Indefinite strike or ‘escalating’ action? The choice facing UCU

Long-running divisions brought back to the fore at crucial period in UK pay negotiations

December 20, 2022
UCU campaigners at King's Cross station
Source: Tom Williams

Public disagreements over tactics may derail the University and College Union’s push for a better pay deal for UK higher education staff, but members are still confident of finding a way forward that keeps the pressure on employers.

The union’s general secretary, Jo Grady, was accused of undermining union democracy after she posted on Twitter a video pushing back on calls for an indefinite strike in the new year, even though the action had already been backed by the higher education committee.

The intervention, made just as the latest round of talks on a new pay deal began, prompted her opposite number at the negotiating table, Raj Jethwa, the chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, to call for an end to “infighting” for the good of the pay talks and the sector.

Dr Grady – who has backed taking escalating, targeted strike action – has called for members to get involved in shaping the strategy ahead of what will likely be heated meetings aimed at resolving the divisions in the new year.

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Debates between those who have an “innate belief” in the power of strikes and those who think a more “mix and match” approach involving other tactics such as assessment boycotts date back to the 1980s, resulting in “a lot of bad blood” between the two sides, according to Gregor Gall, a research associate at the University of Glasgow and an expert in industrial relations.

“Though there could be a middle ground – using both strikes and boycotts – the divisions are now so deep-seated…that it is unlikely any compromise or consensus can be reached,” he added.

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One of those who favoured the all-out strike, Jamie Woodcock, a senior lecturer in management and marketing at the University of Essex, said “rapid escalation” was needed to get employers to “seriously negotiate”.

“The UCU leadership has let members down many times, but an indefinite strike puts the power back in the hands of academic workers to resolve this dispute,” he said.

Sam Marsh, senior vice-president for the University of Sheffield’s UCU branch, said there was a “fair chance” that members would back an indefinite strike, given the “hard-line approach” taken by the sector’s management in response to demands for more pay and better working conditions in recent years.

But Sylvia de Mars, a senior lecturer in law at Newcastle University, has drafted a motion to the higher education committee raising concerns about an indefinite strike, highlighting the union’s depleted “fighting fund” and pointing out that other unions have had more success with a limited action approach.

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She called for an indefinite strike to be reserved for the summer assessment period, if “discontinuous escalating action over 2023” does not work.

Overall, she told Times Higher Education, it was still possible for the union to “have a discussion about the best way forward, then unite behind an action plan in order to win our demands”.

Emma Battel Lowman, a research associate at the University of Leicester who sits on the higher education committee, agreed that compromise was possible because members shared the same view of the aims of the dispute, if not the tactics.

Dr Gall said that if members were to make the final decision, the majority would likely favour a less aggressive approach, given the demands of an indefinite strike in terms of lost pay.

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Such a “fractious process” would not weaken that UCU’s position in negotiations if the strategy targets “key points in the academic calendar”, he predicted.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com

POSTSCRIPT:

Print headline: The choice facing the UCU – indefinite strike or ‘escalating’ action?

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Reader's comments (4)

The money was there to give academics a decent pay package but it is now wasted on excess bureaucracy and buildings,,,,The Unions need to recognise that striking to get pay rises while also trying to prevent sackings of excess buereacrats are incompatible objectives. Lets sack the excess bureaucrats and free up the money to pay the academics and researchers that after all generate the income.
The money was there to give academics a decent pay package but it is now wasted on excess bureaucracy and buildings,,,,The Unions need to recognise that striking to get pay rises while also trying to prevent sackings of excess buereacrats are incompatible objectives. Lets sack the excess bureaucrats and free up the money to pay the academics and researchers that after all generate the income.
UCU have long forgotten the effort made by their employers to pay them and secure their jobs during 2 years of pandemic disruption. Some academics didn't return to their campus for 2 years whilst lower paid colleagues surviving on part time living wage incomes came in to keep the campus safe . The focus here is wrong. Academics should be transparent re the 22 weeks they are actually teaching and their workloads and how much time they spend on campus, offer face to face contact time and what their annualised workload is across the board in all academic roles. A fair pay rise in the current year is of course justified, but then again reaching agreement on a figure will be fraught.
Dear Cactus77, The wage packets received by HE staff, at all roles and grades, were not a matter of employer generosity. HE staff in many roles and at all grades worked their socks off, and then some, throughout the pandemic. The job of work required to turn in-person teaching materials into resources suitable for different combinations of remote synchronous/asynchronous hybrid and online learning was immense. It was an endeavour none of us would ever have chosen and one requiring both skill and a willingness to scale a daunting learning curve. Our employers were *not* engaged in an act of charity. As to workload . . . it seems to me that anyone familiar with working practice in UK HEIs should be well aware that teaching is: (1) only part of the responsibilities set out in the terms and conditions in many regularised academic contract** and (2) extends well beyond time in the lecture hall or seminar room (including a whole host of mandated QA processes). Maybe it's UCEA and UUK that require a reminder about who (again, across all roles and grades) kept the show going. **Setting aside for the moment the sector's reliance on gig economy, hourly-paid, and too often zero-hours contracts to cover some aspects of teaching and assessment work. (n.b., also an issue in the ongoing dispute).

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