Duncan Moore, UCU Executive Committee member (personal capacity)
UCU’s Further Education Committee (FEC) met on 6 March. As reported from the Special FEC last month, the UCU’s New Deal for FE campaign has won significant gains for many of those branches which achieved strike mandates. Some won improved offers after action, for others the threat of industrial action was enough to force the employer’s hand.
Overall however, pay across the FE sector has risen in line with the Association of Colleges (AoC) recommendation of 4%. That average figure masks wide disparities between branches which won strike mandates and those which did not meet the turnout threshold of 50%, still in place as we approach two years of a Labour government which promised to scrap it.
Cuts, cuts, and more cuts
The crisis of recruitment, retention and high workloads remains. Colleges are not getting the funding they need, and staff and students are bearing the cost. In particular, colleges which deliver a higher proportion of adult education, as opposed to (relatively) better funded 16-19, are seeing lecturer pay fall behind other colleges, largely as a result of the Labour government’s cut to adult education funding.
A broad layer of reps and activists in the union have recognised that the New Deal for FE campaign has so far failed to address the systemic problems of underfunding, privatisation and the lack of nationally binding agreements on pay and workloads.
Reps are asking; why was the ballot organised on a disaggregated, or branch by branch, basis? Why was there such a delay in taking action?
The result was a campaign fragmented, with branches settling disputes locally and withdrawing from action. At the time of writing, four branches are still in dispute. While improved local deals can be achieved, a sustained improvement in funding from government can best be fought for by national action.
Start now
I brought a motion for the FEC to put to the sector conference at the union’s congress in May, calling to start building now for an aggregate ballot in September. Against this were arguments from members of the ‘UCUCommons’ faction, supportive of the current general secretary Jo Grady. Concerns were raised that this would not allow enough time, and that an aggregate ballot would not meet the 50% threshold. In 2023, an indicative ballot in FE did meet the threshold – proof that it can be achieved.
The motion was defeated 10:9, as was a motion tabled by the ‘UCULeft’ grouping which did not specify whether or not the a September ballot should be aggregated, exposing the fact that Grady and her supporters do not want action.
The position of the (slim) FEC majority is therefore not to build for a continuation of our campaign in September, but instead to let branches fight alone. This as our sister education union in schools, the NEU, prepares a national strike ballot for a fully funded 6.5% pay rise.
In the absence of a fighting leadership, it will be up to branches to push the union into action from below, by submitting motions to the FE Sector conference calling for the fight to continue, and to be coordinated across all branches in an aggregated ballot.
Duncan Moore re-elected
Members’ support for a fighting strategy was expressed by FE members in the NEC elections. This year, 67% of first preference votes went to left candidates in the UK elected seats. Duncan was re-elected with the second-highest number of first preference votes and a stronger percentage of the vote than when he was first elected two years ago.
Our campaigning material stood out with demands for an aggregated strike, and for the union to work with other unions in taking up the question of working-class political representation. However, overall the right-wing groupings have preserved their narrow majority on the FEC and on the union’s wider national executive, primarily because of gains made last year.
Full analysis of the election results is to follow. It is clear that all those in favour of national action need to work together to put maximum pressure on the FEC and Jo Grady.
