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.
FE Pay - June 9th Strike & Lobby
London UCU FE Strike on June 9th - one of many
pickets that took place throughout the region
FE NEC members in the London area would like to thank London UCU members for the magnificent turn out on Monday 9th June. Once again UCU members showed their anger at the disparity between our pay and that of school teachers and at the year-by-year erosion of our pay by pay offers that are below the level of inflation.

Lobbying MPs

Our union put its stamp absolutely firmly on the TUC's lobby of Parliament. We received fantastic shows of support and messages of solidarity all the way through the meeting. Speaking at the rally, Sally Hunt, our general secretary praised London UCU members and said that "where London leads the rest of England will follow in September unless we get a national offer we can put to members."

Many members met their MPs to let them let them know how we feel having to cope with:
  • a £7,000 pay gap with school teachers


  • pay cuts year on year


  • travel, food and fuel costs rising dramatically


  • housing costs and repossessions rising


We had a particularly cordial meeting with Kelvin Hopkins, the Chair of the All Party Group for FE and Life Long Learning. His message was this: FE teachers should keep articulating their case; the truth can't be said too often. He agreed that this fight is bringing to a head the fundamental injustices faced by FE teachers:

  • totally unfair and inadequate funding


  • dangerously excessive workloads leading to an epidemic of stress


  • competition and the market, instead of a co-operative ethos



What next?

The offer of 3% was the original 2.5% offer re-hashed. In trying to show they were paying at the highest level of the current pay round, and in their ham-fisted attempts to split the FE unions, the employers showed they are under pressure. They know our case is just. They know we are prepared to fight for justice. We meet with them again on 19th June. The meeting has been brought forward a week. Let's hope the employers' thinking has changed as well as the date. UCU's Further Education Committee takes place the next day. Let's hope the FEC has something positive from the AoC to discuss. The ball is in their court!

Meanwhile let's keep building the union. So far in the last quarter 600 members have been recruited in the London area. The bigger we grow, the more members we unite in action, the stronger we are.

The TUC lobby brought home how our issues are part of the wider attacks on all public service workers. The public sector is being made to pay for the UK's economic problems, while in the City of London absolutely extravagant profits and bonuses are the order of the day.

If we have to take this fight forward, let's try to develop the unity with other FE unions. Let's also build upon the magnificent unity with NUT and the PCS, the civil servants' union that led to the 24th April joint strike. The leader of the Prison Officers Association got the best reception of the rally when he said that the TUC should organise a one-day strike across the whole sector so that millions could march together to make the government think again. He said this was the way the government was made to step back from attacks on pensions. His message to the TUC was simple: Name the Day!


Sean Vernell, Brian Ingham, Dave Armstrong
NEC members
Related Material

June 9th - Sally Hunt's speech to the June 9th Pay Rally - here

June 6th - Employers fail to deliver - leaflet here

June 5th - June 4th FE Pay protests - report here

April 24th - UCU/NUT Pay Strike Report - details here

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