York St John UCU picket line in 2023
York St John UCU picket line in 2023

Bea Gardner, UCU member

On 12 November, a consultative ballot of University and College Union (UCU) members in higher education (HE) opens, on whether they are prepared to take industrial action to win an improved pay offer. Delivering a resounding ‘Yes’ vote is possible and necessary.

Members know the offer is not enough. At a recent national meeting of branch delegates, members rejected it.

It falls well short of the joint union claim, which was for whatever was greater: RPI plus 2% or a flat rate of at least £2,500 on all pay points. The employer offer does not even amount to half of the flat rate, and it is being staggered, with institutions able to fully defer until July 2025!

In the two years to August 2023, pay for the majority of HE workers fell in real terms by 11.7%. This has come on top of a pay devaluation of 20% over the thirteen years prior.

We cannot accept a further real-terms pay cut without a fight. But members also need to have confidence that there is a serious strategy that can win better.

Our fight would be strengthened through coordination with the other campus unions, as well as students organising against tuition fee rises. Unison members overwhelmingly voted to reject the offer, and an industrial action ballot will open in the coming weeks. As a starting point, the union’s two higher education committees should have a special meeting to discuss a shared campaign strategy.

University finances are in crisis – it is a crisis of the marketised funding model.  Even when universities were generating a ‘surplus’, the spending on staff was in decline, and HE workers experienced real-terms pay cuts. Now, with many universities in deficit, they are looking for further pay cuts and job losses, while lobbying government for a tuition-fee hike.

Funding not fees

The Labour government failed to increase direct funding to universities in the Budget, and has now announced that tuition fees will rise next year in line with RPI inflation – a “first step towards root-and-branch overhaul of the current system”. 

UCU should demand to know now what the planned changes are, and launch a serious industrial campaign that links the campaign on pay and jobs with a political strategy that demands fully publicly funded HE, paid for by the super-rich.

UCU’s research shows that even a small increase in corporation tax through an ‘education levy’ could raise enough to scrap tuition fees and increase funding to the equivalent of £13,000 fees – enough to fund the pay rise members need while protecting jobs. This is a small fraction of what could be raised to fund all public services.

But that won’t come from simply appealing to Labour’s goodwill. It will be by mobilising behind a serious fighting strategy that we can force more from our employers and funding from the government.

However, a barrier to such a campaign is the current general secretary Jo Grady and her backers, who have presided over delays and inaction, and undermined democratic decisions. It’s been six months since members voted at a special HE sector conference to return to a strategy of national industrial action this academic year, and six weeks since the HE Committee agreed to launch a consultative ballot of members. Why the delay?

Members should have full democratic control of our disputes. This is why as well as voting ‘yes’ in the consultative ballot, in the upcoming National Executive Committee (NEC) elections we need to elect a fighting leadership that offers a serious lead and will back members in action.

There is a real possibility of replacing Jo Grady’s supporters on the NEC, but the different left groupings should come together to discuss and agree on a shared challenge. In last year’s general secretary elections, had there been a single left candidate they could have stood a serious chance of winning: the combined vote for the two left candidates was higher than Grady’s vote.

The upcoming election is an opportunity for all those seeking to challenge Grady to organise on a platform for a fighting, democratic union, laying the groundwork to fight as part of a new, democratic left.