Anthony Bracuti, UCU member and Leeds and West Yorkshire Socialist Party

After years of on-and-off dispute with employers on several issues within the post-secondary education sector, the University and College Union (UCU) sits poised to ballot for strike action once again.

Having won a victory on the return of the USS pension scheme terms (cuts to employers’ contributions had been slashed as a result of dodgy forecasts based on Covid figures, and were rolled back after industrial action), the UCU shifted its focus to the ‘four fights’ dispute: pay, workload, casualisation, and equality.

On 2024-25 pay, the employers’ body UCEA were willing to go no higher than a flat rate of £900 with an extra top-up in April for some grades (meaning between 2.5-5.7%), despite real-term wage cuts of almost 40% over the last 15 years. This offer was rejected by the union’s Higher Education Committee (HEC).

But despite strong support within the union for action, including HEC resolutions, a winning campaign, demonstrated to be possible by the monumental effort made by members in the successful USS pensions dispute, has so far not been forthcoming.

Ballot

The plan for a campaign to begin from late January has not materialised. The ballot date has been postponed, with very little communication as to why or when it will take place.

Although the UCU is unaligned to any political party, the leadership and central structures are dominated by the ‘UCU Commons’ faction, which strongly resists any militancy and pushes for ‘Improving Education Together’, a new form of social partnership. Its approach is underlined by that fact that there are ongoing strikes by union staff in the UCU HQ, members of Unite.

Particularly frustrating to union democracy, branches are often sidelined in their opinions, as well as congress motions, in favour of ‘consultative e-ballots’, directed and managed by the head office, with no opportunity for debate. When these polls agree with leadership positions they are sacrosanct, but when they don’t they are ‘advisory’.

The crisis in post-16 education, manufactured by Labour and the Tories over the last 30 years in particular, leaves British education in a dire state. We have a university sector propped up by milking international students, constant cuts to teaching and services for students, redundancies, and now threats to increase fees once again. That is combined with a further education sector dominated by fat-cat directors with no democratic accountability, slashing budgets.

Members need confidence in the leaders

UCU members need our union to take a lead. However, in universities, the fight on pay, workload, casualisation and equality has been protracted, with little gained. Not because the union is weak, but because of the ever-so-familiar decision of the leadership to quit while we were ahead. Despite motions passed to re-ballot for strike action and to escalate disputes, the central leadership of the union repeatedly delayed and demobilised, losing any industrial advantage built.

A new ballot and industrial action campaign needs to learn these lessons and be properly prepared and built for. Members need confidence that the union leadership will back action all the way.

Many activists in our union are eager for a more militant approach. They recognise that the struggles in post-secondary education require a fight against marketisation and for the full funding of universities and colleges.

The UCU is currently holding elections for seats on the National Executive Committee (NEC), and some other central positions. This is an opportunity to challenge and weaken the hold of the right, and to elect reps that are serious about giving a fighting lead against the bosses and Starmer’s government.

The Socialist Party’s Marco Tesei is running for a seat on the NEC representing Further Education (FE), hoping to join Duncan Moore who already represents FE on in this committee. There are also candidates from UCU Left, dominated by members of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and a number of independent left candidates. Marco has made an appeal for genuine lefts who want a fighting and democratic union to organise together.

We will campaign for a ‘yes’ vote in the ballot, and have confidence that we can win the extra funding needed to both protect jobs and increase pay in the post-secondary education sector, so that it can perform its core function of providing education to all those who wish to seek it.

Stop Press: UCU leaders overrule democracy

As we go to press, UCU members have received two communications from UCU head office.

One email reminds us that in December the elected Higher Education Committee backed a ballot on pay, to take place early in the year in order to be able to take strike action before Easter. But today, 11 February, we are informed that the HE officers met before Christmas and “decided that the ballot timeframe agreed by the HEC was not capable of implementation”, and they will submit new options to a special HEC meeting on 19 February. “Therefore, any ballot will take place later in the spring.”

Essentially, the HEC mandated a clear campaign and timeframe but the HE officers didn’t agree, so they sat on it a while, and now any new timetable will rule out action in this academic year. In the meantime, no work has been done to build a campaign that would win the confidence of UCU members that the union has a strategy to win.

Surreally, the other communication from HQ is a survey about allegedly strengthening union democracy!

All the more reason to vote for a fighting left VP and NEC candidates! Vote Marco Tesei #1 in the FE UK-elected seat for UCU NEC