If, like me, you are a UCU member and agree the union should stop wasting time and effort on a fruitless round of pay strikes at a time when tens of thousands of academic jobs are at risk, then please consider signing this open letter (link early on the document): ucucommons.org/2025/02/13/m... - ThreadSky

robfordmancs.bsky.social • 6 days ago

If, like me, you are a UCU member and agree the union should stop wasting time and effort on a fruitless round of pay strikes at a time when tens of thousands of academic jobs are at risk, then please consider signing this open letter (link early on the document): https://ucucommons.org/2025/02/13/motion-to-hec-focus-on-defending-jobs-and-reforming-uk-he/

Comments

solgamsu.bsky.social•6 days ago

"Even though the funding crisis is made in Westminster and the other national capitals, UK anti-union law stipulates that industrial activity must be tied to employment conditions. This means such a campaign has to be conducted over pay."

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/only-nationwide-strike-can-stem-carnage-uk-higher-education

solgamsu.bsky.social•6 days ago

Commons' motion is really just a strategy to do nothing at a national level.

The idea we will get anywhere campaigning for "root-and-branch reform of UK HE" without a national mandate is absolute & utter tosh.

We need big, disruptive national action to get attention.Can't do that without a strike.

robfordmancs.bsky.social•6 days ago

I prefer doing nothing to wasting enormous resources (including goodwill and members' salaries) on futile campaigns which achieve nothing. Given the state of university finances it is utter fantasy to imagine this strike action will succeed.

robfordmancs.bsky.social•6 days ago

We should focus on building resources and organisation to help protect the thousands of members whose jobs are at risk, a campaign where we might have better chance of succeeding and which involves a more urgent need for solidarity and support

cambiechoo.bsky.social•6 days ago

It wouldn't be about doing nothing at a national level. It would be about national having more resource to support the local campaigns--like ours at Durham--that desperately need all the support they can get to fight redundancies. The truth is that resource is finite and saving jobs must come first.

robfordmancs.bsky.social•6 days ago

100% agree. Also many members - myself included - are frankly tired of a never ending series of strikes which disrupt our work, alienate our students, called to demand the impossible by colleagues who have rejected every single negotiated offer actually available I can remember in all my yrs in UCU.

robfordmancs.bsky.social•6 days ago

I'm fed up with it. A union exists to negotiated and deliver tangible, achievable things to help make members' jobs an conditions more secure, but UCU is treated by many as a stage on which to act out fruitless revolutionary morality plays.

solgamsu.bsky.social•6 days ago

Having a live national mandate is not a 'fruitless revolutionary morality play' - if it was then the NEU wouldn't have got a 6% pay rise.

solgamsu.bsky.social•6 days ago

The state of the sector is going to require serious disruption to push back against.

Universities were wrecked by 40 years of neoliberalism (and they were stale, white male capitalist org's before that).

It's not going to transform itself in five minutes. We have to be in for the long haul.

robfordmancs.bsky.social•6 days ago

See it’s not about 6% is it Sol? Its morality plays about 40 years of neoliberalism and the endless, self-indulgent hunger for “serious disruption”. You couldn’t even maintain the pretense for five minutes.

cambiechoo.bsky.social•6 days ago

I agree we need to be in it for the long haul, which is why we need to use strike ballots tactically and strategically. This one has low chances of succeeding and will as a result damage future ballots that would have better chances. This would not be a good long haul strategy in my opinion.

solgamsu.bsky.social•6 days ago

What would 'national' actually be doing? The motion resolves says "To focus energies on root-and-branch reform of UK HE"

How would you actually achieve the national political pressure & attention necessary for that without a live, national mandate?

dangerouscorner.bsky.social•6 days ago

What happened last time UCU tried that, and what has changed since which makes you think it would work better this time, despite indications so far being that it wouldn't work so well?

robfordmancs.bsky.social•6 days ago

In my experience with UCU (now running to decades) a noisy and well organised minority of people see “We need big, disruptive national action” as the answer to every question, regardless of present circumstances or past results.

rokewood.bsky.social•6 days ago

Exactly. & the last 4, 5, 6 rounds (I forget) of strikes achieved precisely what?

solgamsu.bsky.social•6 days ago

The only reason USS is still open as a (partial) DB scheme is bc of the action we've taken.

I have disagreed with how all of our national disputes have been led (I've even written about it in various places about why I think it didn't work).

Locally at Durham we did get things in '21-22 & '22-23.

robfordmancs.bsky.social•6 days ago

The action to prevent USS being converted to DC was indeed a successful action. It is worth reflecting on why: a clear, narrowly defined goal with exceptionally high membership support. Characteristics not present in the many subsequent national actions

robfordmancs.bsky.social•6 days ago

Actually would amend to “clear, narrowly defined and achievable”. And iirc the “forever war” types campaigned against the compromise which preserved partial DB then. They definitely campaigned against the compromise a couple of years back which greatly improved it.

matildaf.bsky.social•6 days ago

Thanks for sharing, Rob!

aiteall.bsky.social•6 days ago

The naive notion that holding off action will somehow appease the bosses is a betrayal of our union and really a form of e-scabbing.

rossgibson.bsky.social•6 days ago

UCEA Commons

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