Universities to strike again in February

Thursday 24 and Friday 25 November saw a national strike by University and College Union (UCU) members in Higher Education. A third day of strike is set for 30 November, with a national demonstration in London which will march to the office of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), the employers’ representative in pay talks.

UCU is demanding “a meaningful pay rise to deal with the cost-of-living crisis as well as action to end the use of insecure contracts and deal with dangerously high workloads”. Many branches are also in dispute over cuts by employers to the USS pension scheme.

UCU says: “The UK university sector generated record income of £41.1bn last year with the 150 vice-chancellors facing action collectively earning an estimated £45 million…the sector can more than afford to meet staff demands.”

While that is true, some institutions are struggling financially in the competitive world of HE. The industrial fight for better pay must go alongside a political campaign for the marketisation of the sector to be reversed and for it to be generously funded as a public service, benefitting staff, students, and the wider community.

At 19 institutions the UCU branches were joined by their local Unison HE branch striking against the same 3% pay rise for 2022-23 that has been imposed on UCU.

A further 40 Unison HE branches will soon begin balloting to join the dispute, with the result due in early January.

Without a substantially better offer on pay and pensions for 22/23 and 23/24 it is likely that the next steps will be more national strike action in February by UCU and by those Unison branches with a mandate. UCU also has a campaign of Action Short of Strike.

The rest of the labour movement and students should build support for the HE strikers, and UCU and Unison activists should cooperate together with the aim of shutting down campuses on strike days. Activists also need to discuss what strategy can win — that is likely to require escalating the action.

Meanwhile, at Birkbeck University of London the UCU, Unite and Unison branches are now formally in dispute with the employer over failure to agree to rule out no compulsory redundancies in a cost-cutting exercise necessitated by recent poor management decisions.

• Vicki Morris is a member of the Unison HE Service Group Executive, writing here in a personal capacity