It is committed to ensuring that the new union has a democratic structure through which members can determine policy, and elected officers and professional officials can be held accountable. It seeks to defend educational equality, and to oppose the consequences of neo-liberal marketisation. It is opposed to all forms of racism, sexism, oppression and imperialism.
David Swanson (City College Manchester)
Defence of Education
We need to start taking education back from the businessmen. An LSC representative told me that their main aim recently (and in upcoming years) was to "drive down the unit cost". In a factory you can invest in more efficient machinery, but in FE the only way is to make teachers work harder and longer for less money, and provide less time, attention and quality to each student.
Meanwhile they waste resources on targets, inspections and vast layers of people to measure and enforce these, and on consultants who will state the obvious or the irrational for hefty fees.
I believe this situation and each individual negative consequence has to be fought at every level possible- branch, region, nationally and alongside all those suffering from the neo-liberal agenda in the public sector.
Workload
Our branch successfully stopped an attempted worsening of contracts recently (more details here). This took patient convincing that it is possible to win, maximising campaigning and involvement of members, and convincing management that we weren't going to back down. This is what all our national campaigns should do.
Hourly-paid
We have forced our management to accept the implications of recent legal changes, won pro-rata jobs for a layer of people and obsessively fought for equal jobs for everyone..
Mergers
We are about to merge to produce the biggest college in Europe, if not the Galaxy. The LSC has met with us regularly throughout the process because our strength makes us an important player. This experience could be usefully shared as mergers become more prevalent.
Prison Education
My college is the biggest provider and I want to help raise the specific concerns and profile of this sector.
Unison
We operate as far as possible as one big union. Encouraging more strong Unison branches is essential.
Political Campaigns
I also believe that our union should engage with wider political issues- because they are important in themselves and they are intimately connected to the day to day problems we have. Our members are concerned about privatisation, war and the environment and representing that makes us more relevant and wins us members and reps.
Led first strike in primary school, age 7, after getting excited by power cuts. Lasted 10 minutes, got shouted at and we all cried.
UCU involvement at national and branch level:
- Rep and on Branch Committee at City College Manchester since entering teaching in 1996.
- Regional Rep since 2000.
- Conference delegate since 2002.
- Branch Secretary since 2005.
- Led joint-union delegation to anti-G8 protest in Genoa and European Social Forum in Florence.
- Organised workplace antiwar groups.
I am a socialist. Essentially that means I always argue that it's possible to fight to improve things, and that I believe in maximising the democracy and involvement of members. Sometimes you can't convince people to act but I would always prefer to lose an argument in a big meeting than win one in a small meeting. The members should always decide.
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