NATFHE MEETS this weekend for its final conference. This follows the
decision of members of both NATFHE and the AUT to merge into what will
be the largest post-school education union in the world – UCU the
University and College Union. We all welcome the merger, but size alone
will not guarantee victory for our members in key battles with the
employers and government.
Andrew Price (NATFHE NEC member Further Education Wales)
Whichever sector we are in, all minds are on the current dispute in
the university sector over pay. There has been a clear attempt by the
media, the employers and New Labour to misrepresent this dispute.
The relative pay position of all university lecturers has declined
enormously. The union side has submitted a claim for 23.9% over three
years. The employers’ offer of 12% over the same period was rightly
rejected by the union side. It is the union side that should decide when
an offer is put to members, not the employers or Alan Johnson, the New
Labour secretary of state for education.
Some of the industrial hooliganism we have had to put up with for
years in Further Education is now coming to the university sector.
In the University of Northumbria, where our members are operating the
exam boycott, the employers have responded by withholding pay
completely.
On the 80th anniversary of the British General Strike, few would have
predicted that the lockout originating in the coal mines would be
deployed in a university!
To their great credit, our Northumbrian members have voted in a
ballot for indefinite strike action. They must not stand alone.
Conference must decide to pay them the maximum possible amount in strike
pay and, as soon as possible, all the university sector must be brought
out in indefinite action.
On the fringe, plans will be laid for the founding conference on 24
June of the proposed new left organisation in UCU – a conference that
has the potential to build big support for a left programme.
Elsewhere on the fringe there will be a meeting of the Campaign for a
New Workers’ Party. The creation of such a party is long overdue for all
who work in post-school education where the system of free market
capitalism, beloved of both the Tories and New Labour, has done so much
damage not just to our pay and conditions but to the service we offer
our communities.
