UCU ballot fails to meet threshold
David Kernohan is Deputy Editor of Wonkhe
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A ballot of around 68,000 University and College Union (UCU) members at 140 UK higher education providers saw just 42.59 per cent turn out to vote, meaning that under the terms of the 2016 Trade Unions Act there can be no national industrial action.
Some 68 per cent of members who did vote backed strike action; 75 per cent were in favour of other forms of industrial action. UCU had secured mandates for action on pay and conditions at the previous two times of asking, in autumn 2022 and spring 2023. There was no ballot for action on pensions on this occasion.
In Northern Ireland, where no rules on turnout apply, 78 per cent backed industrial action short of a strike while 59 per cent backed strike action
UCU general secretary Jo Grady claimed that the results show that “staff are still angry with vice-chancellors who have failed to deliver on pay, job security and workload.” The chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), Raj Jethwa urged UCU, along with other sector trade unions, to “prioritise the independent review of sector finances”, which he hopes will end the cycle of claim and counter-claim about the financial status of higher education providers.
Though Grady is keen to note the success of the parallel campaign to reinstate the previous levels of USS pension contributions, the results of this ballot come at a difficult time for her as she seeks re-election. She has faced criticism from members for not calling the vote during the summer so that it would be possible to have a continuous mandate, for confusion over planned strike action in late September, and for a union decision to call off the marking and assessment boycott (MAB) at the end of the summer.
Staff subject to the New JNCHES pay spine saw a pay rise of between 5 and 8 per cent last year – lower than the union ask of inflation plus two per cent but higher than the initial offer. Work was agreed at ACAS between UCEA and the five sector trade unions to tackle a review of the current pay spine, and action on workload, contract types, and pay gaps – it is not clear when this is set to resume.
Not that Jo Grady doesn’t shoulder a lot of the blame here, mostly for massively overpromising on stuff, esp casualisation and pay, flip flopping about what an acceptable settlement would be, running as a radical for GS when she obviously isn’t one, and very heavily prioritising pre-92 unis; but members claiming a summer reballot would have seen a much different result, and that only Grady is to blame, are kidding themselves. Do they seriously think members could sustain even 50% pay deductions indefinitely, let alone 100%? Did they not notice that the majority of MABs (including most of the ones… Read more »
Something I forgot but feel is worth adding. 44% of members were in favour of settling in the summer. That is being overlooked (also by me above) but it’s surely key to thinking about both how few members really embraced the MAB and the September strikes, and to turnout in this ballot, isn’t it. If only 56% of members wanted to continue the action even as the 50% threshold was reached, it speaks to the union needing to negotiate in April rather than launching the MAB, as they were already in a position of obvious weakness with regard to member… Read more »
Going for an aggregate vote was a very risky strategy. Branch voting would have spread the risk. This campaign ends much as previous ones have
“Grady is keen to note the success of the parallel campaign to reinstate the previous levels of USS pension” ….which had diddly squat to do with UCU, and everything to do with the unexpected rise in interest rates.
One thing that’s definitely the case from this episode, where there was at least a pay rise, is that aggregation is important – piecemeal action at individual uni’s just doesn’t have an effect outside of the individual uni (and then usually at huge cost in terms of wages lost Vs gains).
I don’t know enough about USS to comment that closely on it, but I do think the big difference between the 2 disputes was that USS had a clear aim, demands, and focus; and 4 fights was, and is, the total opposite. It was, and is, incoherent, with UCU never making their aims clear; and when they did attempt this, they were often so unworkable that they were almost laughable – no non-permanent contracts at all; a 15% pay rise where uni’s have no additional income; the idea that 70k max uni staff on strike (including PhD students, some of… Read more »
I voted no last week because I’m exhausted with striking and striking and striking for barely any gains (for those not in USS). I also voted no in the original ballot in autumn 2022 because I don’t like disrupting my students’ education and could see little prospect of winning a strike, but I respected the democratic decision and struck on every strike day since. Indeed there was a period last winter when the hope and joy of collective solidarity was in the air, because we were not striking for special treatment for academics, but rather alongside many other groups of… Read more »
Your points about 15 years (PLUS) of effective pay cuts, the expectation of working unlimited hours by our employers (hours as required contracts) and the like are well made. Unfortunately the UCU’s history on all too often not supporting other Trade Unions in the sector when they’ve been in dispute has painted the picture many in management have latched onto, keep them divided and carry on shafting them. The more hard-line left-whinge Branches have also created a divide between themselves and other more centralist Branches, this has enabled the employers to play one group off against the other at JNCHES.… Read more »
I appreciate that as listed above the aims of the action seem laudable and unexceptional. However I do quibble with the idea of particularly the pay and casualisation ‘solutions’ as affordable as things stand. On pay, universities’ income from home fees has not risen for around a decade. This means that an inflation-busting pay rise, which is what Lecturer is suggesting, is genuinely unaffordable for the majority of institutions – unis’ costs, pay notwithstanding, on stuff like energy alone, have also gone up massively (UCU data on finances is out of date and pre-Liz Truss, and the claims about reserves… Read more »
Casualisation is a big problem and has belatedly been acknowledged as such by funders and some VCs. Indeed, a House of Lords report on science pinpointed it as a problem for the UK’s research base as talented people leave academia due to lack of more secure employment. There’s loads of articles on THES in the last year about this. While one might question the tactical wisdom of bundling casualisation together with the other fights, it is an issue that will not go away, I’m afraid.
I don’t disagree, and in an ideal world there would be hundreds of entry level academic jobs every year; but like I say I think it is not an issue that is solvable via IA (esp since the UCU “solutions” are unworkable and I’d argue counterproductive) – it’s something better applied by funding bodies with University agreement. University HR and management in general would prefer stable workforces too in my experience. My issue is mostly with its framing by UCU as something that can be fully abolished and thus solved via the current action which has clearly never been true,… Read more »
Many thanks for your thoughtful reply. I think we agree about a lot: I would agree that this was always going to be a hard dispute to win – hence why I voted no in the first place – and that we need systemic change, but beg to differ on key details. On pay, I don’t even want ‘an inflation-busting pay rise’. Given that my workload is higher than it was 15 years ago, I would just be happy for my pay to be only somewhat less than what it was 15 years ago, rather than miles and miles less… Read more »
Thanks – I appreciate the detail though obviously we do disagree on some of this.* In my mind, the urgency you speak of is all the more reason for UCU not to have tried to solve all these problems at once, as institutions could (and indeed did – with some justification) use the myriad different issues to claim progress on some and stall progress on others. I think it is very clear that UCU negotiators up to 2023 were incapable of actual progression, owing to a mostly hardline approach to these things (and in some cases – the UCU Left… Read more »
Thanks. I totally agree with you: united we stand, divided we fall. The atmosphere can vary greatly between different UCU branches: it’s at times like this that I am glad to work at a post-92 where UCU members have a rather more realistic understanding of their place in the world.