Reports from June and July HECs

By UCU Commons NEC members

10th June Special HEC

A special meeting of the Higher Education Committee was called for Monday 10th June in order to discuss an offer made by UCEA on joint pay negotiations (New JNCHES) with four other unions with members in HE (EIS, Unite, Unison and GMB). The other purpose of this meeting was to decide when to call a Special HE Sector conference to make up for the business lost due to Unite strike action during Congress, on Thursday 30th May. This means that the agenda only had these two discussion items on it, and all other items would be ruled as being outside the scope of the meeting.

Since this HEC meeting took place after Congress, it was the first meeting of HEC in its newest iteration (that is, those who were elected in the February 2024 elections to replace those elected in February 2022). This new iteration of HEC has a strong majority of UCU Left, their allies and adjacent members, including the 'Rank and File Revolution'* grouping. The chair of HEC this year remains Maria Chondrogianni, who was elected VP for HE in 2023, and the new HEC vice-chairs are Sean Wallis (pre-92) and Lucy Burke (post-92). They replace Mark Pendleton (pre-92) and Andrew Feeney (post-92) who were vice chairs in 2023-24. This is important, because the HEC vice-chairs join the HE negotiating team along with the negotiators elected at Congress and the Head of HE, and become part of the team of HE officers.

*Note: 'Rank and File', or 'Rank and File Revolution' is what we feel to be the most appropriate term for a network of members that isn't openly organised.

The relevant UCU official outlined to members in the meeting that this pay offer - 2.5% from UCEA - was not at all a good offer (and it’s really not a good offer). The question facing HEC was whether to accept, note or reject this offer, but for the negotiating team the only options were to note or reject, as in their view we should not be prepared to officially accept this offer. Noting, in essence, provides a halfway point whereby we don’t formally accept or reject the officer but essentially allow us to acknowledge that negotiations have concluded and that employers are not willing to move any further. The official also set out the risks of rejecting the offer without a clear strategy for engaging with members about their views, and especially their willingness – or otherwise – to take action over this offer. It is not in the interests of members, and may weaken future negotiations, for another ballot to fail. Furthermore, pay is only one of the four aspects of these negotiations (the others being casualisation or contract types, workload and race, disability and gender pay inequalities). Ultimately, by asking us to note one aspect of an offer while leaving the other elements still subject to negotiation, the employer is putting us in an uncomfortable and unusual position.

Key decisions taken in this meeting are as follows:

• This special HEC meeting voted to reject the 2.5% pay offer from UCEA. Moves to ‘note’ this offer and to engage in broad and deep consultation with members fell, having been opposed by UCU Left and the ‘Rank and File’ grouping.
• A motion was passed calling for the organisation of a BDM prior to the next scheduled HEC on 5th July.
• It was decided, via the passing of a motion submitted by Matilda Fitzmaurice, that a SHESC to make up business lost to Unite industrial action during Congress would only be called once the Unite dispute had been resolved (in line with Unite’s original request).

What does this mean?

The SHESC held on 17th May was poorly attended (half of branches in New JNCHES did not send a delegate), suggesting we may not have the strength to mobilise for a dispute at this particular point. UCU Commons members are active in branches up and down the UK, and are therefore aware of the difficulties with organising in branches that may, on this occasion, have led to low participation. As we heard in the meeting from members in affected branches, many are facing the prospect of local cuts, restructurings, voluntary severance schemes and/or compulsory redundancies. This suggests these members are at capacity, and that energy and enthusiasm levels among these members for more industrial action may be low. Many if not most members now have reason to worry about losing their jobs, so asking members to take industrial action over a small movement to the headline pay offer may not be the best strategic move at this time. UCU Commons have long held concerns about whether branch delegate meetings always live up to their name and promise. Many delegates at recent BDMs reported limited or no member engagement in determining their branch views. This is sometimes down to timing – we absolutely need to give branches more time, and clearer guidance, in order to effectively consult them – but in other cases reflects a somewhat worrying attitude by some branch leadership to their members. Proper consultation takes time and requires active discussion with members, not only those who we may already agree with. We also have to do this in the spaces members are in: not just in branch meetings but ultra-local workplace settings, such as tea rooms and corridors, and via email, social media and chats. This is important not just for basic reasons of democracy, but is also an important tactical move if we are to rebuild to win future ballots, and then future disputes. Neither an effective ballot nor a large-scale dispute can be won without deep, widespread and meaningful engagement with members, and future members.

It is deeply worrying that UCU Left (often backed by the ‘Rank and File’ grouping) seem to be determined to rush forward with a rejection, while trying to avoid the need to consult a large part of the membership. Indeed, some members of HEC appear to be misleading members by claiming that to note the offer would mean we could obtain nothing further out of this JNCHES round, when in fact this would mean nothing of the sort. Why, we might ask, do they seem desperate to fight on this, while ignoring the non-pay elements like casualisation, which is a huge priority for many members, and for some more so than pay? Some members of the 2023-24 negotiating team worked extremely hard to develop the Terms of Reference (ToRs) that are meant to structure longer term negotiations for meaningful movement on workload, contract types/casualisation and inequalities, as well as a UK-wide review of the current pay scales that may also lead to improvements in pay, and all this hard graft and perseverance may go to waste.

5th July HEC

HEC meetings do not always run smoothly, but this one was especially difficult as members struggled to follow some unclear rulings about process from the chair. UCU Commons members have regularly requested improvements in accessibility and more awareness from chairs and vice chairs about how to run meetings effectively. We hope that the new chairing team improves quickly in the interests of improving meeting accessibility and effectiveness.

In this meeting, HEC members voted unanimously in favour of proceeding to dispute resolution procedures with UCEA over the pay offer. To be clear, this means entering a series of meetings under the rules as set out in the JNCHES agreement with the aim of resolving the dispute to the satisfaction of all parties. It does not mean that we will necessarily enter a trade dispute or ballot for action.

The key decisions taken at this meeting are as follows:

• HEC voted overwhelmingly to enter dispute resolution proceedings with UCEA as set out in the JNCHES agreement.
• HEC also voted in favour of a vaguely-worded motion calling for a ‘campaign for industrial action’. It seems that this poses a significant consequential for the entry into DR, as it may give an impression to the employers that we are negotiating in bad faith.
• HEC voted against two motions that called for consultation with the wider membership on the pay offer, one via an indicative ballot of all members, and the other via member consultation on strategy for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 pay disputes.
• HEC voted to remit two emergency motions, one calling for a Special Higher Education Sector Conference (SHESC) to be held in September, and the other committing us to a ballot for industrial action in October, to the next scheduled HEC meeting on 27th September.

What does this mean?

HEC voted to accept the recommendations in the Committee Secretary’s Report, which were to approve a separate, strategy-focused HEC in addition to existing scheduled meetings, and to enter dispute resolution meetings over the “full and final” offer published by UCEA. This vote was unanimous. This decision reflected the strong message conveyed in the 2nd July BDM (abstentions and absences notwithstanding) that members were in favour of entering dispute resolution and continuing negotiations. Later in the meeting, UCU Left members pushed for a more divisive approach than that which had received unanimous agreement. In a move that was very confusing to us, UCU Left members argued for a need to immediately prepare for an industrial action ballot without waiting for the outcome of the dispute resolution process that the Committee Secretary and other officials had recommended setting in train. We argued – successfully in the end – that this was premature, and that we should consider whether and how to escalate once the negotiations have concluded.

Another related question is whether it is possible or desirable to reject the offer while also continuing negotiations with UCEA on the other three pay-related elements. According to some members of the negotiating team, a formal rejection from HEC is necessary for dispute resolution to be triggered and for negotiations to continue. However, the JNCHES agreement is quite clear that invoking the dispute resolution process is all that is needed. UCU Commons HEC members emphasised that the negotiating team should be more clear on its concrete asks, and that it should reflect on the lack of branch and member engagement, given that 35% of the branches in JNCHES did not attend the 2nd July BDM, and half of branches did not send a delegate to the SHESC on 17th May. This did not seem to concern some other committee members, however. We were extremely frustrated and disappointed that HEC ultimately voted against motions that called for consultation with the wider membership for the reasons we’ve outlined above.

So what happens now? First, the enactment of the dispute resolution procedures now means that HEC will wait until these conclude before taking any further decisions. There is a calendared HEC on 27th September, which seems a reasonable time to revisit this without encroaching on the summer. We look forward to a more deliberate and considered process of engaging with members and branches over the summer about what our next steps in these disputes should be. Furthermore, two UCU Commons NEC members are precariously employed, with contracts due to expire in the coming months, so they will be preoccupied with how to stay employed in the sector. We also want to think carefully about how to balance, on the one hand, our legitimate demands for real movements on pay and the pay-related elements of this claim with, on the other, the action we all need to take to support those whose jobs are under threat, as well as demanding a sustainable long-term settlement for Higher Education.