Congress is the annual supreme decision-making body of UCU. For two days delegates from across UCU’s sectors debate together, and then there is one day where FE and HE divide into separate sector conferences. Congress is crucial to the union’s democracy as members, voted by their branches from across the country come together to debate and vote on motions from branches. The results of all votes can be found here: https://www.ucu.org.uk/Congress26
This year, delegates in both sector conferences voted to ballot members for strike action. In Further Education, an aggregated ballot will ask members if they are prepared to strike in pursuit of pay, national binding bargaining, and workload agreements. Whilst in HE members voted to ballot members for a UK-wide fight over jobs and to progress a Secretary of State dispute.
These decisions are essential; it is clear that a juggernaut of cuts is heading our way. In HE, well over 30,000 jobs have gone in the last three years, 15,000 of them in the last year alone. This looks set to worsen dramatically after the Parliamentary Education Select Committee warned that 24 universities could go insolvent in the next 12 months, potentially shutting up shop overnight.
In FE, decades of underinvestment have seen more than 25,000 jobs disappear, wages cut by 30% in real terms, and workloads spiral out of control.
Both sectors face extremely tough times ahead. Both sectors need a real injection of government funding.
Delegates at FESC and HESC made it absolutely clear that fighting college by college or university by university will not stem the tide of these attacks. They voted for the union to organise nationally aggregated ballots in the autumn term to resist them.
Unfortunately, the leadership of the union, both full-time officials and the majority of lay members on the NEC, do not support delegates’ decisions. They argued that UCU could not win a national ballot at this time and that more (and more) time was needed to prepare.
In FE, the newly elected Vice-President attempted to win support for a motion that would have put off making any decisions – not just on action, but even on what issues to fight on – until a Further Education Special Sector Conference sometime in early 2027! This would effectively have meant abandoning this year’s national pay claim, despite it already having been submitted to the employers.
The IBL/CUD supporters became increasingly frustrated as they lost every motion that attempted to delay action or narrow the dispute, and as delegates repeatedly voted for national industrial action. They attacked and patronised delegates from the rostrum, claiming delegates didn’t understand what they were voting for and even going so far as to describe delegates as “cruel” for supporting nationally coordinated action.
In HE, reps from branches fighting redundancies expressed anger and distress that the union’s “strategy” amounted to waiting for branches to come under attack and then responding afterwards. This frustration was made even more acute by the announcement from the Education Select Committee warning of mass closures and redundancies.
Therefore, members voted for a national strategy and to ballot for industrial action over redundancies. It was explained that, to do this, the union would need to put a demand to every employer requiring them to affirm there would be no redundancies for a period of 12 months, or they would face a ballot and potential industrial action.
Alongside this, delegates voted for UCU to organise a political campaign to defend HE involving every branch in the UK.
It was also agreed to take forward a dispute with the Secretary of State for Education in England.
However, it is clear that the majority on the NEC, with the support of the nationally elected officers, will do all they can to ignore sector conference decisions. They will do so not simply because they are pessimistic about members’ willingness to fight back, but because many in the leadership are opposed to strike action itself.
There is a political current embedded within UCU that resists strike action and always has. Currently, its representatives argue that the “time is not right”, while insisting that they “really do support national action – just not right now”. This is simply the latest excuse. They have opposed motions calling for strike action on every occasion over the past 20 years.
Unfortunately, this group forms the majority on the NEC (IBL/CUD and Commons members). Some may genuinely believe that striking is not something education unions should be doing, that it is somehow not “professional”. They fear that national strike action would take the union beyond their control.
They also argue that we need “greater density” before action can be taken. However, our biggest periods of growth as a union have consistently come when we are preparing for and taking strike action. We are seeing growing membership in Goldsmiths, Edinburgh and other branches in dispute. Even branches not directly involved in disputes saw membership increase during the last national ballot period.
Of course, strikes are not the only campaigning tool we should use. Mass lobbies and demonstrations play an important role in any campaign. However, without industrial action, we will not be able to prevent government and employers from destroying our sectors.
War, austerity and the rise of the far right
The debates at Congress were framed by the ongoing drive towards war, rising military and arms spending, and the growth of the far right. Delegate after delegate explained the importance of organising resistance to cuts in jobs and pay, in order to deny the far right a hearing, both within education and in wider society.
Delegates supported motions defending migrant rights and protecting ESOL and adult education from cuts by Reform UK. A motion from Liverpool John Moores University to build on the success of the Together Alliance and deepen this work was also passed. Congress voted to defend the right to protest through campaigning and by working with organisations such as Amnesty and Defend Our Juries.
Several amendments and motions developed UCU’s anti-war agenda by opposing war with Iran and the attacks on Lebanon and Palestine. Delegates passed an amendment to Motion 1, Education Policy: Valuing Post-16 Education, calling on UCU to submit a motion to TUC Congress opposing conscription. This is essential as states across the world ratchet up military spending and introduce new forms of conscription. In Germany, there were even attempts to introduce what amounted to a travel ban on 16–44-year-olds wishing to leave the country for more than three months.
This motion against conscription will build on the successful UCU motion carried at last year’s TUC Congress, which overturned TUC policy supporting increased arms spending. UCU has the ability to make a real difference within the wider trade union movement, and subsequently wider society.
Unfortunately, many motions fell off the agenda, including Motion 46, Demilitarising Higher Education – Welfare over Warfare, from the University of Warwick. Further work will be needed to challenge the militarisation of post-16 education.
The strength of feeling on these issues was also reflected in the fringe meetings. The liveliest and best-attended fringes at Congress were the Stand Up to Racism and Wages Not Weapons meetings. This demonstrated delegates’ willingness to take political positions that address the wider circumstances facing our members and communities.
The General Secretary’s opening remarks at Congress reaffirmed her commitment to campaigning against war and the far right. She spoke at both fringe meetings and has played an important role in supporting these campaigns.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the NEC majority, many of whom declined to attend these events and are not prominent in these campaigns either locally or nationally. The threat of war and the rise of the far right are real. The union must unite around these issues, whatever disagreements we may have on other questions.
A dysfunctional union
For many delegates, this year’s Congress was a frustrating experience. Very few motions were debated. This was partly due to challenges to the ordering of the CBC report, with delegates contesting decisions to rule motions and amendments off the agenda. However, it was also due to repeated failures of the voting equipment, lengthy delays in obtaining results, and filibustering from the right.
The staff dispute involving members of UNITE continues. It was a disgrace that members of staff in GMB threatened to shut down Congress, if a motion from Goldsmiths University supporting the UNITE staff dispute was discussed. We cannot allow representatives of staff unions to dictate what elected delegates are permitted to debate.
Surely it cannot be beyond the capacity of a professional trade union, staffed at leadership level by experienced trade union officials, to resolve a dignity-at-work dispute that has now continued for two years.
The chaos that dominated much of Congress will only deepen cynicism within the union. Members work hard to write motions, debate them in branches, submit them to Congress and prepare supporting speeches. Yet when they arrive at Congress, they find themselves unable to debate them. Many will inevitably question the level of democracy within our union, and this is a question that we will need to address.
Attendance at this year’s Congress, particularly in HE, was markedly lower than last year. Members are already asking what the point is in participating in the union’s democratic structures if this is how they are going to be treated.
UCU’s dysfunction reflects the wider passivity of the union in the face of the crisis engulfing post-16 education. To break this impasse, we must campaign to ensure that the motions passed by Congress are implemented and push the union outwards rather than allowing it to remain dominated by internal infighting and pessimism.
Many delegates commented that the chairing of Congress was significantly better than the hostile atmosphere they had experienced at previous Congresses. Maria Chondrogianni, now Immediate Past President, is a class fighter who understands first-hand the scale and urgency of the challenges we face in our workplaces and society. That makes a real difference.
We need more rank-and-file activists like Maria in these positions. Throughout her presidency, she consistently backed members in union committees, on picket lines and in negotiations. There is little doubt she will continue to do so as Immediate Past President and as a branch rep.
Next steps
Over the past couple of years, branches that have fought back have often won important victories. What is clear is that if we do not attempt to fight back, we will certainly lose.
Despite the difficulties of Congress, the overall mood was one of regrouping, rebuilding national industrial action, and combining it with a strong political campaign. There was a real sense of hope and determination that we should, and can, resist these attacks.
More delegates joined UCU Left this year than at the previous two Congresses. This reflects a growing mood among members to get organised, challenge the pessimism within the bureaucracy, and push for national industrial action.
We need to maintain that hope and determination, build a stronger UCU Left, and ensure that UCU takes the action necessary to defend post-16 education.