Tag Archives: Building the union

Our advice for HE Special Sector Conference 9th September

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It scarcely needs to be said, but we are facing an unprecedented crisis within Higher Education. Our workloads are increasing daily, our pay and the terms and conditions of our employment are gradually being chipped away, and the old promise of jam tomorrow – in the form of a generous pension – is fading with every passing day. We are due to meet this week for a Special Higher Education Sector Conference, where UCU will make monumental decisions regarding the way in which we stand up to these threats. At that SHESC there are three specific motions being debated that we believe are vital to setting us on the right course. 

Our members have shouldered an enormous burden these past few years; out on strike for 22 days during the 2019/20 academic year, followed immediately by the onslaught of the pandemic. It is not defeatist to admit that we are exhausted, pushed to breaking point by a system that cares little for us, or our futures. The fact that we are tired doesn’t mean that we will give up without a fight, and we all burn with a collective outrage at the injustices that pervade academia. But we must be realistic about the size of the challenge that we face, and the damage that will be done if we adopt the wrong approach when we resist. We cannot go on strike simply for the sake of striking. The motions described below – and which we urge you to support – have been proposed not because we wish to avoid taking industrial action, but instead to maximise the impact of any strike. We cannot ask our members to come out again, as they did in 2019/20, to sacrifice over a months’ wages without achieving a single concession from the employers. 

To try to ensure that the next wave of industrial action leads to meaningful change, we ask that delegates from every eligible UCU branch attending SHESC support the following motions. 

Motion 11 calls for UCU to keep the two disputes separate, to maximise the chances of a victory in each. Please support Motion 11

While the battle over USS and the Four Fights – over pay, equality, casualisation and workload – are of equal importance, they are nonetheless two different disputes. By tying them together into a single industrial action, we simply make a win more difficult. 

Imagine, for a moment, that we follow the same course as 2019/20, and bind USS and the Four Fights into a single dispute. Co-ordinated action may impact a greater number of employers, but reaching a joint resolution on both issues presents an almost impossible challenge to our negotiators. Improvements to pay and conditions will need to be agreed at Joint Negotiation Committee for Higher Education Staff (JNCHES), and will involve employers from across the sector, as well as representatives from the five trades unions representing HE staff. The future of USS, on the other hand, involves only the pre-92 Universities, will be decided at an entirely different negotiation forum, made up of entirely different partners – including the USS Trustee, working within a regulatory framework set by the UK government. 

By linking the two disputes together, we make a win in each much more difficult. Imagine a situation where our JNCHES negotiators force important concessions from the employers on pay and conditions, but at the same time negotiations over our pensions break down. If both disputes are tied together, then we will all have to stay out on strike until both negotiations bear fruit. A pay offer for the entire sector could end up being rejected, simply because of the intransigence of the USS Trustee. Is it truly an act of solidarity for the interests of the entire sector to be sacrificed, simply to protect the pensions of the pre-92 universities? Likewise, should the complex negotiations over USS be further complicated by the need to find a simultaneous resolution to the workload and casualisation crisis?

All HE branches are entitled to vote on Motion 11. 

Motion 1 calls for UCU to take time to organise for victory, rather than rush into a poorly planned strike on USS. Please Support Motion 1

Since the Spring of 2020, the vast majority of us have been working from home, often isolated from friends, colleagues, and students. For many, the last time that we met in person was on the picket lines of the last strike, which feels like an age ago. The financial impact of the pandemic has seen mass redundancies across the sector, meaning that our branch membership may seem very different to what it did back in March of last year. 

If we are to effectively organise for action, then we need time to re-build our branches. Reaching the turnout threshold for an industrial action ballot is a challenge at the best of times, and to attempt to do so without sufficient time and resources will place us at a serious disadvantage. Should we rush to a ballot, and fail to make the threshold, then this will only embolden the employers. If we are to win this dispute, we must ensure that we are prepared, and passing Motion 1 will allow our elected representatives on the Higher Education Committee (HEC) the time to work with branches to properly prepare for victory. 

Finally, Motion B4 helps UCU prepare for the next stage in the USS negotiations, exploring long-term options for the future of the scheme.Please support Motion B4

The employers representative, UUK, has indicated a willingness to explore Conditional Indexation (or Conditional Benefits) as a possible means of ensuring the long-term viability of USS. Some of our pensions negotiators think that this could be an option that would allow USS to continue as a collective, mutual, multi-employer scheme with an ability to invest for the long term in growth-seeking assets. 

It is likely that the employers will propose this as an option in future negotiations, and it is therefore essential that UCU has a thoroughly researched view on the issue. Motion B4 does not commit the union to supporting Conditional Indexation, but it does enable the union to explore the feasibility of the policy, so that members are able to engage in a well-informed debate on the subject. 

Industrial action, in defence of both our pensions and our pay and conditions, is now inevitable. Rarely have the stakes been higher, and the need greater to ensure that the withdrawal of our labour has the maximum impact. 

Please ensure that your branch sends a full complement of delegates to SHESC and votes YES on Motions 1, B4 and 11.

Delegates will be asked to respect the long-established convention that only delegates from USS institutions vote on motions which relate to USS, including Motion 1 and Motion B4

UCU Politics and Strategy: What next?

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A contribution to debate from

Adam Ozanne, University of Manchester

John Kelly, Birkbeck College

Dyfrig Jones, Bangor University

Within two years, UCU has gone from famous victory to painful and costly defeat. How has this happened, who is responsible, and how can the union – with little to show for 22 days of strikes and lost pay – recover from this setback and rebuild for the future?

In 2018, UCU was riding high. Fourteen days of strikes forced employers to abandon their plans to get rid of Defined Benefit USS pensions and agree to the creation of a Joint Expert Panel (JEP) to settle technical arguments over the methodology used by USS to value the pension fund. In September that year, the Panel’s first report (JEP1) found that relatively modest increases in contributions – from 8% to 9.1% for employees and from 18% to 20.1% for employers – would be sufficient to maintain the existing level of benefits.

There can be little doubt that this was viewed by most members of UCU as a major win. In April 2018, 64% voted in an e-ballot with a record 64% turnout to suspend strikes and set up the JEP, a clear vindication of UCU’s criticisms of the USS Executive, whose valuation methodology exaggerated the size of the deficit, and of employers, who had been overly eager to get rid of DB and shift pensions’ risk on to members’ shoulders with a 100% Defined Contribution (DV) scheme. Continue reading →

Victoria Showunmi – “I’m a black female, passionate about what I do, with a proven track record”

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Why you should vote Victoria Showunmi for the vacant black women’s seat on the NEC

In an interview with UCUAgenda, former NEC member Victoria Showunmi outlines why she is contesting the vacant black women’s seat on the NEC and urges members to consider voting for her.

Victoria is a long standing union member with 25 years service in UCU and previously NATFE. She’s a single mother with three girls and has no hesitation in describing herself as a feminist. Living in London although from rural Somerset originally, and working at University College London and Menouth University, her  work focuses on gender, identity and race. 

She is clear on the three main issues facing the sector – Pensions, including the situation for women, and women over a certain age, who had previously worked part time and are thus hit with inferior pension prospects; the Gender Pay Gap – including the often neglected factors hitting women of colour, who are often found towards the bottom of the pay scale; and marketisation both in HE and FE, where academics are facing increasing class sizes with less and less resources, and less time to spend with individual students.

In relation to the issues facing black workers in the sector, amongst the problems she identifies are a definite lack of progression and lack of a CPD structure that reflects what black workers need. Secondly she argues that there needs to be more recognition that issues around racism are real – something not always grasped at a local level.

Victoria argues that an intersectional approach needs to be further developed within the Union – a journey which she believes first got major support under Joanna de Groot our immediate Past President, and which is being continued now. She believes that she was instrumental in pushing for this during her time on the NEC, and hopes to continue this if successfully elected to the black women’s seat.

When she’s not campaigning, teaching or researching, she admits a fondness for the music of Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson – although her reading materials tend to be…. on academic areas. She’s currently reading around critical whiteness and would specifically recommend Unhinged – an insider’s account of the Trump White House by Omarosa Manigault Newman. 

In the odd moment she can plant herself in front of the TV, her favourite boxset would be Law and Order (Special Victims Unit).

Why vote for her? She argues she has a good track record – she’s not pretentious, she’s passionate about what she does – she feels she’s approachable about anything to do with the union and she looks forward to pushing the union further on the issues above.

We recommend – vote for a  candidate with a proven record – vote for Victoria.

The Real Democratic Deficit in UCU

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Adam Ozanne

This post – from NEC member and recent Congress delegate Adam Ozanne, gives a point of view, on how in Adam’s words “UCU in three days moved from being the most successful trade union in the UK – one that other UK trade unions look upon as leading the way in fighting back against the deliberate constraints placed on them by the Tory government’s 2017 anti-Trade Union Bill – to one whose Congress degenerated into chaos after its paid regional and national officials, who are members of Unite, walked out three times and declared a trade dispute with UCU as their employer, causing Congress to be suspended twice and then brought to a premature end with only a fraction of its business completed”.

UCU Agenda would welcome comments on this – e-mail to unionadmin@ucuagenda.com

Congress should have been a positive and reinforcing event celebrating the successes of the past year, the union’s reinvigoration and renewed strength. So how was it that UCU trade unionists have found themselves in dispute with fellow trade unionists in their employ? Why did Congress 2018 degenerate into chaos? How can victory have been turned so nearly into defeat? And what role did UCULeft, a faction dominated by the Trotskyist Socialist Worker Party (SWP), and supporters of the Independent Broad Left (IBL) grouping play?

The post is set out in seven sections:

  1. The three contentious motions
  2. What happened at Congress – How Victory can be Turned into Defeat
  3. Analysis of the dispute
  4. A reminder of how the USS strikes came to an end
  5. The UCULeft faction and IBL network
  6. The real “democratic deficit” in UCU
  7. What is to be done?

Continue reading →

The USS Joint Expert Panel and more:

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Report on UCU Higher Education Committee on 27 April 2018

Adam Ozanne, an elected member of UCU’s Higher Education Committee (HEC), its Superannuation Working Group and the USS Advisory Committee, has written the following account of the discussions regarding  the setting up by UCU and UUK of a Joint Expert Panel that took place in HEC on 27 April together with some observations about UCULeft.

Paul Bridge, UCU’s Head of HE, presented a report summarising the following:

  • the result of the consultative e-ballot: 64% of pre-1992 members voted on a 64% turnout (the highest in the union’s history) to accept the UUK offer of March 23rdand set up a Joint Expert Panel (JEP) that will assess the validity of the 2017 valuation and investigate alternatives to the current DB/DC scheme;
  • subsequent discussions within UCU’s Superannuation Working Group (SWG) and with UUK; and,
  • the response of Bill Galvin, the USS CEO, to the agreement by UUK and UCU to set up the JEP.

The report noted that there was a meeting of the JNC at 3.00pm and made a number of recommendations that were accepted by HEC and can be summarised as follows:

  1. HEC approved the setting up of the JEP with three members nominated by UUK and three by UCU, as well as its Terms of Reference, operational timelines and reporting mechanisms.
  2. HEC delegated to the SWG the endorsement of an ACAS recommended Chair of JEP.
  3. HEC agreed that anyone interested in being one of UCU’s three JEP members may nominate themselves by submitting their CV and a 500 word statement, and that the SWG (minus the three USS Trustee Directors) would act as the selection and appointment panel and, in consultation with the HEC officers, take all other actions necessary to set up the JEP. SWG will seek recognised subject leaders with expertise in and knowledge of pensions, finance, the HE sector and the legal and regulatory context.
  4. HEC directed the USS negotiators, in the JNC meeting that afternoon, to vote to revoke the DC-only resolution reached at its meeting on January 23rd, and against any move by USS to trigger a consultation of USS members on Rule 76.4 before the JEP has time to complete its work on the 2017 valuation (Rule 76.4 says that if JNC does not agree reach agreement on how to deal with the results of a triennial valuation USS may seek to raise employer/member contributions on a 65:35 basis).
  5. The Chair of HEC and Head of HE will liaise with the Congress Business Committee with a view to providing time at HE Sector Conference for a report of the first meeting of the JEP and related matters.

All the above had been discussed and unanimously agreed by the Superannuation Working Group, which includes the four elected USS negotiators, the two alternate negotiators from the USS Advisory Committee (including myself) and the three UCU nominated Directors on the USS Trustee Board.

Several motions relating to the setting up of the JEP had been tabled by HEC members. One, that committed the JEP to robustly challenging the current USS valuation and methodology and HEC to pursuing changes in pensions’ regulations, was passed; and an amendment to the Head of HE’s report to include recognition of the equality and diversity implications of any changes in USS was accepted.

The proposers of the other motions were all allowed to speak to them, with no contrary speeches against,  but, after the main USS report was passed, fell either (as “consequentials”) because they were incompatible with the above recommendations or because they involved constitutional changes to UCU’s decision making processes that can only be made by Congress.

This, it has to be said, caused a good deal of acrimony with many formal challenges to the Chair by the proposers of the motions which had the unfortunate effect of reducing the time available for discussion of the main report and its recommendations – especially as the SWG members of HEC had to leave the five hour meeting after three hours to prepare for and attend the JNC meeting. With the benefit of hindsight, it might have been better if all the motions had been withdrawn and if debate had concentrated on the main report together with, perhaps, additional amendments to its recommendations being proposed and considered; however, nobody suggested this and much time was wasted in unproductive argument and formal challenges to the chair..

Nevertheless, my personal view is that, despite claims made subsequently on the Activists list by some of those who disagreed with the above recommendations, the motions had to fall once the main report was accepted. This is because – despite claims that they “complemented” the main report – they all contained elements that were incompatible with the main report and/or UCU’s established democratic decision making processes.

For example, three of the motions sought to replace the elected HEC as the relevant decision-making body of the HE part of UCU with an ad hoc national strike committee or a branch delegate meeting with voting powers. Others would have delayed the setting up of the JEP until after HESC at the end of May, which would be too late given the time pressures we are under, or only allowed UCU members to be JEP members, which would unnecessarily exclude leading experts who do not work in HE. All these points were either incompatible with the recommendations in the main report, which had already been voted upon and accepted, or would have undermined UCU’s established decision making bodies. Logically and procedurally, it was not sensible to consider them any further.

In my opinion, therefore, the outcome of Friday’s HEC and the manner in which decisions were reached were appropriate. This is not, however, what you might think from reading some of the reports on Twitter etc. which seem to suggest that those who take a different view must be acting undemocratically or, even worse, are a “powerful right wing faction” in UCU that “believes in the deficit”. (Full disclosure: I first joined the Labour Party in 1976, and have never been a member of any other political party, though I have on occasion voted Green, Communist Party (for a friend was standing in a local election) and LibDem (after the Iraq invasion)).

I am afraid it is also the case that the conduct of some in the HEC meeting – disrespecting the Chair’s efforts to limit speeches in order to allow others time, shouting or speaking unnecessarily loudly into the microphone, showing obvious irritation with having to use a microphone and calling a point of order even after it had been called to an end, made the meeting unnecessarily drawn out and acrimonious and limited the time available for proper debate.

The chair had already had to draw attention at the start of the meeting to incorrect reports of the previous HEC on the activists list, which erroneously claimed he had not allowed discussion (13 colleagues had in fact taken part in discussion), and that he had ruled motions out of order (simply did not happen).

I find all of this deeply disappointing, and will go further by stating the following. UCULeft’s claims to being for a democratic and member-led union are inconsistent with its efforts on 27 April to undermine HEC as the legitimate decision-making body in the USS dispute, its opposition at the end of March to the e-ballot of all post-1992 members on the UUK offer, not to mention its opposition to local and national e-ballots and GTVO (Get The Vote Out) were when they were first introduced.

Just as there are good, democratic reasons for rules stating quotas and minimum numbers of days for giving notice of AGM and EGMs, so there are good reasons for using modern technology to enable timely member participation in decision making and for limiting the ability of meetings to change decision making processes and structures on the hoof (as in replacing HEC with ad hocstrike committees and “branch meetings with voting rights”).

Such rules prevent small unrepresentative but well organised factions from taking control of political organisations and leading them in directions the majority of members (who may be unaware of what is happening or too busy to attend in numbers at short notice) would not agree with. Similarly, insistence on the use of microphones when speaking is not a bureaucratic obsession but an equality principle that enables the hard of hearing to participate fully while rules prohibiting angry outbursts, repeated interruptions and shouting limit intimidatory behaviour and promotes free debate. Such rules and conventions are profoundly important for the well-being of the union.

What every member of HEC, regardless of whether they are a paid up member of UCULeft or not, recognises is the huge success of the USS industrial action. From GTVO trouncing the statutory ballot 50% turnout requirement to vast numbers of new members and the mobilisation of tens of thousands on strike, on picket lines and in vibrant meetings, UCU is leading the UK trade union movement in opposing the Tory government’s anti-trade union legislation. We are showing the way in reinvigorating trade unionism in opposition to the marketisation of the public sector and the erosion of traditional values of collegiality and public service that are the bedrock of the success of UK universities.

The setting up of the JEP is the next step in the defence of decent pensions in universities – and, indeed, elsewhere, because a successful JEP could well influence what happens to other pensions schemes, so we must get it right. The plan is for it to report in two stages: first, on the 2017 valuation in the Autumn, in time to forestall the USS making changes in 2019 based upon a disputed deficit; the second on alternative risk sharing mechanisms to the current hybrid DB/DC scheme. Friday’s HEC and the JNC the same afternoon set that process in motion and I for one am more than a little content with it and relieved that arrangements for setting up the JEP can commence immediately.

Last day of UCU Congress features international solidarity

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Congress demanded the truth about the disappearance and murder of Giulio Regeni

In addition to lots of discussion on taking the union forward domestically, the international flavour previously exhibited at Congress continued on the last day.

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK addressed Congress, praising the union for the work we continue to untertake internationally, something further reinforced by a video from Huber Ballesteros from Colombia’s Labour Federation of Agricultural Workers who talked of the importance of international solidarity in Colombia’s peace process and in ensuring his freedom.

A photoshoot taken at Congress (see above),  again underlined our demands for a full enquiry into the death of Cambridge PhD student Giulio Regeni an Italian Cambridge University graduate who was abducted and tortured to death in Egypt. Giulio was a PhD student at Cambridge and had been researching Egypt’s independent trade unions, and the demand for an enquiry follows the belief that the Egyptian police were heavily implicated in his murder.

The morning had seen decisions taken on how to take forward the General Secretary’s suggestion of the day previously that a commission be set up to look at our industrial strategy in the aftermath of the anti-trade union act. An emergency motion was placed before congress and narrowly passed, which limited membership on the commission to those attending the current congress, and agreed to the calling of an additional special Congress to discuss the recommendations.

Traditional timeline of industrial action – but is this sufficient? Some of the issues for the commission to discuss

Congress delegates from the devolved nations had felt forced to raise the ‘devolved blindness’ of some of the resolutions over the period of Congress, including on the last day a recommendation to vote Labour, although this is of course impossible in Northern Ireland since Labour do not stand candidates, and a delegate from Scotland suggested it was totally inappropriate in the Scottish situation. Whether or not we should recommend support to any individual party at all is of course an even bigger question since we are unaffiliated. This followed on from other resolutions passed investigating the creation of ‘one UK Education union’ although the unions mentioned did not operate either in Scotland or Northern Ireland. In a similar vein, motions calling for ‘national’ demonstrations, made devolved nations delegates wonder where the movers had been since 1999. Clearly the disregard of our nature as a union operating over different education and legal systems in different nations within the UK is something that needs resolved in future years.

Towards the end of Congress, an important debate was closed down by movers of a controversial motion which proposed our support for ‘the decriminalisation of sex work to allow collective working’

This is of course against the position of the TUC women’s conference, and that of Rape Crisis, Women’s Aid, and all UK Anti-Trafficking organisations. Rather than all speakers being able to speak on this, the movers suggested in mid debate that ‘the vote be put’ (the only time this happened in Congress), resulting in a vote being taken (in support of this controversial motion) without the benefit of all those sitting ready and willing to speak being able to do so. Not the best moment for democracy, and a terrible signal to women trapped in prostitution and who are not looking to ‘collective working’ but to routes out of this dreadful exploitation.

Other key resolutions were passed which will help shape our work positively over the coming year and can be found here on the UCU website. These included:  on racist interference in elected roles;  developing our anti-casualisation campaign (including a road show); the future of TUC education; work related stress; bilingualism of documentation for use in Wales; Electronic meetings and tele and video conferencing; developing the equality agenda; the disability pay gap and abortion rights.

The union will have its hands full, (in a good way) over the next year, in helping implement these decisions, and we hope the UCUAgenda blog will help as part of a forum to discuss how best to do this.

To take part in this debate, or to add your voice – please send comments, or articles to: unionadmin@ucuagenda.com

The NEC will have its hands full implementing the decisions of Congress – a good position to be in

Thought piece – an Alternative Industrial Strategy

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UCU Agenda welcomes ‘thought pieces’ on different aspects of union strategy. If you have any points on this or other postings please let us know by dropping a line to  unionadmin@ucuagenda.com

David Ridley  is a Lecturer in Media Theory at Coventry University and is also currently finishing his Ph.D in Sociology at the University of Birmingham. He is Branch Secretary of Coventry University UCU and has been involved in campaigns around casualisation, the use of subsidiary companies and most recently the civic responsibilities of post-92 universities. Here he puts a point of view about our current strategy following our most recent consultation on the pay offer from the employers. Recently his branch published a groundbreaking pamphlet on the situation in Coventry University and an alternative union view to management approaches. You can download it here.

An Alternative Industrial Strategy

On 19 May 2017 the results of the consultation on the 2017 pay offer were sent to branches across the UK. 65.6% of members want to accept the final offer of 1.7% and 55.5% would not be prepared to take part in industrial action after a sustained ‘Get The Vote Out’ campaign. 76.4% members do think, however, that UCU should hold a ballot on pay in Autumn 2017.

This indicates that members do not think that this is the right time to take action, and that 1.7%, still representing a real terms pay cut if inflation is taken into account, can be accepted in the short term so that energy can be focussed on addressing immediate problems members and branches are facing.

The Higher Education and Research Bill 2017 has now been passed. Not only does mean they introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework, but also many more ‘alternative providers’ (i.e for-profit colleges and universities) which will now find it much easier to enter the new HE ‘market’ that the Tories have finally managed to create after 6 years.

We will now see constant restructuring of existing colleges and universities to meet the demands of this new market. In order to create a ‘level playing field’, new providers do not need to emulate existing institutions, often a complex mixture of research and teaching. For-profit HE will be radically stripped back, fast-track, teaching-only, union-free, focussed purely on the bottom line.

In response, senior management teams of existing institutions will want to drastically cut costs and rationalise production. This will mean mass redundancies, increasing casualisation, outsourcing, experiments with corporate form, and in some cases where management are particularly aggressive, de-recognition of trade unions, especially UCU.

This process has already begun, at Manchester Met, Leeds University, University of Manchester, University of Brighton, University of Warwick, Southampton Solent University and Sunderland University, the list goes on and continues to grow. Many post-92 universities have tried to get ahead of the game, like UCLan’s dodgy overseas partnerships and Coventry University’s Sports Direct-like employment practices.

The good news is that so far, local branches have been very successful in mobilising members and forcing management to back off, for now. More importantly, at a local level, branches have been meeting the new prohibitive criteria for legal industrial action established by the Trade Union Bill, also recently passed.

What this tells us, along with the results of the consultation, is that members are feeling the effects of marketisation, along with the uncertainty for Brexit, more than they are feeling the pinch of stagnating pay. This may change as the pound continues to be devalued in relation to the Euro and inflation outstrips wages. But on an affective level, marketisation is felt through increasing insecurity, inequality, workloads and bullying, all leading to stress and sickness.

But let’s be clear, members are prepared to fight. The war is happening on the front lines, and we must support branches in fighting marketisation in the trenches, so to speak. We must also build for future national action in the long term, but taking action now while the hearts and minds of members are focussed on local struggles will result once again in disappointing turnouts and a disappointing offer, while making the union look weak

Successful local actions build confidence in our members. Every successful local action builds the union as a whole. Successful recognition campaigns show that the union can move forward within marketisation, not just taking the defensive. Public campaigns against gender pay and casualisation, very painful for management (reputational damage) also driven by local successes, build awareness of marketisation and show our most vulnerable members we will fight for them.

‘UCU Left’ will try to convince you that we need to take action now, but the Independent Broad Left network are offering an alternative strategy. We are not accepting defeat by accepting the pay offer. We are walking away from a battle in order to win the war. We are being strategic rather than ideological and stubborn.

The plan that was suggested at the end of last year’s disappointing pay campaign was correct. Regionally coordinated local actions centred on inequality (gender and casualisation, but also BME, LGBT and disability), and increasingly redundancy, outsourcing and attacks on terms and conditions. We believe the unpredictability of and local strength behind this strategy contributed to the increased offer, so let’s talk what we can get and keep fighting.

If we want to take national action in a post HE Bill, Brexit and TU Bill world, the priority must be building participation and confidence in both branches and our membership. We can talk again about national action in the not so distant future when we can deliver.

David Ridley

UCU President’s Perspective

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rob-pic-2

Rob Goodfellow, a lecturer at Hull College was recently elected as President of UCU for 2016 – 2017.
Between spots at the rostrum of this year’s TUC, where he presented UCU’s view on post 16 education he took some time out to talk about his views on all things UCU. Interview by Scottish UCU President and NEC member Douglas Chalmers, and thanks to Julia Charlton for helping with the filming.

“We’ve made an impact at the TUC – everyone who wanted to speak on a motion did so. If we hadn’t been here….. less people would have been ‘educated’ ”.

This view of Rob Goodfellow, half in jest, encapsulated the feeling of the UCU delegates to the TUC in Brighton this year. Speaking on a whole range of issues from Post-16 Education, the European Union, Professional Status, to Challenging the Politics of Hate, our delegation made a very positive impact both from the rostrum and in our networking between times.

NEC member Julia Charlton spoke on immigration, HE Vice President elect Joanna de Groot spoke on the European Union, Vicki Knight, VP spoke on Prison Education, NEC member Pauline Collins spoke on the need for people to work smarter, not just longer, and Vicky Blake from the UCU’s anti-casualisation committee, asked a question about the TUC’s work on casualization and Douglas Chalmers moved a successful emergency motion on Colombia.

Between appearances at the rostrum, Rob took some time out to give his views on a range of issues UCU will encounter under his presidency (Interview 12 mins long).

In England, for H.E, a priority for the union had to be the White Paper – which allowed private providers to operate a ‘smash and grab’ – taking profits and disappearing, leaving taxpayers to clear up the mess and help students affected.

In F.E,  the area reviews were essentially just a means to save money “but it’s a paltry sum, but will have a huge impact on staff, on students and on the local communities”

A key question that post 16 education had to answer was “how far a distance would be travelled by a student and their families” while on their educational journey – “that’s not measured in league tables”

In terms of his own role, Rob saw the President’s job to be to safeguard the democracy of the union, while the union had to take some pragmatic choices.

In terms of the ‘culture’ of the union – making  Congress better in terms of its own culture and practice? “I want branches to see what’s in it for them – get them engaged by sending resolutions and delegates. If it’s a case of two blocs voting I don’t want that anymore than anyone else does”…

Sally Hunt

UCU Gen. Secretary Sally Hunt talked against ‘The politics of Hate’

 

 

 

 

 

Build the Fight against the HE Bill and an effective fightback in FE

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Fight vs HE Bill

Download Thursday’s copy of HE Sector Broadcast here and Thursday’s copy of FE sector Broadcast here

The determination of our union to fight against the Green Paper/ White Paper/Bill has already been shown at several fringes during congress, and 13 of our motions today in the HE Sector conference will look at how best to oppose this, and ultimately defeat it.

There are clearly some good motions here which will take the fight forward by developing the understanding of our members, students and the wider communities, and clearly there is everything to play for. However we suggest that there are a couple of points that conference should be wary of endorsing as they lack the specific details needed for a successful fightback – we give our suggestions in Broadcast.

It is to be expected that not everyone will agree on the strategy and tactics necessary to successfully win a substantial pay increase, and this disagreement shows in the resolutions tabled.

Members need to be congratulated however for what they have done so far, and given every encouragement to engage in tougher and sustained activity and sanctions, should they prove necessary.

However, what is most important is that Conference comes out of this debate with a united policy to take to both the employers and members. Statements which demean in members’ eyes the leadership of the HEC and the negotiators, and the action that members are already taking, actually undermine the union’s ability to pursue the dispute successfully. 

Today’s opinion piece in HE Sector Broadcast – on Health Educators is by Paul Errington a Health Educator himself at Teeside and an incoming member of the NEC.

Turning to the FE conference it is clear that the high quality motions on many of the issues from the 2015/16 pay claim, through the blight of the gender pay gap –  and the absence of equality monitoring on to the devastating effect of the area reviews, the cuts to ESOL, the Prevent agenda, and the de-professionalisation of the lecturer’s role, all show that our members are active and concerned on these key issues affecting the sector. It promises to be a high quality debate on these questions. The pay issue is one where differing opinions on the way forward exist. We suggest that calling for ‘national’ strike action on the question of ‘pay’ over and over again is however, the wrong strategy – it’s misleading and counterproductive. There is a way to organise, build and support confident, campaigning and unified branches and FE Sector Broadcast suggests some ways we can achieve this.

Elsewhere in each Sector Broadcast you’ll find the Independent Broad Left Network’s general take on some of the other key issues Congress looks at today. As a network, we don’t have a ‘party line’ on policy, and unlike Monty Python neither are we looking for the Holy Grail. So let us know what you think – e-mail unionadmin@ucuagenda.com

 

Vicky Knight VP-elect answers your questions

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Vicky Knight is a trade union studies lecturer at The Manchester College with 25 years active experience within the public sector, in both the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and UCU.

She was recently elected as Vice President of UCU and will take up this position at the end of the UCU’s UK Congress 2016 .

As well as her NEC membership and being an FE negotiator, she has represented UCU at the TUC annual Congress,TUC Women’s Conference and TUC Women’s Committee and has been chair of the TUC Women’s Committee for the last two years.

Vicky knight 2

 

Here she is interviewed by Douglas Chalmers, president of UCU Scotland, and quizzed on her ideas on the big issues facing UCU, particularly in FE in the next 2 years. It covers Vicky’s ideas on cuts, loans, lack of bursaries,ESOL, training, student development, area reviews, national bargaining, membership density, making the union more attractive to women – and many other things.

The video is approximately 10 minutes long, and thanks go to Janice Aitken Scotland Hon. Secretary for the camerawork! Sorry about the slight slippage in lip-synch at bits  – we’re working on that.