UCU

Further Education workers in the University and College Union (UCU) are striking across the country, demanding a decent pay increase. A UCU activist at an FE college group in London spoke to Solidarity about the dispute. Our college group is made up of multiple sites; we voted for 10 days of strike across our group, the biggest strike we've ever had. All but one of the sites is involved. There's an ebuillient mood around the strikes. We're organising bigger picket lines than we've ever seen before, with many workers joining pickets for the first time. We've had good support from the local...

Workers from Lewisham College joined the University and College Union (UCU) strike of 23 Further Education (FE) colleges on 6 and 7 October. Two further days next week and three the following week. Six other colleges are striking on other dates. The picket was lively, noisy and well supported by students and other supporters. The strikers rally heard speakers from Lewisham College, an RMT tube driver, UCU speakers from Lambeth College and Goldsmiths University and from UCU General Secretary, Jo Grady. Speakers pointed to the increased salaries of the college's principal and the leadership of...

University staff are heading back into dispute in the new academic year, as the University and College Union (UCU) launches a ballot for action over pay and pensions on 7 September. Unlike last year’s ballot, this will be an aggregated vote: if an outright majority of members vote for strikes, everyone will be able to join in, even if their individual workplace hasn’t met the 50% turnout threshold. When a few years ago, UCU began to use the tactic of disaggregated ballots to ensure at least some universities could strike, it was widely welcomed as a way to circumvent the imposition of the 50%...

On 12 August, the University and College Union (UCU) launched its latest ballot campaign in Higher Education, “UCU Rising” . Our union will ballot for industrial action during the first term of the 2023 academic year (exact dates not yet set). It will be a membership-wide aggregated ballot, so under the 2016 Trade Union Act, this means that for a valid mandate 50%-plus-1 of all balloted members in the UCU’s higher education section must vote, with a majority in favour of action. Members will get separate ballots for the pay and working conditions dispute (covering UCU members in all UK higher...

Goldsmiths UCU have settled a long-running dispute over job cuts and restructuring at the college. The agreement came with Goldsmith’s management under considerable pressure over a marking boycott in spite of their attempts to undermine boycott by progressing and graduating students without their full sets of marks. As a result, the branch has won a commitment from the management to no further compulsory redundancies as the remaining elements of a two year “recovery programme” are implemented. There were concessions on other terms and conditions. The branch was not, however, able to stop this...

Sign the open letter here Since the beginning of April, the University and College Union (UCU) at Goldsmiths University of London has been engaged in a marking and assessment boycott, continuing an academic-year-long fight to stop the compulsory redundancies of 20 members of staff and a damaging restructure. In response to the boycott, the Senior Management Team (SMT) introduced Exceptional Academic Regulations (EARs), which removed academic oversight, and the use of incomplete sets of marks to progress and graduate students on a formal but provisional basis. This move is not in the interests...

Leeds University UCU pickets with Ukrainian flag The worst aspect of the University and College Union (UCU) Congress, 1-3 June, was the arrangement of motions that led to any discussion of the invasion of Ukraine falling off the agenda (along with all motions on “International and European work”) — despite two separate branches and the NEC submitting motions on Ukraine and a series of other branches submitting amendments. The Russian imperialist invasion of Ukraine is perhaps the most significant event in Europe in the last three decades. It is also the subject of much internal debate in the...

The annual Congress of the Universities and College Union (UCU) was held on 1-3 June 2022, with day-long “Sector Conferences” for the distinct Higher Education (HE, university staff) and Further Education (college staff) members separately on 2 June. As with the 2020 and 2021 Congresses, it was entirely online with some 200 to 300 delegates from branches across the UK. There were slight improvements at this Congress, with voting taking place "live" (rather than by eballot afterwards) and some speeches "from the floor" being allowed (although the majority were still decided by registration...

As the long-running University and College Union (UCU) disputes in Higher Education (HE) continue, further local settlements have been offered to branches to withdraw disruptive marking and assessment boycotts. The local offers provide cash for staff in certain campuses, but the national picture of the strike is being eroded. On the one hand, branches winning settlements are ensuring higher pay for campus staff in the near-term, highly important in the context of an escalating cost-of-living crisis. On the other, the likelihood that our union will win our national disputes reduces in the short...

The Congress of the University and College Union (UCU) met from 1-3 June as increasing numbers of higher education branches came to local settlements in the disputes over pensions, pay and conditions. Congress voted for a new aggregated national ballot in the summer or early autumn, with the aim of disrupting induction and implementing a revived assessment boycott. However, a proposal that aggregated ballots (which need to meet a 50% threshold nationally) should become the default was rejected on the basis that this was a tactical question. Meanwhile further education branches are to be...