Marco Tesei, UCU FEC member, personal capacity
Over 100 Further Education branches of the University and College Union (UCU) in England will be balloting for strike action.
The UCU Further Education Committee (FEC) met on 26 September. Following our negotiators’ rejection of the Association of Colleges’ non-binding recommendation of a paltry 4% pay rise, we have escalated to an official dispute with the employers’ body.
Letters have been sent to over 70 colleges with a 3 October ultimatum for college principals to agree to implement the three core demands of the ‘New Deal for FE’ campaign (ND4FE), or local disputes will be declared and balloting will begin for participation in nationally coordinated strike action.
The ND4FE’s three core demands are: a 10% pay rise as the first step towards securing parity of pay with schoolteachers within three years; fully funded binding national bargaining agreements for FE colleges in England; and meaningful national agreements on workload.
Unfortunately, the launch of the campaign has been delayed and the number of colleges is less than it might have been, due to the decisions made at the previous FEC meeting in July.
At the July meeting, Socialist Party FEC members and their allies on the left fought a tug-of-war with those organised in the general secretary’s faction, UCU Commons, and the misnamed ‘Independent Broad Left’ (which is actually on the right of the union), as well as with the committee’s unelected secretary.
We argued to bring the ballot forward as much as possible to coincide with the first weeks of the academic year. They argued for the start of the process to be delayed to give branches time to ‘prepare’. Socialist Party members have long argued that preparation is vital, but believed there was already time to properly prepare members and aim for ‘Census day’ in early October, when colleges get their funding allocations per enrolled student.
Our opponents also argued, at the July FEC, for individual branches to be encouraged not to ‘opt in’ if their consultative ballot result had been weak. The left proposed all branches be included – what is there to lose? Unfortunately our opponents have a majority on the FEC (and National Executive Committee), and so won the day.
But in the September FEC meeting, the mood was quite different. Members’ appetite for a fightback against this government’s refusal to tackle the funding crisis in FE has palpably grown further since July.
Need to fight
With the sector now beginning to face significant cuts to jobs and courses, including in Higher Education (HE), and with staff reporting further unsustainable workloads resulting from recent drastic cuts in the Adult Skills Fund, the impetus to come out in protest is no longer containable.
The current consensus to initiate the strike ballot with no further delay is welcome to Socialist Party activists, though unfortunately now the earliest colleges will be able to take action will be around December (hardly the best time of the year for education workers to make the strongest impact!).
It is to be regretted that only about half of FE branches in England have been included in the ballot. Nonetheless, UCU members in the over 100 branches being balloted should be feeling positive right now.
The moment is propitious, with Starmer’s government so weak and rebellion against austerity stirring in all sectors. Yes, some FE principals will try to discourage their workforces from strike action with 4% offers and small concessions on workload. But, in general, it’s feeling like principals’ offers will have to be a whole lot better than that this time!
Socialist Party activists in UCU will campaign vigorously for a big ‘yes’ vote in the ballot in order to get through the Tory turnout thresholds (disgracefully still in place after more than a year of Starmer’s Labour government). While individual branches have the authority to settle their disputes, we will be advocating for maximum branch participation in the ballot and in any industrial action which follows. We are stronger together, and this is not only a fight about pay now but in the future, which will be best secured through binding national pay agreements.
As previously reported in the Socialist, UCU members in HE are also balloting at the same time, with a timeframe for action in December, giving potential for a big national strike in post-16 education.
