Industrial relations in UK higher education could be reshaped by Labour’s pledge to repeal “anti-democratic” union laws introduced under the Conservatives, experts said.
In the run-up to its recent general election victory, Labour pledged to repeal legislation that “constantly attacked” workers’ rights, notably the Trade Union Act 2016, which requires unions to achieve a minimum of 50 per cent turnout in strike ballots in order for walkouts to go ahead.
This has repeatedly restricted industrial action planned by the University and College Union (UCU) over pay, pensions and working conditions in recent years, forcing the union into branch-by-branch ballots that limited the impact of strikes and then depriving it of a mandate altogether when it fell short of the threshold in its most recent vote last November.
Gregor Gall, visiting professor in industrial relations at the University of Leeds and a research associate at the University of Glasgow, said conducting ballots could become “much easier and cheaper” for UCU if Labour decides to repeal key pieces of Conservative legislation, “something the Universities and Colleges Employers Association [Ucea] will be concerned about if the tempestuous industrial relations of the sector continue”.
Last week, UCU triggered a fresh dispute with Ucea by rejecting universities’ pay offer of a minimum 2.5 per cent rise, increasing to 5.7 per cent for the lowest paid. Only £900 of the rise would come next month, with the rest to follow in March 2025.
Labour has also pledged to repeal legislation requiring unions to maintain “minimum service levels” in key sectors during industrial action, something that the Tories had threatened to extend to higher education.
Professor Gall said the key question now was “how long” it would take for the new government to enact the changes.
“The pledge was that legislation to do so would be introduced within the first 100 days of government, but it’s more than possible that these items will take a back seat compared to those on ‘fire and rehire’ and zero-hour contracts, even though repealing an act is relatively simple,” he said.
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Duncan Adam, a senior lecturer in Manchester Metropolitan University’s business school, said it would be “highly surprising” if Labour did not look to repeal “authoritarian and anti-democratic” union laws on strike turnout and minimum service levels, but he cautioned that this “doesn’t necessarily mean we will see more strikes and other forms of action”.
“If negotiations can be conducted with a focus on reaching agreement, then this is more important than the legislative context,” he said.
Ruth Dukes, professor of labour law at the University of Glasgow, said Labour’s plan to ban “exploitative” zero-hours contracts could prove to be significant for the sector, but its impact could be limited by loopholes within the outlined proposals. Thousands of UK sector staff are employed on zero-hours contracts currently.
“While this means you can’t have a zero-hours contract, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have a contract that says your hours will vary,” she said. “That doesn’t seem to me [to be] a very big hurdle for any university that wants to have fairly flexible working arrangements with, for example, graduate teaching assistants.”
