UCU staff strikes back on after talks bring ‘no tangible offer’

Strike action by members of the University and College Union’s own staff is back on after fresh talks with managers failed to deliver significant progress.

The long-running dispute focuses on claims of racism, breaches of collective agreements and broken industrial relations levelled by Unite, which represents workers at the UK higher education sector’s largest union.

A first day of strike action on 30 May forced the cancellation of part of the UCU annual congress, but a walkout planned for 26 June was suspended following “constructive discussions”, including a pledge to launch an independent review of the union’s organisational culture.

However, Unite said that talks mediated by Acas and attended by Jo Grady, the UCU general secretary, had resulted in “no tangible offer”.

Strike action planned for 1 and 3 July will now go ahead, Unite said, with 10 and 11 July also pencilled in for walkouts.

A Times Higher Education report previously found UCU staff members were concerned managers had cultivated a “culture of fear” in the workplace, amid claims that black staff members had been victimised and discriminated against.

Posting on X after the latest talks, Unite said that there was a “risk of escalation” and claimed UCU had “suggested pausing its recognition agreement”.

Unite claimed that UCU was “imposing artificial barriers” to participation in a review of race-related issues “by prioritising an unrecognised union’s involvement over black staff’s concern of management de facto having an extra seat at the table”.

“This dispute and strike vote is about the fight for an anti-racist workplace, a safe and professional workplace, and the importance of trade union values and practices. It is in the interest of all trade unionists that UCU as an employer embodies these values,” Unite said.

“Our ballot for strike action is a call for real change within UCU and we are determined to bring about this change; the change that UCU staff and UCU members so desperately deserve and so urgently need.”

But a UCU spokesperson called the strike action “unnecessary and unjustified”, adding that suggestions that it had threatened Unite’s recognition were “entirely misleading and aimed at increasing support for the course they have decided to take”.

“The constant moving of negotiating goal posts – most alarmingly to link Unite involvement in discussions around the independent racism review to other points in the dispute – is making reaching a settlement impossible,” the UCU spokesperson said.

“Nevertheless, UCU continues to be open to talks and remains fully committed to resolving the dispute.”

Rose Keeping, a regional officer at Unite, said: “UCU’s undermining of existing industrial recognition agreements, failure to agree key working principles and heavy-handed use of disciplinary procedures have left our members with no choice but to take strike action.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com