Higher Education workers in three unions struck on Tuesday 3 December against a 1% pay deal. University and College Union members in Further Education also struck to win better pay. A Unison activist in a large university spoke to Solidarity about the strike and the future of the dispute.
The strike seemed more solid at my workplace than the 31 October strike. We’re recruiting to the union as a result of the dispute, but it’s a slow process.
The employers have categorically said they’re not budging on their 1% offer, and have told universities to begin implementing the 1% pay deal. Their attitude means we’re not in a situation of polite conversation, of give-and-take. If we’re going to win an improved deal, it’ll mean forcing them to do something they very obviously don’t want to do.
What’s happening between the strike days has been in some ways more important than the strikes themselves so far. As a result of the dispute, we’ve organised weekly joint meetings between the three unions, open to all members. Those meetings have produced bulletins and other materials for the strike, planned the picketing, and discussed the direction of the dispute. We plan to keep those meetings going for as long as the dispute lasts and, hopefully, indefinitely. We want to continue producing joint union materials.
At the moment, density is very low, so even if all our members strike it won’t shut down the university. Holding regular meetings and producing materials are crucial to building up union strength.
In meetings, activists have expressed frustration about the lack of strategy and communication from the union’s negotiators and leadership. However, expectations are often so low that people don’t even acknowledge that lack of communication as a problem. We need to raise expectations so members demand to be kept informed about what’s going on with the dispute at the level of national negotiations, and demand to be given a say in how the dispute’s run.
As well as escalating our strikes, we should consider selective forms of action. Some workers, such as IT staff, have more strategic power. If a university’s IT support goes down for a week, that’s incredibly disruptive, so we should consider action that sees more strategically-placed workers striking for longer. We may need strike pay to fund that, which we currently don’t have in Unison. There’s an “industrial action hardship fund”, but that’s only accessible once there have been three strike days in a dispute, and is very badly administered.
We’ve received a lot of student support for our strikes, which is very important. When I was a student activist, getting students to support university workers’ strikes was like pulling teeth, but now the students’ union at the university where I work has been very supportive. Students have mobilised to support our picket lines, and the wave of student occupations shows how the student activist left has used building solidarity with our strike to rejuvenate itself.
However, while it’s symbolically hugely important and great for morale to have a lively student presence on our picket lines, that’s not going to win the dispute. I’d prefer that students didn’t cross our picket lines to go to classes, but I don’t see those that do as “scabs” – the scabs are the people teaching those classes on strike days!
Student support must be a supplement to, not a substitute for, building up union strength and making sure the maximum number of workers participate in the strikes.
