Duncan Moore, UCU Further Education Committee, personal capacity
The University and College Union (UCU)’s National Executive Further Education Subcommittee (FEC) met on 4 April. The FEC debated the cuts in adult education funding and a fighting strategy for the union’s members against low pay and job losses.
Our sister union in Scotland, EIS, has agreed strike action over a sub-inflationary pay offer and compulsory redundancies. Meanwhile the UCU has not taken the same action in England over similar attacks on pay, conditions and job security.
The union’s ‘new deal for FE’ campaign has so far lacked national coordination and leadership. Individual branches have been left to pursue local claims. There is widespread anger and a sense that local bargaining has not been successful.
At our last FEC, a motion was narrowly carried calling for nationwide industrial action to begin in the autumn and an indicative ballot to be organised.
A motion was brought to April’s meeting by left FEC members to set a timetable for organising this ballot and commit the union’s resources to call for national strike action. An amendment to a congress motion was also brought, strongly recommending that branches vote yes.
Opposing this, FEC members affiliated with the ‘UCU Commons’ grouping, which supports general secretary Jo Grady, claimed to defend branch autonomy, and highlighted weaknesses in some branches as a reason to not push for national action.
Left members of the FEC, including myself, argued that the union’s national leadership must take a position and lead the campaign from the front – pointing out that the national union’s communications on the looming savage cuts were inadequate.
The FEC secretary’s report referred to the ongoing dispute between UCU as an employer and members of its staff in Unite the Union, though NEC members were not permitted to ask questions!
This dispute, over a year long now, has resulted in the cancellation of UCU Scotland Congress 2025 and threatens to disrupt the national congress next month for the second year in a row.
It is vital that UCU members, through their elected representatives on the NEC and their delegates to congress, are able to resolve this dispute – which the general secretary and her office are incapable of doing. UCU members want this dispute settled, with grievances taken seriously, so that our union’s staff and resources can be employed in the service of our campaign to protect jobs, funding and pay.
A national UCU demonstration is taking place in London on Saturday 10 May to ‘Protect Education Now’. Although the general secretary has left us little time to organise for this, Socialist Party members in the UCU will nonetheless work to have the maximum possible turnout on the day. This demonstration should give warning to Starmer’s government that the union is preparing an almighty fight if funding is not made available straight away.
