From Jak Peake[1]

On 12 November, the University and College Union (UCU) launched a consultative ballot on a pay offer from the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) – ranging from 2.5% to 5.7% – alongside terms of reference for negotiations on pay-related issues, which includes a pay spine review, contract types, equality pay gaps, and workload. With the ballot closing at 5pm on 3 December, members must decide whether to accept the pay-related terms (even if the pay offer is rejected) or whether to pursue industrial action over pay. And if you haven’t voted yet, I urge you to do so after reading this, while there’s still plenty of time, and to encourage your fellow UCU colleagues to do so too.

This is not a decision to take lightly. UCU’s Higher Education Committee (HEC) has recommended rejecting the pay offer while accepting the terms of reference.

In my view, UCU members should carefully weigh the broader context of sector finances, political realities, and union capacity before deciding. Striking over pay in the current climate risks hurting both members and the sector without delivering meaningful gains, while avoiding layoffs is the burning issue of the hour and, arguably, where effort should be concentrated.

What’s at Stake?

As HEC has already voted to reject the pay the offer and accept the terms of reference, arguably the really crucial question on the consultative ballot is this: are members prepared to take industrial action or not, and consequently, should an industrial ballot be launched? 

Given the parlous state of HE sector finances, and the Labour Party’s priorities, it is unlikely that industrial action this year would lead to a significant uplift in the pay offer, nor lead to a further intervention from the Labour Government on the HE funding model (other than what has been announced so far). The most foreseeable outcome is that UCU would kiss goodbye to negotiations on a pay spine review, contracts, equality pay gaps and workload – progress which, particularly in terms of workload and the pay spine, could compensate for the lack of an improved pay offer.

Avoiding industrial action this year and focusing on the pay-related negotiations could improve working conditions in the sector. It would also allow time after years of continual action, to heal, direct attention to local issues, and build branches so that members are not committed to endless rounds of performative strike action, but rather have the density, reps and activists needed to make future action a more credible threat.

HE Finances and Pay

Projections from the Office for Students indicate that 40% of HE institutions (HEIs) will be in deficit this academic year, a share that could rise to 72% of the sector in 2025-26. In short, HEIs are on precarious financial ground – post 92 institutions especially, who have not benefited as have pre-92s from the roughly 5% windfall following a drop in USS contributions. Whatever projected income they are due to gain from the Labour’s announced one-year hike in student fees from £9,250 to £9,535, much of this will be wiped out by the increase in National Insurance contributions.

In this context, even a flawless campaign of industrial action is unlikely to yield substantial pay increases. And the risks are significant: an improved pay award could come at a cost: deepening HEIs’ deficits and potentially leading to further redundancies or cuts to vulnerable courses.

This is not to dismiss the issue of pay stagnation. UCU members have endured years of below-inflation increases. But striking on pay now – against employers already facing existential financial pressures – may worsen the sector’s problems without delivering solutions.

Strikes Targeting Government?

Officially speaking, an industrial dispute over pay is between UCU and the employers’ representative, UCEA. However, in some quarters, notably among UCU Left and fellow travellers, the notion that strike action could be unofficially levelled at the government is doing the rounds. Related to this, is the idea that if other unions joined the fray, the UK government might face coordinated strikes and be forced to capitulate.

However compelling such narratives may sound, we should not overlook the political climate that makes such an eventuality unlikely. The Labour government has a comfortable majority in parliament and, so far, is demonstrating considerable discipline when it comes to voting in Westminster and its agenda more broadly. Labour has proved willing, for example, to hold firm on its decisions – e.g. the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners not on pension credit or benefits, or the changes to inheritance tax for farmers – in the face of considerable criticism.   

On the plus side, Labour has shown an appetite to resolve trade disputes with nurses and resident doctors (previously named somewhat misleadingly “junior” doctors), with the latter accepting an excellent deal from the Labour government amounting to a 22.3% increase over two years. Some will argue that this indicates Labour’s willingness to strike a deal with unions in ways that the Conservatives were not. Of course there’s some truth in this, but the problem with this comparison is that the nurses’ and resident doctors’ unions, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the British Medical Association (BMA) respectively, negotiate with the government on pay, not an employers’ representative as is the case with UCU. So, any dispute on the pay offer could not be legally resolved by Labour, only by UCEA, even if there is undoubtedly an indirect relationship between the HE-funding model – which the UK government sets – and HE staff pay.

Entering a pay dispute with UCEA which really targets the government runs the risk of an irresolvable dispute, legally and formally. UCEA would argue that its hands are tied and that it cannot change government policy, and the government has no legal or official basis on which to negotiate on HE staff pay. In this scenario, then, there could be no negotiation talks. Ex-Education Minister Robert Halfon’s remarks in August 2023 amid UCU’s marking and assessment boycott (MAB) are instructive here of Labour’s likely response: “the government plays no formal role in resolving such disputes”.

If UCU were able to grind universities and other HEIs to a halt, i.e. “stop the factory”, and prevent students from graduating and progressing (as was attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, during the 2023 MAB), one might picture the government interceding to protect students. But with UCU’s union density being what it is – around 30% of the sector and not showing a major upturn in growth – the idea that HEIs could be shut down in any serious way seems vanishingly slim, and UCU has not managed it since its inception in 2006.  

UCU could try to make the case that the HE funding model be revised, but given that Labour has rejected scrapping tuition fees, and that HE is not a Labour priority over say the NHS, adult social care, and schools, the odds of forcing government concessions are also slim, beyond the one-year fee increase prior to promised HE reform – to be set out next summer, according to Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson.

Another problem with the comparison between UCU and the nurses’ and doctors’ unions is the impact on the public. Mass industrial action from NHS workers impacts the public’s medical treatment and care. As a result, it places much greater pressure on the government than HE staff strikes. Learning objectives may be affected, which can potentially impact student performance, but in most cases the loss of some teaching – lectures, seminars, laboratory time and so on – does not prevent student graduation and progression. In addition, HEIs often put in place a range of mitigations following industrial action. From strikes to the MAB, our actions are not a matter of life and death. 

A General or Coordinated Strike?

A recent blog argues that there could be something like a united front between HE Unison, who are balloting their members this November, and UCU. Optimistic as this is, if Unison were to vote for industrial action, UCU would likely be lagging behind Unison’s action by several months if it decided to call an industrial ballot. Currently no ballot has been called and there seems little appetite among UCU members for industrial action thus far (burnt out undoubtedly from the MAB, and near-annual strike action – action so often demanded as crucial by the self-declared ‘Left’ of the union – which has seen mixed and often disappointing results on pay in recent years, although UCU notably had a considerable ‘win’ on USS pension in 2023 as the cuts from 2022 were reversed).[2] On 24 September this year, a national Branch Delegate Meeting (BDM) showed the highest proportion of delegates (46%) were against industrial action, with 45% supporting industrial action – a figure just below half of members and echoed by the results of the July BDM earlier this year. In this scenario, where an industrial action ballot is unlikely to succeed, it makes sense for a union to keep its powder dry and not to expend either the political or economic capital on such a venture.

While coordination between unions in the same sector of course makes sense, recent history suggests that coordinated strikes do not necessarily lead to clear wins in any obvious way. In the winter of 2022-23 – which some commentators started to dub a new “winter of discontent” comparable to the 1970s era of strikes – UCU, Unison and Unite HE branches co-ordinated their strike days and industrial action.

If ever there was a moment of something like a general strike in recent history this was it, as not only HE staff, but also railway staff, London tube drivers, nurses, ambulance workers, teachers, postal workers and BT Group staff all went on strike over the period. This momentum clearly placed pressure on employers and the government but it did not generally lead to inflation-matching pay offers. Railway workers received an offer of 5%, nurses a one-off payment for 2022-23, and 5% for 2023-24, while UCU was offered a range of 5-8%, with most academic staff receiving 5%. There were exceptions, with the government offering criminal barristers a phenomenal 15% pay rise in October 2022. 

An Alternative Strategy: Saving Jobs and the HE Sector

Rather than striking on pay from a sector in financial crisis, a national campaign centred on saving jobs and preventing further redundancies in HE is arguably more necessary. Many may even wonder why indeed UCU does not strike nationally over redundancies given the scale and number that have happened over the last two years, but the law is not helpful to UCU on this front. There is no legal way to take industrial action in relation to any other institution’s redundancies other than one’s own as solidarity or secondary (also sympathy) action is unlawful in the UK under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Hence, national industrial action in the strict sense cannot be called over redundancies.

However, a national campaign could be drawn up, in which local branches affected by redundancies with industrial action mandates coordinate national and regional strike days and adopt messaging targeted at government policy and its funding model for HE. Think local strikes, national messaging and coordination. UCU’s Reclaim HE campaign has functioned along these lines to some extent (particularly with regards to the funding model), but a newer or enhanced HE campaign – as the crisis deepens – could focus more tightly on jobs and the crisis in the sector: e.g. “Save our Education, Save our Jobs”.

The union could consider organizing largescale demonstrations in major cities, akin to the 2010 “Fund Our Future” rally. Further underscoring the HE crisis without hurting members’ pockets (as would strike action) is no bad thing, though the real hard graft of lobbying and discussions inside Westminster – given Labour accepts that there’s a crisis and has promised HE reform next summer – will probably be more critical for HE policy reform. UCU must seek ways of involving members and, as meetings unfold in the run-up to next summer over Labour’s HE priorities, UCU should consider holding its own debriefings and consultation with members on evolving policy ideas. 

Moving Forwards

In conclusion, there seems little to be gained from striking over pay while the HE sector is cash-strapped and Labour’s priorities are what they are, and unlikely to budge any time soon. We do not have the impact on the public (and leverage over the government) in the ways that nurses, resident doctors, schoolteachers and railway workers have; furthermore, industrial action on pay risks deepening, rather than lessening HEIs deficits, posing risks to staff jobs, and vulnerable courses; it would also mean tearing up progress on potential improvements on the pay spine, contract types, equality pay gaps and workload. 

Alternatively, a national campaign focused on saving jobs, and the HE sector – with national and regional coordination between branches facing redundancies – seems viable and would not hurt progress on casualisation, equality gaps, workload and the distribution of pay. It is pragmatic to seek some progress on working conditions and to avoid an adventurist campaign which risks members’ money on an irresolvable dispute.

Aside from this, I am not convinced that UCU members are willing to undertake industrial action (I could be wrong, but I would place good money on fewer members – less than 45% – having an appetite for industrial action than delegates at the last two BDMs). Members are burnt out. And it is not UCU’s leadership or bureaucracy which has failed them. Myths of heroic martyrdom, the sweeping impact of strike action, the worship of the ever-hardening line and an overestimation of UCU’s labour power – repeated ad nauseam and quite often shouted by a select group of UCU activists (generally in the absence of serious political analysis) – have sold UCU members down the river. We need to change the record. We need rank and file members to vote in the current consultative ballot, and in the upcoming NEC elections for good progressive candidates who prioritize and do not sideline the concerns of the broad membership. We need members to engage with their branches, and to join branch, regional, and national committees.[3] We need ordinary members to help their branch committee members think strategically about their own and the union’s interests.

We do not need revolution. We need tangible gains in our workplaces. We need to learn what a win looks like (in unions it is nearly always partial and incremental). This requires honest communication with members about the union’s capacity and the political realities of the moment. This must include an analysis of employers’ circumstances, even if we disagree with them. Turning senior management teams into bogeymen – even if at times they anger or disappoint us with questionable decisions – will not help us; redundancies do not pass without reputational damage, and in today’s market-driven HE sector, reputation matters. We need to learn the art of patience and to spend more time building and organizing within the union. We must choose our battles, having considered all options. And we must choose our moment to strike (pun intended) wisely.      

[1] I thank various colleagues for reading this, but particular thanks must go to Michael Abberton and Renee Prendergast for their feedback, suggested edits and comments (I have borrowed the odd sentence or phrase from you both).

[2] The notion that UCU Left, or those who commonly self-describe as the independent left are any more leftwing than members of other groups or factions like Campaign for UCU Democracy (CUCUD) or UCU Commons is a fallacy given that CUCUD and Commons contain members across the left-spectrum, holding broadly socialist to centre-left views, with affiliations to socialist organizations, other trade unions, various charities, the Labour Party and the Green Party among others. 

[3] I make no bones of my affiliation with and advocacy for Campaign for UCU Democracy (CUCUD), a group whose members are committed to serving and representing the broad membership and using an evidence base – e.g. through surveys and e-consultation as well as meetings – for union deliberation. I am also a supporter of UCU Commons and any independents who aim to serve and reflect the broad membership of the union. Commons share a similar view of union democracy to CUCUD, but lay particular emphasis on equality issues, especially with respect to trans rights. My critique of UCU Left, and some members of the independent left, concerns their tendency to focus on a narrow band of activist views typically presented in meetings (whether in a branch, committee or at UCU’s annual Congress), and to dismiss mechanisms like surveys and e-consultations which allow us to listen to the broad membership.