As UCU members we are armed with the strongest bargaining ‘hand’ we’ve had in well over a decade if not more.

But it is now vital that we play that hand well.

This post is a personal laying out of what this might look like.

Starting with the basics: The University is in profit. That profit was produced by our labour, the work we did as administrators, teachers, researchers, etc. When we are forced into taking industrial action, we simply refuse to carry out that work, turning off the tap of our labour and with it the profit-making capacity of the University.

In this way we cause economic pain to our employer, with the goal of forcing them to negotiate with and offer an acceptable deal that means we call off the action, return to work, and continue carrying out the labour needed for the University to function.

But what is actually happening when we negotiate?

Here’s how trade union training sessions might lay it out:

Negotiation 101

For industrial action to have any chance of success, we need a situation that looks something like this:

In other words, there has to be some overlapping ground between both sides. At the far edges of this overlapping ground there is ‘the least we/they are willing to accept’ – however, there is space to fight for before either side get there.

This is the space in which our industrial action seeks to gain ground. Because this space is the space in which negotiation to a deal acceptable to both sides takes place.

At the furthest edges of both circles is the most we want – both sides start the action with maximal demands/stances that sit outside the space of negotiation. You always ask for more than you realistically expect to get, because that provides you space to negotiate back from. If you ask for what you think is realistic, you’ve nothing to bargain away.

UCU is entering negotiation with a clear set of demands which can be found HERE.

The key question for us, UCU, is this: what is the maximum we can drag them towards our desired outcome, while we move the minimum distance towards them?

This space to negotiate is not static and can change, it can expand, it can detract; it can extend further into one side than it does the other.

A shift in the balance of power between both sides could see those maximal demands (on either side) suddenly move into the ‘willing to negotiate’ area – even if this is not the likely outcome (i.e. do not see our opening demand as the ‘final demand’, but rather the first).

What we don’t want, however is this:

Which is essentially what it turned out we had during the last strike action. There was no space in which a deal could be negotiated. The employers refused to even engage. They judged that with a minority of universities facing strike action, they could see off the industrial action and closed ranks.

But this time it is different. This time, we know UCEA has already gone back to its members (our employers) to seek a fresh mandate to negotiate with UCU to read a new deal, acceptable to both sides. 

This is a major change and evidence that the nature of our ballot outcome has already changed the balance of power and with it the space being contested.

The Big Question then: What is the Plan?

How do we move them?

Step 1: a powerful threat of action they want to avoid, so they offer a deal on terms we are willing to accept

Step 2: should that not be enough, we demonstrate our capacity to deliver the threatened action and maintain pressure long enough that the pain becomes too much, so they are forced to offer a deal to end it

We are currently in Step 1: The threat is this:

1. a record-breaking ballot result demonstrating a willingness of union members to fight, tied to
2. an aggregate ballot that means EVERY university will face industrial action, not only a minority as before, and
3. a threat that if negotiations do not reach an agreement by the end of November, employer will face painful industrial action.

This is the strongest threat we have had to hand since before 2018 in my opinion.

Our hope is that this threat is enough to make employers accept that they have to move, they have to make an offer of a new deal that we as members are willing to accept – and no industrial action needs to take place.

However: Step 2: if there is no deal, the plan is to roll out the action in a manner that has several ‘tipping points’ where if no deal is reached, the pressure is turned up:

1.  if there is no deal despite the threat, there will be three days of action with the purpose of demonstrating the threat is not idle and we have the strength and resolve to cause mounting pain to employers
2. this strike action kicks off a second phase, in which employers are pressured to this time make us an offer, as we start action short of a strike, including a marking and assessment boycott aimed at disrupting the winter essays/exams, and if they still won’t budge, then
3. more substantial strike action starting and building from February, the point being to disrupt Semester 2

At each stage it will be vital that we as members take the action required to pressure employers to make the deal, to see off the next tipping point.

This is in their best interest and our own.