From Dyfrig Jones

From Dyfrig’s blog here.

Late on Friday, through the usual (slightly annoying) channels, we got the news that the UCU strike action planned for this week and next has been called off. Our dispute is still ongoing, and we are still planning to strike again in mid-March, but the next seven days of planned action will not go ahead. This was decided by our General Secretary (GS), Jo Grady, and President Elect, Justine Mercer, during the negotiations between employers and the HE trade unions at ACAS. It is, in my view, a vitally important step forward in these disputes, a small glimpse of light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. But as with all things UCU, there are people who are unhappy both with the decision to pause, and how it was taken.

For those want to understand the decision-making process, there are two blogs that have been published over the weekend, both taking slightly different views. Sylvia de Mars is an academic lawer who has looked over the UCU Rules and various accompanying documents, and come to one conclusion. Vicky Blake is UCU’s Immediate Past President (so one of the Officers of the Union), and comes to another conclusion.

Both blogs are a valuable and important contribution to the discussion, and if I was to try and summarise, I’d say that Sylvia de Mars argues that the decision to pause the action isn’t in breach of UCU Rules, but may not have followed normal custom and practice. Vicky Blake on the other hand argues that the decision was definitely not normal custom and practice, but was also in breach of union policy as it didn’t take into account the recommendations of the 2018 Commission on Effective Industrial Action.

Both of these blogs are valuable, but both of them also need to be read through the lens of UCU factionalism. Sylvia de Mars is a member of UCU Commons, which often supports the GS. Vicky Blake is independent, but is closely allied with UCU Left. (And of course, I am writing this as a member of the nascent Campaign for UCU Democracy, and as someone who is close to members of UCU Commons and also the old Independent Broad Left, or UCU Agenda).

My own view is that custom and practice are informative but not binding – and carry greater weight when everyone is acting in good faith, which unfortunately isn’t the case at the moment. Congress did adopt the recommendations of the Commission for Effective Industrial Action at 2018 Congress, but didn’t amend Standing Orders to reflect this, so the Commission’s recommendations have an ambiguous status. Rules and Standing Orders are what ultimately govern the actions of our elected representatives, and if the General Secretary and President Elect operated within the Rules – and I agree with Sylvia de Mars that they did – then that’s good enough for me.

(There is the associated question, raised by Michael Carley on his blog, of whether this is the most democratic way of working. That’s a bigger issue, and one that I’ll come back to in another post. I would also note that I think our Rules are terrible, but again that’s for another day.)

For the overwhelming majority of UCU members, however, none of this will matter. They will look at the decision, and ask whether it is the right one to take — not whether it has been taken in the right way. Again, there is a difference of opinion here; the General Secretary has argued that temporarily pausing the action has allowed the unions to make progress towards our agreed goals, while others have argued that we have given up too much in exchange for too little.

I think that the pause is entirely reasonable, and deserves our strong support. What has been agreed at ACAS is small potatoes, admittedly, but we are moving in the right direction. Since 2020 we have made no progress towards winning these disputes, despite the fact that many branches were out on strike for significant periods last year. The fact that we are engaged in constructive talks with the employer, and are shifting their position is incredibly important — even if progress is slow and small, at the moment.

Being able to show members that there is a route to winning the dispute is essential to keeping everyone engaged. Being out on strike is emotionally tempestuous; there are times when it is joyous to be away from the daily grind, in the company of like-minded and passionate trade unionists. But there are also times when it is genuinely frightening, when you wake up in the morning and your first thought is of how you will pay the bills at the end of the month. As the days turn into weeks, the dread often threatens to overtake the joy, and picket lines start to slowly dwindle.

Allowing members to temporarily return to work will, in my view, help to keep the darkness at bay for a little while. Worries about money and the impact on our students and our careers can take a back seat for a few weeks. Showing members that their efforts aren’t in vain, that the strike action is pushing the employers — slowly — in the right direction will also be a morale booster. All of this means that if we need to come back out in March, it will be with a renewed sense of purpose.

The pause will also be an massive help in the re-ballot. This dispute isn’t going to be won overnight, and we need to extend the mandate for at least another six months. Being able to show the membership that these latest strikes have moved the employers will make it much easier to persuade them to agree a further round of action. Asking members to sacrifice more without showing them any tangible gains will only drive down turnout and endanger the whole dispute.

UCU’s Higher Education Committee (HEC) is meeting on Friday, and the pause will inevitably be a matter for discussion. There are already plans to protest outside the meeting, although what those protestors are calling for isn’t clear — some are going along to make it known that they think that the pause “is shit”, which is hardly helpful. There has been a suggestion on Twitter — by the UCU Left-aligned UCL-UCU account — that HEC could decide to “un-pause” the dispute, although it’s not clear how this would work in practice, considering the need to give employers 14 days notification of any industrial action.

My suggestion would be that HEC uses its power on Friday to actually ask the membership how they feel about the pause. Send out a simple message to each member, explaining why the decision was taken at such short notice, why the GS and the President thought it important, and ask them if they support it. I suspect that a large majority will respond in the affirmative — but I also suspect that this isn’t what some members of HEC want to hear, and will instead decide to focus on procedural outrage as a means of drowning out the views of the membership.