Where next for pay negotiations?
David Kernohan is Deputy Editor of Wonkhe
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Overnight we’ve seen a statement from UCU (following Monday’s emergency meeting of the HEC) threatening further strike action, a continuation of the marking and assessment boycott, and a reballot potentially allowing for further national action in the coming academic year.
UCEA has responded, citing the weekend’s letters from Robert Halfon, with the usual statement that the 2023-24 pay deal will not be renegotiated.
When?
All recent UCU action has taken place following a successful national ballot that started on 21 February, closing on 31 March with the results announced on 3 April. This gave the union 6 months from the “date of the ballot” – in this case the period between 31 March and 30 September to take industrial action. The marking and assessment boycott (MAB) is likely to continue until 30 September, and any other action would need to take place in September (bearing in mind the requirement to give employers two weeks notice of industrial action).
Many UCU members have been calling for a new ballot to extend the possibility of industrial action further into the new academic year. Yesterday’s statements indicate that UCU will “begin preparations” for a new ballot. There are no rules as to how long a ballot needs to be open, but large national unions generally prefer a longer window to encourage more responses (more than 50 per cent of members involved need to respond for the ballot to be valid). The last ballot was open for 39 days – adding the statutory seven day employer notice period suggests that the very earliest a new mandate could start (in the unlikely event that employers are notified later today) is the end of the current mandate: 30 September 2023.
In the more likely event that UCU decides not to run a ballot of members over late August and early September (the period between Clearing and the start of term being a popular time for annual leave and academic conferences) there will be a gap between mandates – during which period all industrial action (including the MAB) would need to stop. This would be welcomed particularly by students who have yet to receive finalised degree results – a gap in mandates could allow these to be processed and shared during October.
Other things to note
UCU’s release suggests it has agreed to the UCEA proposal for a joint review of sector finances (although UCEA’s note suggests that this agreement has not been made formal). This, alongside proposed continued work on the “pay related” issues (casualisation, equality, workload, pay spine review) would be facilitated by Acas and involve all five trade unions (Unite, Unison, GMB, EIS, and UCU) that are party to the dispute.
The joint review of finances will be hugely important for future of pay bargaining. If, like me, you have occasionally been frustrated by the use of old data, aggregated data, or data related to non-realisable assets in assertions about the affordability of pay claims you’ll be keen to see a shared perspective validated independently. Ideally this will lead to accepted definitions and figures used on both sides and a calmer 2024-25 New JNCHES round. But we shall see.
I really do hope that there are serious talks and UCU prioritize an actual end to the dispute rather than the seeming focus of recent talks being entirely on MAB deductions – whatever you think of those, it does not scream “ready to settle” when ucu have added a fifth fight in and – at the gen sec’s suggestion – comprehensively rejected a pay offer that most other unions, in sectors who are more able to afford it than uni’s, have accepted. Contrary to ucu rhetoric, they knew from 2022 that big deductions were coming in response to what ucu themselves see as a last resort escalation of IA from strike action. Last year it took weeks of indefinite strikes to get MAB deductions overturned – it is not going to happen across the board.
I’m also baffled as to the logic of freshers week strikes – whose impact will be a drop in numbers thus revenue thus another reason for unis to state their inability to increase pay. It’s baffling, not least because UCU themselves say their strikes haven’t been working.
If the reballot fails to meet the 50% threshold (as is surely likely, given fatigue and the ridiculous amount of strikes called this year in addition to the MAB) it’s a damning indictment of both jo Grady AND her opponents in the union, for 4 years of asking for completely impossible things (honestly, an end to all temp contracts!?), comprehensively failing to settle on a strategy even for that unwinnable dispute, and for completely misleading members as to what is a likely result of the IA.
So we have answer on “where next” and the answer is “there will be a c. month and a half gap between the end of the last mandate and the potential beginning of the next one” as above, meaning the mab should realistically be ended now, or else staff will have – by UCU’s admission – 5-6 weeks at the start of teaching to also do all their summer marking.
I am sceptical that the average ucu member is going to look at how the Union’s completely incoherent decision making structures (and utterly woeful negotiators – all of them, not just Grady – who promised the earth and delivered *nothing*, rejecting *everything*, on 4 fights over 5 years) have used years of IA mandate, and conclude they should be given more scope to call strikes and other action. We’ll see I guess.
But I can’t see many people who went on MAB over 4 months and who now have to grade while prepping for teaching thinking that a vote for Jo Grady in 2024 is a good idea. Maybe she will run on her bullshit claims about reserves and remaking the sector again, but maybe people will see through that obvious bollocks and vote for a moderate (as opposed to a moderate pretending they’re radical) who promised vaguely realistic things? Or maybe they’ll vote for the ucu left candidate who will quickly bankrupt the union via their longed-for indefinite strike, who knows.
Am still confused that they didn’t reballot over summer even if they were worried about take-up in vacation time. The alternative is surely the worst of all worlds?