How can you take industrial action against the Secretary of State?

In general Universities and College Union disputes around pay and conditions stem, as you may reasonably expect, from the New JNCHES negotiation with universities and colleges as employers (in the form of UCEA).

That’s how industrial disputes go. Workers are unhappy with the actions of their employers, and take action – protests, strikes, work-to-rule, and all of your other favourites.

The 2025-26 New JNCHES pay negotiations have resulted in a UCEA “final offer” that sees a pay increase of 1.4 per cent (with the usual option to defer), alongside further action on very low salaries, alongside the now familiar menu of working groups covering an update to the pay spine, pay equality, workload, and contractual terms. This is in the context of “the difficult challenges facing the sector”.

A below-inflation pay rise like this represents a real-terms pay cut for university workers. In a normal year this would result in a punchily-expressed response from the unions (generally with UCU in the lead), and a rash of ballots for a national strike – most likely featuring impressive invective about “greedy” vice chancellors and (my particular favourite) “shiny new buildings”. If you’ve been watching this cycle for a few years you’ll also know that the fact of the dispute means that the useful and important joint working groups on contracts, the spine, and working conditions never actually happen.

And this year the unions went into negotiations with an “ask” of 3.5 per cent (indeed, some parts of UCU were initially looking for 7 per cent). So you’d have put money on the usual response. Unison suggests that each union will be recommending that members reject the final offer.

But last week’s UCU Congress brought innovation. Motion HE14 noted the ongoing sector financial crisis, and its roots in the way the government funds universities – and resolved to open a trade dispute with the Secretary of State, rather than with the immediate employers of university staff. This appears to entirely have replaced the now-abandoned plan to do the usual strike action against employers.

There is some legal analysis underpinning this new approach, based on an analysis published by the “university rank-and-file” grouping. The argument can best be summarised as drawing a direct line between the decisions of the Secretary of State in setting the parameters of the funding model and the worsening terms and conditions experienced by staff at universities – for several years universities as employers have blamed a lack of income for not meeting the full union pay claim, so you can kind of see the logic.

What’s less clear is what industrial action against Bridget Phillipson (or her successor) would look like. Last year’s action (in particular the marking boycott) arguably foundered on the huge impact it had on students, and it is unlikely a similar approach will help the Department for Education or the Treasury see the union’s side of things. It would also have to be England only – the Secretary of State has no say on HE in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland.

The motion to congress was brought by a group calling for a reform to the higher education funding model, a moratorium on redundancies in the meantime, and a cap on student recruitment (making the health and safety argument on teaching workload). You’ll note that not all of this can be accomplished directly by the Secretary of State.

It remains to be seen how other campus unions, or indeed employers, will respond to this unexpected turn of events. There was initially a plan (we hear from Unite) to develop a joint statement on higher education funding as a part of the New JNCHES process – this was to be agreed at the 15 May meeting but seems not to have happened. A joint statement between staff and university leaders would be both powerful and timely, and of all the options available seems most likely to protect universities against what is likely to be a very rough spending review.