All out together! 

Duncan Moore, UCU NEC, personal capacity

The University and College Union’s Further Education Committee (UCU FEC) met on 23 October.

Six months after UCU’s FE sector conference agreed to pursue an aggregate ballot, after I moved motion FE5 from my branch, the union’s officials have finally come through with a plan for the industrial action urgently needed to pressurise employers and government to address the crisis in further education. 

Wishing to avoid a clash with the Labour government, and with no confidence in UCU members’ willingness to fight back against intensifying workload, falling real-terms pay and worsening conditions, both the officials and elected FEC members who are supporters of general secretary Jo Grady have used any and every excuse to delay preparations.

Branches in three ballot pools

Following legal advice from a KC (not shared with the FEC), the ballot is now to be split into three.

‘Pool 1’ will be branches that have yet to settle local pay negotiations. They will be balloted on the ‘New Deal for FE’ claim: a 10% or £3,000 pay increase, meaningful action on workload, steps towards pay parity with school teachers, and steps towards national pay bargaining, critical to ending the wide disparities in pay and conditions.

‘Pool 2’ will be branches that have settled local pay negotiations. They will ballot for a contractual change demanding that their employer gives pay awards at a minimum of the employers’ Association of Colleges (AoC) recommendations each year.

‘Pool 3’, adult education branches, are to be excluded from the aggregate ballot and will be balloted on a disaggregated branch-by-branch basis. The reason given for this was the complexity of funding arrangements for the sector. They will only be balloted on pay.

This plan potentially keeps most branches in the campaign (whereas previously it looked like branches would be left to drop out as local pay offers were made). There are still obvious weaknesses.

Branches that have settled pay locally will be invited to strike without the chance of getting a better pay rise this year – that will take a serious campaign to achieve.

Adult education

The exclusion of adult education from the aggregate ballot is not something we agree with. Adult education delegates at May’s FE conference, including Socialist Party member David Kaplan, argued passionately in favour of an aggregate ballot, in order to maximise the number of branches that can take action. Socialist Party members support adult education branches asking that the other New Deal for FE demands be included on their local ballots, including demanding that pay rises align with the AoC recommendation.

Nevertheless, while pointing out our concerns, the pressing need for the union to move to action without more delays meant that all members of the FEC approved the proposals.

The ballot will begin in the second week of December and conclude in the final week of January, and will be both online and by post.

This can still be the biggest national strike action in FE colleges in decades, sending a clear signal to the employers, to Burnham’s Labour government, and to our own union leadership, that staff in colleges are prepared to fight for the change we need.

Build a strong campaign to smash the turnout thresholds

All branches must hold off on making inadequate local pay deals to make this campaign as strong and effective as it can be.

Socialist Party members in UCU have been distributing a bulletin setting out what needs to happen to deliver a resounding turnout. We need UCU to do the same, including producing material which calls on the government to increase funding. 

Nominations are now open for the National Executive Committee elections which will take place at the start of 2027. Socialist Party member Marco Tesei is standing for re-election to a UK-elected FE seat. We want to work alongside others who take a more fighting stance, including ensuring that candidates from one left grouping do not stand against incumbents from another, to maximise the votes for those who want a serious fight in UCU.