UCU Left - AGM 2008

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			The UCU Left is a national organisation of University and College Union activists. 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.


	UCU Left - AGM 2008 Saturday 29th March 2008, SOAS, London

UCU faces big challenges from the drive to marketise education; Tertiary Education is a fast growing sector that has become increasingly ‘industrialised’ over the past decade. This has created a growing casualisation of university staff, attacks on pay and conditions, and a serious erosion of traditional academic freedoms. At its annual conference last Saturday, members of UCU Left came together to debate how best to meet these challenges, as well as to reflect on our own successes over the last year.

Conference was addressed by Socialist Teacher Alliance (STA) convenor and NUT Executive member Alex Kenny who drew attention to the progress made by socialists in the NUT over the past two decades. The left has moved from a situation where support for a Woman’s Right to Choose or the Anti-Nazi League was a minority position to one where the left is a majority on the NUT executive and its position on opposing Army recruiting in schools gets mainstream union support. The 10% pay claim argued for by the left has united the NUT and joint action on May 24th with UCU and PCS could bring half a million people out on strike. This unity was reflected in the debate at the Easter NUT conference.

Howard Miles, Further Education (FE) rep on UCU NEC spoke about the achievements of the UCU Left over the past year. The UCU ESOL (English as a Second or Other Language) campaign has won a rethink from Government; the FE manifesto for education won widespread support and recognition; the FE pay claim was transformed from a pessimistic 2.55% to the current joint claim and campaign with the NUT; Palestine speakers are touring with the UCU President; the Left had the maturity to maintain unity on principles whilst disagreeing over tactics for the JNCHES ballot; we now have a national organising plan and an effective restructuring plan has been adopted which probably averted a staff strike.

As our recent NEC results show, the UCU Left has been very successful as an electoral machine. However, as several speakers stated in the ensuing debate, it now needs to move beyond this to build a more rooted rank-and-file base in local branches and regions. Jane Hardy said that the Left needed to take on the neo-liberal agenda; as Mark Campbell put it, “Universities are not businesses, students are not customers, and we are not the hired help.”

Iain Ferguson pointed out that we needed “Political Trade Unionism” to build, in which political issues such as marketisation were aligned with members more immediate interests such as the redundancies in School of Economic and Management Studies and the Centre for Health Planning at Keele. Sue Blackwell said it was vital for the UCU to recruit, stating that we should be specifically targeting the many potential members who are part time and fixed term contract staff on teaching only or research only contracts.

UCU Left members at our recent AGM

Howard summed up the first session saying that Education is Dangerous because it helps students to think for themselves. We are in a new milieu – just look at the NUT decision on military recruitment. The opportunities are endless but we need to become organized.

Conference then split into separate HE and FE sessions. The afternoon session began with a discussion around the UCU Left constitution that concluded with decisions to broaden and diversify the UCU Left Steering Group. This aimed to include representatives from self-organised equality groups and regional groups. A regular monthly subscription of £2.50(waged)/£1(unwaged) was agreed and the officers and steering group elected.

Jane Hardy reported from the HE session that an employers’ offensive had ensued from the 2006 pay dispute. They had attempted to shackle UCU members’ ability to take industrial action in return for a promise to retain National Bargaining. Despite the pessimism of some of us, there was a solid 27% turnout (in an ostensively procedural ballot) with 60% rejecting the employers’ offer. This was not a vote to reject National Bargaining as some had claimed, but a vote to retain UCU’s bargaining strength. We must now be prepared to go into dispute where individual employers challenge National Bargaining.

We now need a pay claim that unites the sector and a claim aligned to the (at least) 10%/£3,000 (Whichever is the greater) of the NUT was agreed. The £3000 is intended as a flat rate component protecting the low paid and facilitating solidarity with other campus unions. The 10% is intended to win support from more senior academics that play a crucial role in examinations. We also need demands for the assimilation of hourly paid staff onto fractional contracts and negotiated hourly pay rates. Such a claim, lodged in August can also build the union, encouraging recruitment amongst low-paid, fixed term and hourly paid staffs. Finally, we need to go all-out to support Keele whose dispute is not just another management attack but an ideological attack on the right to study ‘unpopular’ (with management) subjects.

In discussion James Eaden called on HE branches to support FE branches with acts of solidarity on April 24th. Sean Vernell pointed out that the vicious witchunting of the left NEC candidates that we had seen in the last NEC elections had not paid off for the right and that we had continued to be successful electorally; although we needed to build the UCU Left locally with targeted recruitment leaflets, membership cards, and a banner. Building the ‘Challenging the Market Conference’ on 17th May will also be important. The need to work with students was emphasised, particularly over campaigns such as that at UCL to ban military recruitment and the LSE campaign for disinvestment in Israel in support of justice for Palestinans. Conference also pledged its support to Howard Miles as our candidate in the upcoming NEC by-election for LGBT Members Rep (click here for more details).

Darren Bradshaw reported from the FE session. The discussion was dominated by the pay ballot and strike action with the NUT on the 24th April. Sean Vernell (NEC London Region) introduced the session setting the pay campaign in the context of marketisation and privatisation. Sean informed the meeting that by 2010, the government intended that 66% of funding for 19+ learning would come from private finance. The dispute over pay therefore needed to be set in this context. Sean reported on union meetings at both City and Islington College and Chelmsford College. Where the argument for action was put and where pay was set in the context of the wider marketisation of FE this received a good reception.

The meeting was informed that the National Union of Students would be coming out in support of our campaign in the following week. We were also informed that some sections of the PCS might also be coming out on 24th April. This is on top of the joint action likely with the NUT whose ballot result was due on 1st April. In the discussion, UCU Left members generally felt that the result was looking positive in terms of a yes vote but there was a concern about the size of turnout. Therefore activists would have to pull out all the stops in ensuring the turnout was high. Howard Miles suggested that if branches had already got the vote out, then activists should contact other colleges locally to see if they could go around with branch reps to talk to staff about the dispute. The next week after the meeting was crucial in getting the vote out for many colleges as staff would be leaving for the holidays. Finally, some contributions acknowledged the role played by Sally Hunt in campaigning for a Yes vote and how the publicity produced by HQ succeeded in connecting the pay issue with other concerns such as privatisation and marketisation.

The need for NEC members to provide regular report backs to their constituencies was emphasised. Malcolm Povey suggested that the proposed regional structures for UCU Left be built from meetings in cities such as Leeds and Sheffield, since the geographical area covered by regions such as Yorkshire and Humber was so great.

Maeve Landman concluded the meeting saying that the UCU Left could not confine itself to consolidating its success. It had to build long-term influence in the union. We need the strong to help the weak and we can build by aligning politics and the direct economic interests of workers. Reaching out to students and doing more on equalities are priorities. We need to do this effectively and coherently in the upcoming crucial year.