The UK university sector is “cannibalising” itself, but staff should not have to pay the price for “bad management decisions”, according to the head of the University and College Union (UCU) as she seeks re-election in a year when industrial relations are again likely to take centre stage.
General secretary Jo Grady told Times Higher Education that UCU was ready to “robustly protect education” as universities across the country looked to shed jobs, but she dismissed the idea that the financial trouble many institutions were now mired in would prevent staff from making progress on key issues such as pay, precarious contracts and unmanageable workloads.
Entering fresh talks with employers without being able to strike after a vote to extend industrial action failed, Dr Grady said 2024 would provide a moment for the union to take stock and develop a strategy to win after five years on a “ballot treadmill”.
But she did not rule out further disruption on UK campuses, including repeating the controversial marking and assessment boycott, if members felt it was necessary to do so.
The past year had been a “tale of two halves”, said Dr Grady, with a “historic, landmark win” on securing lower contributions to the Universities Superannuation Scheme pension scheme and some progress on pay and conditions, but “we haven’t won everything we deserved”.
The union was therefore in “reflective” mode, she said. “There is a sense of militancy but realism. People aren’t throwing in the towel, saying ‘I’m done’, but they are saying that if we want a different result, we are going to have to do things differently.”
Members were consulted on the next steps before Christmas – 64 per cent said they felt the union was either quite far or very far from winning the dispute and 82 per cent said the development of a long-term strategy was important.
A chief concern will be reflecting on why the union failed in securing members a higher pay deal despite – in Dr Grady’s words – “throwing the kitchen sink at it”.
The five-month-long marking boycott was unsuccessful because “our employers – with a few outliers – operate with total discipline”, she said.
UCU also needed to ensure that more people participated in industrial action, Dr Grady acknowledged, before “hitting the repeat button on a strategy that has just been demonstrated to have not worked”.
Dr Grady said that “if the democratic structures vote to do a marking boycott again, of course we will”, but members wanted to know “what is the plan for how things are going to be different”.
The union’s strategising may well end up being derailed by events once again, however, not least because it is being increasingly called into action to defend jobs, with the end of 2023 characterised by a raft of redundancy announcements across the sector.
Wages that rose by between 5 per cent and 8 per cent last year have been cited as a key reason why cuts are needed, so can UCU argue again for a collective pay rise when so many universities are in trouble?
Dr Grady said that at the core of universities’ problems were “bad management decisions”, such as taking on debt for building projects.
“That is a decision that has nothing to do with our pay deal last year but has got everything to do with the university sector cannibalising itself, with marketisation and with university x competing with university y,” she said.
Universities often looked to cut staff as the first option and neglected other things they could do, she added.
“If the period we are going into is going to be one where universities move to do this, then our role as a union is to move into that space and robustly protect education, students and our members,” she said.
But Dr Grady did hint that the situation necessitated a change in tone from the union, away from blanket claims that the sector was awash with cash.
“I don’t think it is helpful for anyone to just stay stuck with one narrative. The higher education sector is complex,” she said. While the sector in general had resources, she added, the “way in which the money gets allocated and the role universities play in upholding that needs to change”.
UCU’s leadership election will be decided in March, ahead of the whole country going to the polls in a likely general election that the Labour Party is widely tipped to win.
Dr Grady said UCU’s relationship with Labour was a good one, but she felt the party was “lacking in ambitious pledges for education, in particular higher education”.
“As we get closer to the election, we are going to have to put them under some pressure to commit to some things. Abolishing things like the Office for Students would seem to me to be an appropriate thing to do. It has failed on its own terms, as far as I am concerned. And it costs a lot of money.
“Then there’s the Research Excellence Framework – that could be another. There are better ways to allocate that money that don’t end up being a drain on the sector’s resources.”
