UCU Commons Report from Special HEC - 1st September 2025

By UCU Commons HEC members

Note: the explicit permission of the chair of HEC was sought, and granted, before publishing this report.

Headlines:

• HEC voted by 20-19 in favour of calling a UK-wide statutory industrial action ballot on pay
• In a farcical vote, UCU Left members voted for a ballot window of 6 weeks

Introduction

There was a special HEC meeting held on 1 September 2025 and the Chair of the meeting, President-elect Dyfrig Jones, informed HEC that the sole purpose of the meeting was to determine whether to move to a UK-wide statutory industrial action ballot on pay or not. A single vote would be held at the end of the meeting on whether to move to a statutory ballot or not. The Chair also explicitly warned HEC members against any criticism of staff.

If agreed, a statutory ballot would begin as soon as reasonably practical and would run for the minimum length of time that UCU staff believe is necessary to meet the 50% turnout threshold, based on experience with previous ballots. The HE officers (President-elect Dyfrig Jones, HEC vice-chair Andrew Feeney, HEC vice-chair Grant Buttars and President Maria Chondrogianni) had unanimously agreed that there would be no option to opt-out for local branches and if the ballot was successful, then all branches across the UK would be bound by any industrial action decisions taken by HEC. As per current UCU policy, the ballot would be run on an aggregated basis, with a strike mandate available for all branches if the 50% turnout threshold was met on a GB-wide basis (Northern Ireland is not subject to the 50% turnout threshold requirements).

The chair noted that apologies had been received from Vicky Blake, UK-wide HE elected member, and that all other members of HEC were expected to be present.

The first part of the meeting was used by UCU Left and their allies to challenge the process, rather than substantively discuss what we should do. These kinds of interventions are unfortunately too frequent in UCU’s committee structures, and we in UCU Commons find them quite frustrating, when we have serious issues that are important to members that we need to discuss.

Debate on ballot timeline

The UCU Head of Higher Education said that a ballot window of less than six weeks would be unlikely to cross the 50% turnout threshold and the UCU Head of Bargaining and Representation recommended a ballot window of seven weeks based on previous experience, but stressing that the decision would ultimately be for HEC to make.

UCU Commons member and Representative of Disabled Members Bijan Parsia proposed that if we are not able to align our action with other unions (there are five in dispute as part of the UK-wide pay negotiations structure, known as New JNCHES), then we should reconsider an autumn ballot in favour of a later timeline that would mean we didn’t lose several weeks of our mandate to Christmas break and non-teaching periods.

The Chair informed the Committee that this would be possible, as HEC was due to meet again in five weeks’ time and we could come back and consider options then.

Grant Buttars, one of the HEC vice-chairs, suggested that we had to move to action immediately because the other trade unions would be looking to our lead. He said that UCU brought the strength of numbers within the sector, and that we had a responsibility to these other unions to take action immediately and not go and do our own thing.

During the following discussion, UCU Left members argued for an immediate ballot on the basis of vibes and solidarity with “sister unions”.

The general gist of the UCU Left arguments was that the other unions were waiting with bated breath for UCU to be the vanguard and lead the revolution in higher education, and we had an obligation to do so immediately. UCU Left members argued that though a consultative ballot had only 32% turnout, this was a very good result given that it took place during the summer. Another UCU Left member argued that the employers' threat to stop progress on the pay-related elements if we ballot was unacceptable, and that we should ballot because of that. UCU Left members and their fellow travellers also often commented about victories in local disputes, although it was unclear what relevance this had to a UK-wide pay dispute.

UCU Commons members made several points in the discussion that followed, mainly along the lines that any action that we take must first and foremost work for the benefit of our members and our branches. We pointed out that whilst we should aim to coordinate with the other trade unions, we make up the bulk of the numbers, so we should plan for action that maximises the chances for our success. Specifically, our members made the following points.

Sophia Woodman, UCU Edinburgh branch president and UK-wide elected NEC representative, said that the proposed timetable of immediate balloting meant that action could only begin when teaching for the autumn term had already ended at Edinburgh. She also said that Edinburgh was a prime example of a university that was a winner in the current marketised system and still cutting jobs. She said that a UK-wide ballot on pay would jeopardise a local dispute at the branch, and these concerns had been widely reported in a survey conducted by UCU Commons members that had received over 150 responses. She said that she would be supportive of an industrial action ballot in the new year, if it was coordinated with the other unions and there was a very clear strategy in place. She repeated that a UK-wide ballot now would undercut the ability of branches in dispute to make local agreements on resolving disputes, and if management at these institutions felt that strike action was coming anyway, they might be emboldened to make even further cuts.

Jo Edge, Representative of Women Members, reminded HEC that if we said no to a ballot today, it didn’t mean that we could never ballot. It just meant that we would not ballot now and we could always revisit the decision at the next meeting (which is just five weeks away). She also reminded the committee that a strike mandate is only legal for six months, and whether we would really want to waste two of those months with a strike mandate that could potentially begin in early December.

Bijan Parsia, Representative of Disabled Members, asked HEC to think about what the actual dispute is and what we are asking for. He said that at the moment we did not have a plan on how to coordinate with the other trade unions, and we needed a plan before we voted on action.

Ben Pope, Representative of Casually Employed Members and elected HE pay negotiator, added that the question of meeting the turnout threshold was vital. He said that working in concert with the other trade unions was important, but that we should not on any account jeopardise our ballot – not least because the other unions need the leverage of UCU’s successful aggregated ballot. He reminded HEC of the clear downsides of voting to ballot now - negotiations on the pay-related elements of the New JNCHES claim would be in jeopardy, not to mention the effect of the ballot on local disputes over redundancies.

Vivek Thuppil, Bangor University UCU Vice-President and Representative of Migrant Members, said that no one had espoused a clear plan on how we go from 32% turnout in an e-ballot that required a simple click to a 50% turnout in a postal ballot that required significantly more effort from members. He said that as a branch with a potential local dispute, a UK-wide mandate for strike action would result in loss of leverage locally, and this was true for dozens of higher education institutions across the UK. He said as a result, he would not be able to vote for this ballot.

Mark Pendleton, UK-wide elected member of NEC, said that the terms of dispute on pay and conditions would be made more concrete in the coming weeks, and that at the moment, we really did not know what we were asking members to vote on. He emphasised the effectiveness of timed and strategic action, noting that Sheffield UCU only took four days of action to get the threat of compulsory redundancies removed. He noted that they had also achieved pay restoration for those four days of action and that members were prepared to take action next year as well if necessary. He noted that the branch used OfS guidelines on compensation to effectively damage the employer. He asked HEC about whether we could say the same for proposed UK-wide action, that it was strategic and had the support of the membership, and if the answer was no, how we would win.

Other members also made important points.

Andrew Feeney, Honorary Treasurer, noted the low turnout of the consultative ballot and reminded HEC that an industrial action ballot would cost upwards of £200,000 and that if we were not sure of winning it, then that much would be much better spent elsewhere.

Ann Gow, Honorary Secretary of UCU Scotland, said that this was about making a strategic, sensible decision and that she would be voting against a ballot right now. She noted the low turnout of the consultative ballot and said that for a successful statutory ballot, we would need to engage members who had not engaged thus far. She also commented on the folly of comparing local ballots with UK-wide ones, noting that it is easier to get people to vote for local action because there is an immediate threat to their jobs, which is not the case with a UK-wide ballot over pay. She cautioned HEC over the worst case scenario of going to a ballot and not making the threshold, which would be far more damaging than not balloting at all.

Jackie Grant, HE Representative from the South Region, asked about the potential dispute with the Secretary of State for Education and said that for strong action, we would need to weave in work around the dispute with the Secretary of State.

The debate was closed and a vote was held on the Chair’s Report. If agreed, a statutory ballot would begin as soon as reasonably practical and would run for the minimum length of time that UCU staff believe is necessary to meet the 50% turnout threshold, based on experience with previous ballots.

The result, after a short technical difficulty during which UCU Left’s response was less than patient, was 20 votes in favour, 19 votes against, and no abstentions.

At this point, the meeting should have been adjourned, but several UCU Left members kicked off about how they had not decided on how long the ballot would run for. They were informed by the Chair that they had agreed to the Chair’s Report, which included a timeline for the proposed ballot. The UCU Left members argued that they should have been given an opportunity to make an amendment earlier.

Whilst it was amply clear that they had the right to make an intervention ahead of the vote, and no one would accuse UCU Left members about being shy in making their voices heard in any meeting, they insisted that they should have another vote on the timing of the ballot.

Whilst this was obviously a request without merit and would usually have been dismissed by the Chair and the meeting adjourned, the Chair agreed to the request. This was likely due to exhaustion and exasperation, especially after the impatience of some members over technical issues during the previous vote.

An “indicative vote” was then held on whether the ballot window should be 7 weeks, as already agreed, or 6 weeks. Why 6 weeks? We can’t know for certain, as there was no debate on this particular question. But it is clear that UCU Left members (and other HEC members) wanted the ballot (if successful) to enable at least a week of industrial action before the Christmas period. Due to the number of restrictions imposed by Tory anti-union legislation, it was always going to be very difficult to run a ballot with any chance of success and complete the legally required two weeks’ notice of industrial action before a significant number of universities finish teaching in late November or early December. This proved to be the case – the November strike could not be made to work logistically, but we are still lumbered with the risky 6-week ballot window.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, we are disappointed that UCU Left and their fellow travellers chose not to take into account any of our concerns regarding an immediate ballot, or those of branches and members who have raised them with us. If this statutory ballot fails, the responsibility must lie with UCU Left and any other HEC member that voted for it.

With the closeness of the vote, it is all the more important that members vote in the NEC casual vacancy elections. Vote for Matt Barnard for UK-wide HE Representative and Adam Hansen for HE representative for the Northeast region, in order to deliver a majority in favour of strategically-designed action developed in dialogue with branches and members that can actually win, rather than another wasted ballot or more ineffective industrial action.

Oh, and a quick PS: almost as soon as the HEC decision to ballot was made public, UCEA announced that they were pulling the plug on pay-related negotiations, which include work on casualisation, workload, equality pay gaps and pay spine reform.