A letter to the National Executive of UCU that I would encourage all UCU members to sign (Ive just done it) - on our current dispute, real trade union democracy, responding to the needs of our most vulnerable staff, and building tactics and strategies to win: UCU members who would like to sign on to the letter to UCU executive below can send an email to this address: openletterucu@gmail with their name and affiliation, by Monday, November 10th. Open letter to UCU National Executive We are writing as active members of UCU to voice our strong concern about the way in which the national office is conducting the current action. In particular, we are troubled by the lack of a clear strategy in this crucial dispute, and by the absence of any real, democratic consultation with UCU branches in devising our industrial action. The results of our recent dispute over pay has had deeply demoralising effects on many UCU members, especially its most active ones. Beyond the balloting over action, members and branches were not consulted about the type and timing of our actions. Trade-union democracy is not just a matter of ballots and delegates, and we would want branch participation in industrial actions to be the norm of UCU, not a situation in which members vote for an action and national office decides on tactics and strategy. When criticisms of the unions strategy were made – for instance, by a motion passed by Goldsmiths UCU which noted the limits of 2-hour strikes and the lack of a strategy to escalate the dispute – they were simply ignored. When questions were asked about what a victory would look like there were no answers from UCU, nor any discussion that could have reached those answers democratically. We query whether members would have devoted so much of their energy to a dispute if they had known that we would have accepted such a low offer in the end. By reaching a democratic decision by all UCU members from the outset of the campaign on the concrete objectives and goals of the campaign, it is far more likely that members will engage more actively in the actions necessary to achieve them. That the ballot of membership did accept the terms (presented by some members of national office as breaking the public sector pay freeze, when they are a loss of salary in real terms), is testament not to the fact that members thought this was a good result, but that they did not feel the strategy was going to bear greater fruits, and that they would not be protected against management attacks were they to press on with the dispute. In our view, focusing exclusively on the tactic of the marking boycott in the Autumn and Winter terms will prove inadequate in putting pressure on our employers. The only students immediately affected would be graduate students, many of them from abroad, who may depend on their MA and PhD degrees for employment but whose non-assessments will not put any real pressure on management. Having flinched instead of taking continued action last summer, it is not clear how we can expect to achieve a victory through this tactic alone in a dispute that is much more financially consequential for both us and our employers, and whose result is irreversible. UCU has also failed to recognise the needs of younger members who are not on Final Salary pensions. The union needs a commitment that it will aim to fight for equal pension conditions for its members that do not level down our pensions. The union also needs to take very seriously the needs of fractional staff, many of whom are not even eligible for pensions, but who, especially if they are being paid to mark on a piece-work basis, are likely to bear the brunt of management reprisals, and in any case would lose a large proportion of their already small wages were they to undertake industrial action. For the above reasons we demand that the national office: · immediately undertake actions that can affect our employers at the financial level, instead of relying on a form of pressure which is transmitted via our students; · make clear to its membership what is the strategy of this action, how it envisages our action will put pressure on the employers, how it may be escalated and when, in relation to USS negotiations; · clarify to members what its parameters for negotiation might be: Are we engaged in industrial action to stop any changes to USS? Are there changes we would accept? · consult with branches about the nature of their action and support forms of action beyond the marking boycott (boycott of open days, boycott of admissions, consecutive strikes days, etc…); · undertake national strike action in support of members at universities who face 100% pay deductions for actions short of a strike; · explicitly address how it will support its most vulnerable members in terms both of the pension dispute and the industrial action. Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths) Jamie Woodcock (Goldsmiths) Susan Schuppli (Goldsmiths) Bev Skeggs (Goldsmiths) Sara Farris (Goldsmiths) Brenna Bhandar (SOAS) Adam Hanieh (SOAS) Laleh Khalili (SOAS) Paul OConnel (SOAS) Meera Sabaratnam (SOAS) Nimer Sultany (SOAS) Kristin Surak (SOAS) Michael Buehler (SOAS) Owen Miller (SOAS) Satoshi Miyamura (SOAS) Makeen Makeen (SOAS) Nadje Al-Ali (SOAS) Andrew Kennedy (SOAS) Tobias Franz (SOAS) Manjeet Ramgotra (SOAS) Mark Laffey (SOAS) Sai Englert (SOAS) Graham Dyer (SOAS) Steve Edwards (Open University) Gregory Schwartz (University of Bristol) Robert Knox (University of Liverpool) Jeffery Webber (Queen Mary) Matteo Mandarini (Queen Mary) Amit Rai (Queen Mary) Grietje Baars (City University London) Nina Power (Roehampton University) Peter Hallward (Kingston University) Bob Brecher (Brighton University) Paul Reynolds (Edge Hill University) Peter Thomas (Brunel)
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 11:58:06 +0000
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