Duncan Moore, UCU NEC, personal capacity

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) meet on 29 May for our annual congress. Delegates will come together in person, feeling our collective strength as a union, to discuss and vote on what needs to be done by our union to defend post-16 education at a time of growing crisis and a looming general election.

Workers in universities and colleges have fought intense battles with bosses for improved pay and conditions in the last two years, winning significant gains but still struggling with low wages, job insecurity and the effects of marketisation in post-16 education.

The Tory government is on its way out, to be replaced by Keir Starmer’s Labour – already showing its readiness to commit to Tory spending plans, and water down its commitments on workers’ rights.

Funding crisis

Universities and colleges face an imminent funding crisis. Four in five universities could face financial deficits and some university bosses say they could be forced out of business.

As well as higher and further education workers having the experience of mass strike action under their belts, a rebellion is brewing among students. Last year, maintenance loans increased well below inflation and for the first time rents surpassed the maximum loan. Huge numbers of students report studying at home, skipping meals and not buying the resources they need.

Currently, many are staging walkouts and encampments against the atrocities of the Israeli state in Gaza. The next year could see an explosion of protest by students – already activated by the war on Gaza, and having witnessed mass strike action by their staff – over the crisis in universities.

Socialist Party members in the UCU are campaigning for our union to adopt a fighting, socialist response. The crisis gripping post-16 education is the result of brutal austerity and privatisation policies. Tory cuts to government funding and the growth of the market model, including a funding system based on ever-increasing student fees, have brought our universities to a state of near paralysis.

We must demand that a Labour government ends the financial crisis in universities and colleges. UCU should call for an end to the market model and for free, high-quality education – publicly owned and democratically run by workers and students. A serious campaign that brings together the education trade unions with students could apply tremendous pressure on Starmer.

Workers’ rights

Socialist Party members have proposed an emergency motion on the recent backsliding of Starmer on the so-called ‘New Deal for Workers’, which provoked outrage among trade unionists when it appeared that Labour was preparing to bin yet more of its pledges, this time on banning zero-hour contracts and introducing sector-wide collective bargaining, in response to heavy lobbying from big business. After meeting with trade union leaders, Labour has now ‘reassured’ the unions – but what is promised has not been made clear.

The position of UCU general secretary Jo Grady, that we can expect to work in ‘partnership’ with a Labour government, is not tenable. As well as needing to prepare to fight industrially, this readiness of Starmer to betray the unions shows that we need a new political strategy. Our motion notes that we can’t rely on Labour to defend workers’ rights without pressure, and that UCU members should be encouraged to stand in the election in a personal capacity on a workers’ manifesto.

UCU branches at Cambridge University and the Open University have put forward a composite motion on resisting the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, brought in by the Tories to force union members to cross their own picket lines. We agree that the general secretary should instruct branches not to comply with work notices issued by employers, in line with the TUC resolution agreed last year, and the NEC should coordinate with other unions. We would go further and say that our union should put itself at the forefront of resisting this law and should call for a national demonstration.

FE national pay bargaining

We also back the calls on the UCU leadership to prepare a campaign for national, aggregated strike action of further education (FE) staff in the 2024-25 pay round, ensuring maximum participation of branches and the production of material that explains the need to strike for national pay bargaining in FE.

Come to the Socialist Party fringe meeting to discuss a fighting programme that connects the battles of the UCU to the wider political struggles of the working class.

• Socialist Party fringe meeting: 5.30pm (or end of conference) Wednesday 29 May at the Trouville Hotel, 5-7 Priory Road, BH2 5DH, 5 mins from the BIC

Recognition victory for post-16 educators in Plymouth

Staff organising in the UCU have won trade union recognition from our employer at the Swarthmore Adult Education Centre in Plymouth.

A two-year long campaign of union recruitment, in the face of union-busting tactics and harassment of members, has succeeded in winning a collective bargaining agreement for post-16 teachers and instructors.

As a result of the privatisation of further education (FE), independent providers have proliferated in the last two decades. These taxpayer-funded, profit-making education and training companies rarely recognise unions, and staff are paid significantly less than in established FE colleges. Inadequate staff training and high turnover impacts heavily on students.

UCU members will debate a motion to step-up organising efforts in these private post-16 training providers at our conference, to fight for all education staff to get the respect and negotiating rights we deserve.