Defend National Bargaining
National bargaining sets minimum pay and conditions in higher education and the threat to abandon these minima was unanimously recognised as the prelude to a race to the bottom in higher education. Conference therefore put the retention of national bargaining, indeed even its extension into staff groups such as hourly-paid in pre-92 universities, as the central goal of its approach. However, it was also recognised that the employers were attempting to play one union off against another in order to isolate UCU. Crucially; the employers have placed the abandonment of a separate negotiating body for academic and academic related grades, and its replacement by a single table for all unions, as a pre-condition for the continuation of national bargaining.
While one or two delegates suggested that separate bargaining for academic and academic related grades was essential for catch-up arguments in our pay campaigns, this gained virtually no support. Indeed not a single motion or amendment on the order paper endorsed this view. Instead, delegates recognised that single table bargaining does not preclude separate pay claims and that the key principle to maintaining pay and conditions lies with the recognition of the ability of UCU to maintain its right to negotiate for its staff grades rather than single or multiple bargaining forums.
Along side UCEA demands for single table bargaining are proposals to undermine UCU’s ability to organise industrial action in the form of a disputes procedure. Importantly, conference recognised that a disputes procedure which prevents the union from balloting for industrial action is an unacceptable interference in the internal governance of a trade union. There was also rejection of any timetable for negotiations which would preclude the use of the examination sanction in the same academic year as the pay claim.
Motion after motion was passed overwhelmingly which insisted on UCU’s right to bargain for its members and on the right to take industrial action in defence of pay and conditions. The motion from De Montfort University also committed the union to campaign for industrial action in defence of national bargaining. The arguments put forward by the UCU Left were taken up by virtually all the activists.
Finally, at a time when Gordon Brown’s pay freeze is being fought over, conference recognised the importance of building unity with other grades in defence of pay and conditions in higher education. This issue is likely to arise immediately with the employer’s threats to renege on paying our third year of our pay deal in 2008.
National Campaign
UCU now has a mandate for a national campaign, including industrial action, if employers abandon national bargaining. That campaign will centre on a union’s right to negotiate for its members and a union’s right to take industrial action. Such an approach avoids the employer trap of presenting UCU as an elitist organisation only interested in its own members pay. Instead we have the basis for a broad campaign in defence of trade union rights in HE. The gauntlet has now been thrown down to the employers - abandon national bargaining and prepare for industrial unrest across higher education in 2008 or accept the UCU proposals as the way forward in the best interests of the HE Sector. Activists now have to turn this willingness to defend national bargaining into a willingness to take action.
UCU Left - HE Special Conference Leaflet (PDF)
HE Special Conference - Final Agenda and Motions (PDF)
Discussion document on National Bargainning - Jan 07 (here)
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