Delegates at the UCU conference from 28-30 May probably came away a little confused on the real prospects for their disputes and their union.
Behind the typical bombast of the SWP and the UCU Left about how wonderful everything was, there are serious doubts about what June 30 would mean for colleges and universities where there would be very little teaching activity going on and few workers on site.
Despite the undoubted success of the UCU in conducting successful strike ballots over the last year, the absence of a thought-through strategy is creating some problems. The experience of the March 24 strike and afterwards has not been universally positive. There are fears that momentum has been lost, that strike days are being called which will be difficult to deliver on and that strategies are foisted on the union rather than debated. Partly as a result of that, delegates from pre-92 universities, led by the union's Broad Left grouping, voted to pull out of the Jun 30 action although the vote was very close. The Broad Left also argued for non-strike action to be used instead of strike action - which would be a serious blow to the growing movement in unions for joint strike action.
Apart from June 30 the only consideration for future action was a call made unanimously for the TUC to call a one-day public sector strike. This took all of 4 minutes of conference time in the form of one speech in favour.
What to do on the ground with other unions from here into next academic year, what to do to make sure such a call was successful: such things were not discussed. And there have to be doubts about the TUC leading such an action with the very limited pressure they are currently under.
It might have been expected that the SWP-led UCU Left would be in a buoyant mood and undoubtedly it remains strong. But their opponents see weaknesses that they will exploit.
The UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt delivered a long speech which can only be taken as the start of her campaign to be re-elected on an anti-SWP and probably also an anti-industrial action ticket. She called for an increased level of legal support too be given to officers and members, more support in casework, a reduction in the size of, and administrative support given to, various Exec bodies, a better recognition by the union of the need to get the public behind us and... an end to the 'factionalism' in the union where people have put their party interests above that of the unions' members.
There was little or no mention in her 45 minute speech of the disputes currently being conducted by the union and her speech followed the successful pulling out from the June 30 action of the pre-92 Universities in their dispute over attacks on the USS pension scheme, the scheme under which probably most of UCU's Higher Education members are covered.
There can be no doubt that she and the SWP, who, between them, dominate all the committees of the unions, are now pitched in battle against each other. Her speech and her campaign are clearly not aimed at the delegates in the conference hall but at the members who have failed to be engaged in the election process, are not confident about industrial action. It was no surprise to find that overnight her speech was emailed to every UCU member.
She probably expects that the strike on June 30 will be very weakly supported and maybe even that the whole strike wave may subside and that she will be successful in getting re-elected and the union radically reformed on the subsequent disillusionment.
So the need for the left to seriously and critically evaluate their tactics is even more important.
Finally, after more than 1/3 of the conference delegates had left, the SWP and their co-thinkers carried out what can only be described as an appalling act that can only give succour to racists who may have felt that unions anti-racist credentials could not be revoked. In a ludicrous speech where evidence of US Zionist intrigue was identified through American spelling of words, Sue Blackwell moved a motion rejecting the EUMC definition of anti-Semitism. It was explicitly motivated because the EUMC definition had been used by those opposing Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi being invited to speak at Birmingham University.
Ironically in a conference session on Sunday, Blackwell had drawn attention to Israeli oppositionists such as Gush Shalom who are currently being threatened by the Israeli government. On the Monday she argued that the union should not call anti-Semitic those who accuse all Israelis, including presumably Gush Shalom, of being racists merely because they are citizens of Israel and don't wish to see it destroyed. It was a shameful day for the UCU and one that will unfortunately be used by the enemies of trade unions in FE and HE to weaken it in a crucial period of battle against the government.