Author Archives: David Moon

Bath UCU: What is going on? What does this mean?

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nb. Recall there are actually two disputes currently ongoing: pay and conditions, and USS. We’ll look at pay and conditions first, but USS is treated towards the end

As all members should be aware by now, the seven days of UCU strike action called for this week and next week have been suspended.

The dispute, however, has not been called off, action-short-of-a-strike remains in place, and the five days of action called for March remain active. Furthermore, the vital ballot to extend our mandate for strike action opens this week.

What is going on? What does this mean?

Communications out of UCU Head Office are often unclear, leading people to scrabble around on social media to find answers.

To give members the opportunity to discuss the current pause, next steps, ask any questions and let off any steam, we’re calling an online branch meeting this Wednesday the 22nd at 12:15-13:05. Invitations will go into Outlook folders shortly.

In the meantime, my aim is to outline this as simply as possible below:

Two weeks ago the joint unions and the employers’ representatives (UCEA) agreed to enter talks with ACAS. These talks are continuing and have not secured a “deal” on anything yet.

What has been accepted by joint unions and UCEA, however, is that talks within ACAS will not be able to secure further progress on one area – the pay claim. Employers simply won’t budge; this is the max they say they will move.

Therefore, rather than continue using ACAS as a forum to argue about pay deals, this issue is being parked to focus talks on areas where there is agreement these ACAS talks can make progress – specifically on conditions – anti-casualisation, workload, pay gaps (and some progressive changes to the pay spine).

This does not mean UCU have accepted the pay offer, it is simply recognised that any improvement will not be achieved through ACAS negotiations (It will need further industrial action, essentially).

The unions believe there are real tangible benefits on the table in these talks on conditions. So, to facilitate them, the union negotiating teams agreed to suspend the next two weeks of planned strike action (by UCU, Unite and Unison). Once these time-limited talks conclude, in two weeks’ time, we will then have an offer that can be put to members.

All of the above is laid out in a joint statement from the joint unions and UCEA.

Members will then have to decide if that overall offer (of which we essentially know the pay element) is ‘good enough’, or if we want to reject it and continue industrial action with the aim of securing something better. If we do vote to reject a deal, we have five further strike dates already agreed in March, which remain active, with space to call more before our mandate closes.

But importantly, for the continuation of industrial action to have any real opportunity of success, it is entirely dependent on returning a YES vote in the new ballot on extending the strike period. Essentially, this will go down to a Marking and Assessment Boycott and focused disruption of graduation. It is the major threat employers will fear.

Alongside these UCEA talks, it is also worth noting re. the USS dispute that a positive joint statement has been produced by UUK/UCU. There is no actual decisions here yet, which depends on whether USS do what the formal UUK group says (but the Russell group haven’t agreed to). There seems signs of real progress here – and if we reach a deal on USS it will put pressure to secure one on pay and conditions to end strikes.

Amongst all this there are debates and arguments about who has the legitimate right to suspend action, etc. and questions about whether what is on the table was enough to agree to suspend days of action, as well as whether continuing striking would achieve anything on these days. These are conversations worth having especially as we head towards Congress – and as a branch we will need to have a discussion about the position we hold on some key issues that are certain to arise.

But right now, this is the perfect reminder of how important it is to vote in the HEC elections. The deadline is March 1st. Details are HERE. You can find a familiar overview of who the different factions running are and what their lists are HERE. Now VOTE!

Playing Our Hand: Using our Strike Mandate to Negotiate a Deal

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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.