UCL-UCU: *reminder* General Meeting today, Thursday 31 March, 1-2 pm

This is a reminder for our Extraordinary General Meeting on Thursday 31 March, 1-2 pm, to discuss motions for the Special Higher Education Sector Conferences on the Four Fights and USS disputes coming up in April.

We have a guest speaker, Peta Bulmer, Liverpool UCU branch president, who will explain how they ran a strike and marking boycott last year. 

What is at stake

Our disputes are at a crossroads. These conferences will decide the form of industrial action the national union will call in the Summer term and over the 6 months from the close of the ballot.

As a result of the changes being imposed to our USS pensions by UUK and the casting vote of the chair, on the basis of the latest Technical Provisions monitoring data released at Tuesday's JNC, around £27m of UCL members contributions (a total of £570m) that would otherwise have gone into building up our pensions for the next year will go to top up the DB assets in the form of unnecessary ‘deficit recovery contributions’.

This huge transfer from our pensions to USS Limited is a drop in the ocean compared to the +£10bn/year movements in asset values over the last two years since the 2020 valuation.

Meanwhile there has been no movement in our national pay and Four Fights dispute.

Nor is there an attempt to address members’ reasonable fears about mounting inflation by making an improved offer for next year. UCL and other employers are currently setting budgets for the next financial year. At yesterday’s national negotiation meeting, despite having the union’s joint claim for a month, the employers refused to put forward an opening offer. Members will be rightly wondering where they stand.

Please return your UCU ballot papers without delay. The deadline for ordering replacement ballot papers is 5 pm today, 31 March. The last safe date for posting is Wednesday 6 April.

We will shortly be sending a further Survey Monkey survey - please complete this to help us track turnout.

Our democratic conferences

We have received one motion for debate, in Appendix 1. The motion proposes a change in industrial strategy to implement a marking boycott, with strike action to back it up.

To maximise discussion and debate about next steps in the dispute, the committee agreed that instead of taking a vote on this motion during tomorrow’s meeting, we will open the debate on the motion and industrial strategy, and hold a second meeting on Tuesday 5 April (1-2 pm), where we will vote on motions. 

If colleagues wish to propose amendments to this motion, or propose additional or alternative motions, please email ucu@ucl.ac.uk. We are entitled to send 2 motions to both conferences (motions may be duplicates).

We are also seeking nominations for delegates to the two conferences, which will take place online on 20 and 27 April. If you are interested in attending, please also email ucu@ucl.ac.uk.

Open letter to the Provost

Finally, this is the last chance to sign the Open Letter to the Provost, Michael Spence, to help push UCL to act on pensions, pay gaps, workloads and casualisation. Over 700 staff and students have signed so far, and the letter will be submitted on Friday 1st of April.

UCL UCU Executive Committee

@ucl_ucu

UCL UCU

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Appendix 1 - Special HE Sector Conference motion: Industrial action plan

Background

With inflation at record levels for 30 years and USS in crisis, members know we have to seize the moment. The proposed strategy in the motion requires branches to ensure that they have the organisation to carry out a marking boycott on the Liverpool model with regular strike organising meetings, and the capacity to take protracted strike action depending on the employer’s behaviour. Given that employers will certainly make threats of significant deductions and may carry them out, members who are not engaged in ASOS should be asked to donate at least a day’s pay each week to a local strike hardship fund.

This strategy is based on the lessons of Liverpool and framed by the recommendations of the Commission for Effective Industrial Action in particular Recommendation 4 on the conduct of ASOS, which emphasises that ASOS on assessment ‘should be as part of rather than a substitute for a broader strike centred strategy’ and the need for ‘a clear, worked out, well communicated plan to defend members in the event of 100% pay deductions’.

This strike action is not primarily conceived as national action but as a backup to ASOS, although specific national one-day strikes should be called as a focus, and branches should be permitted to decide on specific additional strategic dates.

It is entirely lawful to notify an employer of impending strike action but not to take it, and it is lawful (and rational) to make decisions as to whether to take strike action based on the actions of the employer. The proposed strike action is not declared to dispute or recover deductions but constitutes an additional course of industrial action should the employer make disproportionate deductions.

Motion

HESC resolves UCU will:

1. Identify summer term dates with each branch.
2. Call a comprehensive boycott of all summative marking from the start of summer term.
3. Notify each employer of an initial two-week strike period from week 3 of term, stating that strikes may be avoided depending on the employer’s conduct, in particular that if the employer insists on disproportionate pay deductions for participation in ASOS then strikes will not be stood down.
4. Notify further two-week strike periods to each employer prior to each subsequent strike.
5. Ask branches to delegate two officers to coordinate with ROs and Head of HE to enact this plan.
6. Call weekly Branch Delegate Meetings with voting powers to continually monitor the national situation.
7. Ask members not taking ASOS to pledge a day’s pay a week to local hardship funds.
8. Call an emergency appeal for the national Fighting Fund.

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