As UK industrial disputes drag on, should union rethink tactics?

Summer came early the last time members of the UK’s main higher education union were on strike, with picket lines blessed with a rare bout of sunshine in mid-March.

The announcement that further action is coming – including 10 days of strikes and a marking boycott – takes the long-running disputes over pay, pensions and working conditions into the summer itself, with campuses bracing for disruption during the all-important exam season.

But while University and College Union members preparing to down tools again will now probably be without their ubiquitous pink woolly hats, they can be forgiven for wondering whether much else has changed, despite 13 days of strikes this academic year.

Blaming vice-chancellors for not engaging, most in the union admit that little progress has been made on the “four fights” – pay, working conditions, casualisation and equality – while cuts to pensions provided by the Universities Superannuation Scheme have already been implemented.

Perhaps the only thing that has changed is union members’ appetite to strike, with only 40 branches holding mandates for walking out, down from 68 earlier this year. In the most recent ballots, only one in four branches passed the 50 per cent turnout threshold that is legally required for action in most of the UK, seen as a sign of fatigue from years of conflict with managers.

UCU member Jenny Pickerill, head of geography at the University of Sheffield, said that she felt a change in tactics was needed, probably to more targeted action aimed at handing more security to those in precarious positions – a focus on improving salaries for the lowest-paid, or demanding 12-month contracts as a minimum, for example.

“It does feel, from discussions I have at a university level, that there’s too much,” she said. “They say: ‘We can’t meet all of this.’ I think we did have some aims once but I lost track of what they were, even though I was participating in the action.”

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, argued that UCU lacked an effective strategy, “other than perpetual industrial disputes, which have falling support”.

“The union asks for everything without any clear prioritisation and, as it cannot get all it wants in the current environment, managers and observers are left struggling to understand what it wants most of all,” he said.

The result, Mr Hillman said, was deadlock, rather than progress on important issues such as casualisation.

But UCU president Vicky Blake argued that the issues the union was fighting on were “inextricably linked”.

“It is an indictment of the management that we are dealing with across the sector that we do have to put in such comprehensive claims. But I don’t think it would make any sense to ditch any part of them,” she said.

Even though fewer branches will head to the picket lines in the coming round of action, Ms Blake argued that there was an awareness that those who are walking out will do so on behalf of the whole sector.

But Glen O’Hara, professor of modern and contemporary history at Oxford Brookes University, said he feared that the universities where strikes are taking place would feel the brunt of the frustration and division that is building on all sides.

“The fact that most other higher education institutions aren’t taking this action will make that situation feel even worse,” he said.

The issues led some to advocate pausing the campaign, providing a chance to rethink and plan action that could be more effective.

Professor Pickerill said she felt “it was obvious a while ago that the current tactics weren’t having the impact that we hoped they would have” and, rather than just trying the same thing again, the union should take the time to build support and think about taking “more creative action”.

While some advocated a break, others called for action to be ramped up to an indefinite strike, something the Sheffield branch’s vice-president, Sam Marsh, said was a matter of “when, not if” because of the problems in the sector.

Instead, branch delegates voted at a special conference to plough on with further strikes and a marking boycott, albeit on a timetable that now makes significant action before late May unlikely.

Emma Rees, secretary of the University of Chester’s UCU branch, said members were “committed to continuing with the four fights”, with local disputes having “strengthened our resolve”.

“In the face of absolute intransigence from the employers nationally, however, we are consulting with our members locally to see how and when it is best to engage in the industrial action for which we have a clear mandate,” she said.

Ms Blake argued there was still every chance of resolving the disputes and suggested universities were worried about the impact of the action, as shown by the pressure they are putting on members not to take part.

But for Professor O’Hara, the union’s next stand was unlikely to be effective. “The management side appear to have set out their stall to win a big victory, and they look to be within easy striking distance of that goal,” he said.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com