Marco Tesei, UCU NEC member, personal capacity
University and College Union (UCU) members at 29 Further Education (FE) colleges in England are taking a first round of coordinated strike action over pay and funding on 14, 15 and 16 January.
We are fighting for the demands of the union’s ‘New Deal for FE’ campaign: a 10% pay rise, pay parity with school teachers in three years, and binding national agreements on pay and workload. The essence of which is that we need full funding urgently! FE is on its knees, brought down by years of Tory and now Labour austerity, and by the harmful effects of marketisation since college incorporation in 1992.
The militant mood of post-16 education workers was expressed loud and clear at UCU’s annual congress last May. Members in both Further and Higher Education (HE) voted overwhelmingly to ballot for national strike action in the autumn.
On FE campuses, there is also growing disgust at our fat-cat college leaders who, instead of joining us in the fight for full funding, prefer to balance the books by axing jobs and increasing workload. Meanwhile, parasitically, they continue to extract six-figure salaries from empty coffers!
In 2022-23, when 32 colleges came out together with similar demands, some managed to win significant local pay awards. Now, with the spectacular failure of Keir Starmer’s Labour to offer FE anything but yet more austerity, anger is even higher and the union’s demands are bolder, including demands for agreements on workloads as well as pay.
The ballot of over 60 colleges in November returned a whopping 90% ‘yes’ vote on a 50.6% turnout. Had we been balloted on an aggregate basis there would now be national action on a much larger scale. But because the ballot was disaggregated college by college, despite the gigantic efforts of reps, several colleges were disqualified by the undemocratic 50% turnout threshold laws, and some have reached individual agreements with college bosses.
The lack of a centrally led ballot campaign actively aiming to get as many colleges out on strike as possible has been glaring. UCU’s leaders, including general secretary Jo Grady, have stopped making avowals of faith in Starmer’s Labour, but are still averse to mounting the determined fightback that is needed. A motion presented by Socialist Party members at the special November Further Education Committee (FEC), to reballot those colleges that came close to the turnout threshold, and to take initial action before Christmas, was voted down by the right.
Nonetheless, resilient, sustained action in FE colleges can win significant gains. Both Starmer’s government and the Association of Colleges (the employers’ body that makes pay recommendations for the sector) are under pressure to concede binding national agreements.
Serious action
Serious action now can also prepare the ground for a new and stronger wave of national action later. In particular, it can inspire members in non-striking branches to take action at the earliest next opportunity, and may persuade branches which haven’t yet settled locally and were excluded from the national dispute to now confront their bosses independently.
Similarly, UCU members in HE can be encouraged. The aggregated ballot in HE did not achieve the 50% threshold, despite the huge 69.69% vote for action to fight 15,000 planned job cuts and hundreds of course closures – scuppered by Starmer’s scandalous maintenance of draconian Tory laws.
Socialist Party activists in UCU, including on the FEC, will argue to name the next coordinated dates for escalating action and for reballots. We also argue for regional and national meetings, and for strike rallies and mass pickets to build further links between members and branches. We will encourage striking branches to establish a joint hardship fund to sustain prolonged action.
Solidarity to all FE strikers! For full funding! For FE under public ownership and democratic control!
- It is more important than ever that left, fighting candidates win a majority in the upcoming UCU National Executive Committee elections, including re-electing Socialist Party member Duncan Moore to a UK-elected FE seat
