branches should start planning to organise protests on the Day of Action on June 1st, and/or support NEU protests.

10 December 2019

Democracy Congress – Two steps forward, one step back?

Saturday’s Democracy Congress saw a mobilisation by the right-wing ‘Independent Broad Left’ (IBL) to block rule changes proposed by the UCU’s Democracy Commission intended to improve accountability of the union’s leadership.

The Democracy Commission – and this Congress – were called to address the causes of the crisis in the union that was triggered in the 2018 USS strike, when first, the will of branch delegates was ignored by the union’s Higher Education Committee (then-IBL-dominated) and by the then-General Secretary Sally Hunt. Infamously, criticism of the General Secretary at Congress was averted by a walkout of officials.

Two key questions arising from this crisis remain unresolved:

can a sitting General Secretary be removed promptly by members when they act contrary to their interests (i.e. how are they accountable to members)? and
by what democratic mechanism may multi-institution strikes be run, on a day-to-day basis, by striking members themselves?

Democracy and accountability will become obvious and dominant questions as members in HE in particular take further strike action in the new year. First, our members need to have confidence that their General Secretary will negotiate hard from a position of knowing she is accountable to active striking members. Second, members themselves must be able to make important decisions to coordinate and focus strike action effectively.

Indeed the day before the Democracy Congress, a special Higher Education Sector Conference, led by striking branches themselves, took bold steps to plan escalating action for the Spring and Summer Terms.

A majority, but rarely two-thirds

Although nearly all of the proposals were supported by a majority of delegates, very few achieved the two-thirds majority they required for rule changes to bring them into effect.

A procedure regulating how Congress can be curtailed and a three-term limit for General Secretaries were agreed, but important measures to enhance members’ control over the leadership by creating elected Deputy General Secretary posts, and allowing branches or regions to trigger an investigation of the actions of the General Secretary, did not get the necessary majority. Also shelved was a proposal to put strikers in control of their disputes through the creation of multi-institution Dispute Committees made up of striking branches and those in dispute.

This was a setback for anyone who invested in the Democracy Commission when it was established in response to the shut-down of the 2018 Congress. It was clear from the outset that the IBL had mobilised heavily for this Congress, and used their votes consistently against every change designed to give members more control over the decision-making structures of the union and those who make them. This faction of the UCU is opposed to a member-led union and is committed to blocking changes to the existing structures and procedures which would give members more control.

Although they have been routed in the big HE pre-92 branches – which is why Manchester, Oxford, and Cambridge have grown, democratised and got over 50% in the last HE ballots – the IBL still have influence elsewhere. The title of their handout ‘UCU Agenda’ (UCU Bureaucratic Control) could not be more apposite.

With left activists in many branches busy mobilising for a Labour vote in the General Election, many did not send delegates. Compared to a Labour victory, this Congress might not have seemed important. But in 2018 we learned the hard way that structures and accountability matter immensely.

Other delegates who voted with the IBL against some of the proposals may have believed that since we now have a new rank-and-file General Secretary, the changes proposed by the Democracy Commission were unnecessary. It is true that Jo Grady has shown exemplary support for members when they want to fight. She put her shoulder behind the HE balloting effort and spent the eight days of strikes touring the country visiting picket lines and speaking at rallies.

It is also the case that compared to two years ago we now have a left-led HEC (with a large number of UCU Left members and supporters elected) which is more committed to action by members and has consistently put forward a strategy that can win.

Democracy and accountability for the future

#NoCapitulation However, the potential for a split between a full-time leadership and ordinary union members remains. This is not about individual personalities. Anyone who is in an elected position and has led strikes knows the pressure they are under to resolve a dispute. This pressure is even more powerful in the case of a national dispute. There is also pressure from unelected full-time officials whose focus on finding ‘exit’ strategies can often lead to outcomes short of what continued action can achieve.

These pressures can only get stronger as the current HE disputes escalate. There is only one force capable of stopping a repeat of 2018 and a compromise deal far short of what is possible – the active, mobilised membership. This is why it was a serious mistake to for some who quite rightly were angered about the outcome of the USS dispute two years ago to oppose the proposal for setting up multi-institution strike or dispute committees. We need structures which ensure that it is always the members who are taking action, picketing and losing money – not standing committees or Carlow Street – who can take the crucial decisions on the direction of their dispute. This happens in practice at a local level – but strikes at a national level are currently handed over to HEC, FEC and the officials.

Nevertheless, healthy democracy is not conjured up by perfect rules and structures. A democratic deficit will not be corrected by technical fixes. As last year’s events around the USS dispute showed, the desire for greater democratic control over the union arises out of members’ activity. So while rule changes that enhance members’ control over the union are important, it is ultimately the level of membership involvement in the union’s struggles that really counts.

There was hardly any mention of the current USS and Four Fights disputes at Saturday’s Congress, although this dispute had been discussed at length the previous day. But the question of democracy cannot be separated from the battles in which we are currently engaged. During the eight days of strike action in HE, many branches had regular open strike committee meetings (sometimes called “strike assemblies”) to discuss and plan their action. It is through such mechanisms that the ideas and creativity of members to solve problems, plan initiatives and make their action more effective come to the fore.

But it is also those meetings that allow members and reps to evaluate the potential for further action. Thus it was strike meetings at UCL, Liverpool and Dundee that debated motions about strike days which were then formally voted on by branch committees and proposed to Friday’s HE sector conference as amendments. Already we are seeing a nascent member-led democracy in the disputes, pushing existing structures into action.

Existing structures and moving forward

UCL Strike Committee What are the existing mechanisms for members to assert democratic control in disputes? They depend on the calling of a special Sector Conference like the USS HE Sector Conference (HESC) on Friday. Calling such conferences is slow, and conferences are expensive. A multi-institution strike committee could be much more flexible, quickly called and streamlined to key questions not lengthy motions.

An obvious question concerns who gets to vote. According to convention, striking post-92 branch reps were not supposed to vote on Friday, because the HESC was called over the USS disputes. However, on many issues, like the calling of further action, it is obviously reasonable for post-92 reps to have a vote. This is because the union is committed to joint action, and therefore post-92 reps with ballot mandates would reasonably expect to take the action voted on! Meanwhile, at that same meeting, branch reps in USS branches that were neither reballoting nor striking were allowed to have a vote! There is a mismatch between striking branches and the democratic delegate structures.

This is not an HE-only problem. The same issue would apply to the Further Education strikes of 2018, when some branches were striking but others not. Our democratic structures are imperfect, but we need to use them.

But we cannot afford to wait for formal structures to be set up. We will need to create our own rank-and-file delegate body to link up local strike committees if we are to win the HE disputes. If we cannot do this through official means, we must create our own unofficial, mechanisms. The moral authority of strikers is not to be ignored, as the #NoCapitulation moment identified. Woe betide any HEC member or General Secretary who refuses to accept the will of mobilised strikers! So if we cannot make our reps accountable in rule, let us make them accountable in practice!

So the outcome of the Democracy Conference is: we need more democracy! In Higher Education, striking members and those reballoting need to get organised.

First, colleagues will need to work hard to win the next round of reballots in HE branches. Solidarity, twinning and branch-to-branch support across regions are crucial to getting the vote out.

Second, in early February we will know the outcome of the reballots and we need a national strike coordinating meeting. We can plan creatively towards fostering joint collective organising, from branch-to-branch Skype linkups to joint physical meetings in cities during the next round of strikes.

Margot Hill (Croydon College)
London Region Secretary
– standing for UCU Vice President

23 November 201923 November 2019

HE Strike Bulletin #1

Take back the university – Unite and Fight

Lobby of UUK, 2018

Leaflet A4 (for printing)

UCU members have achieved something many thought impossible. We bust through the Tory anti-union threshold of 50% turnout in sixty universities. Activists have breathed new life into the campaign to defend USS, and broadened the fight to the post-92 universities, winning ballots on pay, equality, casualisation and workload.

Democracy, struggle and ballots

This happened thanks to the flowering of democracy in the union. The 2018 strike movement demanded accountability of union leaders in congresses and conferences. One general secretary election, a turbulent congress, recall congress and democracy commission later and we have a renewed determination to fight at the grassroots.

We also have a new general secretary from the left, and a left-activist HE leadership (see below for next year’s candidates). Now 80% of members in the USS pre-92 universities are on strike. The remainder are in branches whose turnout was less than 10% short of that required – in some cases they were only a few votes short. Many post-92 colleges were also close to the 50% turnout.

A reballot campaign – aligned to the strike campaign – can bring them out.

But branches seeking a rapid reballot have not been supported at HQ. Three weeks after the ballot results came out, we should be starting repeat ballots at the beginning of the strike wave. HEC voted to relaunch the ballot campaign to allow branches to join a second wave of strikes. Branches need to demand a reballot now.

Uniting to win

Now post-92 universities have joined the fightback. The ‘four fights’ campaign unites the sector. In total, nearly two thirds of the union’s HE membership are striking in defence of pay, against casualisation, escalating workload and – perhaps most importantly of all – to close the appalling gender and race pay gaps that blight our sector.

Members in post-92 universities were unable to take action in 2018. They were able to deliver solidarity to their pre-92 colleagues. But the astonishing mass strike movement in the colleges inevitably centred on the ‘old’ universities. The action has spread to post-92.

After the gold rush

Post-92 universities bore the first, shattering brunt of this market attack, suffering devastating cuts and closures. Students pay more, staff earn less. And future taxpayers will pay for it.

In the 2010 general election, the Lib Dems claimed that scrapping tuition fees was “non negotiable”. Then they did a U-turn to enter a coalition with the Tories. That ConDem government tripled fees to £9,000 a year and part-abolished the block grant. Then in 2014 they removed limits on student recruitment, unleashing the gold rush and war-of-all-against-all we see today.

Since then university management greed has expanded courses and student numbers. Over £10bn was borrowed for new campuses and buildings. The Treasury’s tuition fee debt mountain is now around £100bn, half of which will never be repaid.

University employers are gradually waking up to the reality that this gold rush must come to an end. Augar proposed cutting the home student fee to £7,500 a year. This would wipe out profit margins universities are banking on.

The importance of this general election to change course cannot be understated. Both the Labour and Green Party manifestos call for abolishing tuition fees and bringing the HE market under control.

Despite record surpluses as much as £2bn a year, pay has been cut by 20% in real terms over the last ten years. Fee-market uncertainty encourages expansion at the expense of job insecurity. Workload has skyrocketed. Workload and job insecurity are two sides of the same coin: the whip of the causal contract driving up workload for all.

Market competition and secrecy means UCL does not know what Imperial has borrowed or whether its sums add up, and vice versa. USS depends on a ‘mutuality’ principle (all universities share pension risk in case one goes bankrupt). This is undermined by mutual distrust and corporate self-interest. That is why a government guarantee to underpin the scheme makes sense.

We can win

Our demands are ridiculously reasonable. The sector is making record surpluses. In many colleges, interest payments on borrowing exceed the few extra million apiece that would be needed to settle this dispute. But if the Treasury needs to help out, so what? This is a national dispute, universities are a national asset, and we need a national settlement.

In pre-92, if UUK agreed to end the fictional ‘de-risking’ USS valuation model, they would immediately recoup 3.1% of salary costs. USS does not need extra contributions. Between 2017 and 2019, its assets grew by £10bn to £74bn. The increases USS is demanding cannot yield more than £1bn over the next two years.

This strike is a warning shot. Eight days show we are serious. By uniting together we have the power to shut down the whole sector. We may need to strike next year.

Fighting for the future

Our strikes prove that the university is the staff. The ‘academic team’ is the entire staff body, from porter to professor. Education is the gift each generation nurtures and hands to the next. Thus universities are central to ensuring that climate science is implemented, and the world economy is moved onto a sustainable basis.

We stand with our students, and the rest of society. University funding is a pact with society: academic freedom is a freedom of a free society. We stand in solidarity with student and staff protesters in Hong Kong and other countries where those rights are being trampled on. We stand against all who would divide us by race, religion, sexuality, gender or physical ability.

Everyone has the right to benefit from a free education. Its time to unite and fight for the future of Higher Education – and for a freer, more sustainable society for all.

Leaflet A4 (for printing)

22 November 2019

Reballots needed now!

The strikes in the 60 universities which got over the 50 percent ballot threshold will undoubtedly win enthusiastic support. Those of us who didn’t quite get over that high bar are keen to join our colleagues, to help strengthen our forces and pile the pressure on our employers. But there is a real danger that the momentum we worked so hard to build will be lost if the union delays reballoting universities like mine.

At Imperial College London, 72.64 percent voted in favour of strike action, on a turnout of 47.99 percent — a shortfall of just 14 votes. To come so close was hugely frustrating. But the results elsewhere meant there was no hesitation or disagreement among members or reps about the need for an immediate reballot. After a frank discussion among reps and at a members meeting, we agreed to ask HQ for an immediate re-ballot and a short, sharp campaign — preferably beginning on the first day of the strikes and finishing after just three weeks, before the end of term. It would allow us to get help from a big branch like UCL, using the impetus of their striking activists to support the reballot. This would also allow us to join the second wave of strikes in the New Year.

We knew this would demand a much more extensive Get The Vote Out campaign, so we asked members to help. We immediately set up a bigger and better organised network of reps and volunteers across departments and campuses to ensure we can deliver the votes. We’ve been hugely enthused by the ballot results elsewhere, and will be similarly inspired by our striking colleagues. However, this enthusiasm won’t last indefinitely. If reballots at Imperial or elsewhere are delayed until after the first round of strikes, we will miss the opportunity to escalate, and lose momentum at a time our colleagues need to know reinforcements are on the way. This will prolong the dispute and risks undermining it.

UCU’s Higher Education Committee on 1st November voted that branches with a turnout of 40% or more should expect to be reballoted, and that branches below this would be encouraged to opt in. This would allow as many more branches as possible to join the second wave of action. But since then, it’s become clear that elements in the union want to put the brakes on.

So what is going on?

Doubtless, there are real political pressures. Many trade union and Labour Party officials don’t want strikes during an election campaign — or a Labour government coming into office to face a major industrial dispute. But if Labour’s plans — for a National Education Service, of dismantling tuition fees and the market in education — have any chance of being implemented, then we have to be prepared to fight for them.

Perhaps the obstruction has more to do with conservative elements in the union who never wanted us to fight over both pay and equality at the same time.

It’s clearly too late now for the reballot to begin on Day 1 of the strikes – but it’s urgent that it starts as soon as possible.

Roddy Slorach
(Imperial UCU branch organiser, personal capacity)

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.

31 October 20196 November 2019

We won the vote – Now let’s start the action

The ballot results are in. UCU members throughout Higher Education are ready to fight to defend their pay and pensions, and to stand up against inequality, unmanageable workloads and casualisation.

On pay, 73% of members voted yes to strike action, on a 49% total turnout. 55 university branches declared with a turnout greater than 50%. On USS, 44 out of 64 USS institutions hit the threshold. Herriot-Watt topped the poll at 71.59% turnout.

Branches in Northern Ireland do not have to beat the 50% threshold, so Queens University Belfast, Ulster University, Stranmillis University College and St Mary’s University College Belfast are also able to strike.

62.33% of balloted UCU members are in branches eligible to take strike action over pay. In the USS pre-92 universities, the equivalent figure is 80.62%.

These are the highest votes ever in a UCU national pay campaign, outstripping those in last year’s pay ballot.

The votes were overwhelmingly for action. But thanks to the Tory Anti-Union Laws, turnout is the key. 55 branches exceeded the 50% threshold required. Given the obstacle that this represents for trade unions, our results are very positive. The union decided to conduct disaggregated ballots precisely so that some branches would be able to fight even if we didn’t reach the threshold overall.

What must happen now

It is time to name the date for action.

The 55+ branches with legal mandates must begin escalating action in mid-November (see list below). The other branches need to continue the campaign to reballot – see below.

The pension action will begin to put pressure on the employers in UCEA and UUK and on the pension bosses at USS. We know they won’t shift their positions without it.

The pay action (including equality, workload and casualisation) unifies members young and old, and unites us with our colleagues in other unions in each university or college. Pay also unifies the sector, pre- and post-92.

Successful pay ballots allow other workers who are not in UCU to participate in strikes. (It is unlawful for employers to discriminate by union membership and branches can extract statements from HR to that effect.) It also means that post-92 institutions will be able to take strike action alongside pre-92, offering mutual solidarity and presenting a united front in defence of HE and the staff who work in HE.

It is time to lift the lid on local issues of casualisation and gender and race pay inequality – and show they are endemic to our sector.

We can take action alongside postal workers defending their jobs and school students fighting climate change.

General Election

The general election gives us the perfect opportunity to put a spotlight on the future of Higher Education.

If we want to insist that government has a responsibility to ensure that universities pay their staff properly, address the scandals of rising casualisation and unequal pay, and protect the USS pension scheme for future generations with a government guarantee, we could not ask for a better moment to take action!

Reballots and organising solidarity

Meanwhile, branches who reached 40% or more should be reballoted with the aim of joining a second wave of action in January. Many branches are only a few dozen votes short of the threshold and have a very good chance of breaking through on a reballot. Bringing out more branches would be an excellent way for our action to escalate in the new year. See the graphs above. Branches which fell below 40% should have the right to opt in to the reballot.

All those not in a position to strike yet can support striking members by contributing to a strike fund levy.

UCU in Transformation – One Year On
#UCUTransformed2019
London, Sat 2 Nov 11-5
Called by London Region UCU

In the meantime we face a major organising task. Regions have a crucial role to link up branches striking with those balloting, organising regional demonstrations and encouraging demonstrative action.

The first step to linking up activists and reps will be the #UCUTransformed2019 one-day conference called by London Region UCU on Saturday 2 November.

This will be the first chance to debate the next steps in the struggle with other reps and activists. Reps in branches that missed the threshold will want to discuss the Herriot Watt GTVO strategy. Other regions should call activist meetings as soon as possible to do the same.

Branches with live ballot mandates

The institutions in which members can now take action are:

Aston University
Bangor University
Bishop Grosseteste University
Bournemouth University
Cardiff University
Courtauld Institute of Art
Durham University
Edge Hill University
Glasgow Caledonian University
Glasgow School of Art
Heriot-Watt University
Liverpool Hope University
Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA)
Loughborough University
Newcastle University
Open University
Queen Margaret University
Queen’s University, Belfast
Roehampton University
Sheffield Hallam University
St Mary’s University College Belfast
Stranmillis University College
The Institute of Development Studies
The University of Aberdeen
The University of Bath
The University of Dundee
The University of Kent
The University of Leeds
The University of Manchester
The University of Nottingham
The University of Sheffield
The University of Stirling
Ulster University
University College London
University of Birmingham
University of Bradford
University of Brighton
University of Bristol
University of Cambridge
University of Edinburgh
University of Essex
University of Exeter
University of Glasgow
University of Lancaster
University of Leicester
University of Liverpool
University of London, City
University of London, Goldsmiths
University of London, Queen Mary
University of London, Royal Holloway
University of Oxford
University of Reading
University of Southampton
University of St Andrews
University of Strathclyde
University of Sussex
University of Wales
University of Warwick
University of York

1 June 20194 June 2019

The Fight Of Our Lives – Round 2

The Augar report

The disastrous HE tuition fee market experiment of 2011 is unravelling.

The much-trailed Tory-commissioned review into HE funding, the Augar Report, is proposing cuts in tuition fees to £7,500 but a much harder ‘hit’ on students: faster repayment schedules with a lower repayment threshold, a lower interest rate but students will carry a debt for 40 years instead of 30.

In UCU Left, we have always argued for cutting tuition fees to zero, bringing back grants, and demanding that “all who may benefit can come” to university (the so-called Robbins Principle). For us, Higher Education is the gift each generation bestows on the next – access to knowledge at the highest level. Make the super-rich pay their taxes, and this is entirely feasible.

But that is not what this cut is about.

Indeed, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reckon that the wealthiest students would benefit the most from the changes.

But this change – the unilateral imposing of new rates for degrees – is also a colossal market intervention on a supposed independent market!

The shockwaves will be massive.

So far the government has said it will not bail out colleges. Yet many universities have taken on large long-term debts for building projects. The Times reported in January that universities had taken on £10bn in loans.

Second, the market changes are intended to reduce student intake in certain subjects – Arts and Humanities disciplines in particular – that have seen the greatest expansion. Colleges which are dependent on these courses are likely to suffer the greatest.

If the changes are implemented, this new round of state intervention will likely drive some universities into the wall and propel students out on the street, indebted and degree-less. This happened in the USA with the collapse of the Corinthian Colleges, and if Augar is implemented, it is bound to happen here. The HE Bill (now ‘Higher Education & Research Act’) changed the constitution of university funding to explicitly allow universities to go bankrupt without being required to teach students to completion.

The Tory ex-HE minister, Jo Johnson, criticised the report, saying, correctly, that it will destabilise university finances. You’re not kidding.

Even before Augar, press leaks were of universities teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Sir Michael Barber, Chair of the ‘Office for Students’, was reported in response saying that “no university is too big to fail”.

Now that boom-time is coming to an end, the employers are trying to make us pay the price. Just as they siphoned up the profits of HE expansion, faced with boom turning to bust, the university employers are trying to make us take the pain. They have held down pay increases below inflation yet again, driving down the proportion of budgets going to staff costs (pay and pensions) across HE, driving up surpluses and capital investments. Across our sector, from Westminster to the Open University, we have seen wholesale redundancies amidst shiny new buildings.

In the Pre-92 sector, the market is undermining the pension scheme. And the same approach is now being applied to TPS. Treating Post-92 colleges as independent universities justifies the Tory response to the Teachers Pension Scheme crunch – no more money – triggering cuts and redundancies, and potentially break-away pension plans.

We need a concerted national plan to defend the Post-92 Contract, redundancies and escalating workload in these universities. Most of all we have to fight like a national union and defend the sector.

So once a fightback in Pre-92 begins, we should use this to inspire resistance in Post-92. We are now committed to a pay fight uniting both parts of the sector. See below.

The USS crisis

In UCU Left, we have long argued that the USS crisis derives directly from HE market competition. In 2017, we saw Cambridge and Oxford colleges threaten to go it alone. This May, Sir David Eastwood, USS JNC chair, wrote to Bill Galvin, USS CEO, to say that USS needed to account and pay for the risk of HE institutions breaking away from USS.

Market madness is undermining USS.

Is USS in trouble?

USS is paying out less in benefits than it is taking in. In 2018, USS received £2.2bn in contributions and paid out only £2.0bn – a 10% surplus.
Neither the scheme’s assets, nor returns on those assets, are currently being drawn upon to pay benefits. The scheme is ‘immature’, growing and healthy.
Yet, at the insistence of the employers, USS management is ‘de-risking the portfolio’ by moving investments from equity (stocks and shares) to debt (gilts), causing a loss of 4.8%pa+ to the scheme. This is because government bonds and gilts have a low level of return, below CPI. Long-term this means inflation ‘eats the pension pot’, creating a real deficit.
This is heaping risk upon the scheme and eroding its long-term viability. The models used by USS Ltd to estimate its future viability are seriously mathematically flawed in other ways.
The only reason to ‘de-risk’ is if you think the universities won’t be around to act as guarantors to the pension fund. And the reason you might think that is because of the current market madness engulfing the sector.

The current huge USS contribution hikes are in essence covering the cost of the ‘employer covenant’ – the guarantee that employers collectively make to guarantee the future of USS. This works on the presumption that universities will be around in the future, to support USS in the future. But market competition makes university survival less certain, pushing the scheme into a winding-up (‘de-risking’) valuation methodology. Hence ‘de-risking’, the misnamed process of devaluing the assets by dumping them in low-interest bearing government bonds and gilts.

The root of the problem is simply this. In a winner-takes-all, devil-takes-hindmost cuthroat competition, universities see each other as unknown risk bearers at best, enemies at worst. Thus in May, Trinity College Cambridge announced it was leaving USS because it did not wish to carry the pension risk of other colleges’ pensioners.

It is bad enough that costs on us are sky-rocketing. Worse, paying these additional contributions is to reward and encourage failure!

We cannot address this crisis by negotiating and hoping. We need leverage.

Look what happened after we stopped striking. We went backwards.

The USS Board shredded the First JEP Report – and any move to avoid ‘de-risking’ – because they believed UCU had demobilised.
One of our USS trustees, Jane Hutton, was forced out for criticising USS’s approach to the valuations.
The Pension Regulator is saying that even ‘Option 3’ is unlikely to be viable.

We are heading for disaster unless we fight.

We have to fight back

When we fight we can rebalance the equation.

Before we struck in 2018, everything seemed lost. USS was heading for the abyss of 100% Defined Contribution. Within two weeks into 14 days of strikes, and UUK were beginning to backtrack.

But we stopped our strikes too early. Not because the JEP was not well-intentioned – but because the Achilles heel of the JEP was that USS Board could ignore its recommendations.

Every Pre-92 branch of UCU faces a stern test. How will we rebuild the fight to defend USS?

We need to get organised.

Starting now, how do we organise a Get the Vote Out Campaign that instils confidence in our members to strike in the Autumn?

We will face two arguments.

“We fought before but here we are, so what’s the point?”
- Our strike was successful but it was only one battle in a war to defend our pension. If we had continued to victory, we might have won outright.
“Pension cuts are inevitable.”
- They were not inevitable for the entire life of USS until 2011. What changed is the market competition in the sector, and USS adapting to it by ‘de-risking’ USS.

This is Round 2 in the fight of our lives. A serious fight to defend USS has every change of winning, and in the process building a bigger defence for the future of Higher Education in the UK, uniting with students and everyone who cares about the future of society and the role of universities in it.

We should re-raise the demand that as part of the Augar review, the Government should guarantee USS (and underwrite TPS costs). After all, they are directly intervening in the market they created and undermining the UK university sector as a result.

What next?

UCU’s HE Conference decided on the following key actions:

Declare a dispute with the employers immediately over the imposed extra contributions.
Ballot members in September and October for serious strike action in the autumn term.
Build a big political campaign calling members into action, including a Day of Action.
Call a Higher Education Sector Conference in the late autumn term to review next steps.
Organise a pay campaign alongside pensions and unite the whole union across HE.

Branches need to call General Meetings before the end of the Summer Term, to report back on Congress and HE Conference. Invite our new General Secretary Jo Grady, a USS negotiator or an HEC member to speak.

It is time to wake up the ‘strike committees’, ‘action committees’ and other campaign networks that branches built up before and during the last USS strike. Every single member who took strike action has a stake in this fight.

We need to plan the biggest possible Get the Vote Out campaign for September and October.

We need to explain that we won the battle, but we have not yet won the war.

We can put this right in Round 2.

But we need to get organised.

Obvious Question: How can we fight a climate crisis with a bankrupt university sector?