The industrial action by academic staff needs to be maintained and extended to win our demands, say Counterfire UCU members

Despite university employers refusing to settle with academic staff, it’s clear the Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) is having a real impact. Starting in April this year, UCU members at universities across the UK have been refusing to mark or assess students. This follows management’s failure to improve on a 3% pay settlement for last year and an imposed 5% pay deal for 2023-24. Both add up to a significant cut in real terms pay which had already been declining since 2009.

Staff have had enough.  Strikes have taken place at many universities against punitive deductions, up to 100% in some places. University of Leeds UCU went on indefinite strike and succeeded in forcing their management to back down on 100% deductions. It is clear that the MAB needs to be backed up by strike action to win, and this will need to be continued into the new academic year.

There is a real danger that the union’s leadership nationally will ‘pause’ the MAB in exchange for the employers returning to negotiations. But this would be to throw away the advantage of what has already been achieved in exchange for empty rhetoric with nothing guaranteed.

Reports from branches at an unofficial branch delegate meeting (BDM) last week illustrated the strength of the MAB across Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales. One vice chancellor was reported as stating that the effect of the MAB was ‘worse than Covid’. The situation is particularly acute in Scotland and Northern Ireland due to their timetable with graduations already taking place, with students receiving unclassified or what are being termed interim degrees. Management teams and local UCU branches have written joint statements calling on UCEA to negotiate with the union, at Cambridge, Queens University Belfast, Glasgow Caledonian, Sussex, York, Birkbeck, Exeter, and most recently Heriot-Watt. This is leading UCU branches and their student supporters around the country to call on their management to do the same.

Democracy

The fact that the BDM, jointly called by Newcastle University UCU and Liverpool John Moores UCU and supported by UCU London Region, to discuss the progress and next steps in the marking and assessment boycott had to be unofficial is a story in itself. The purpose of the BDM was to feed into the Higher Education Committee due to meet the following day. The leadership of the union consistently ignores decisions taken at UCU national meetings which under the rules are binding. At a Higher Education special sector conference in April a decision was taken to hold such BDMs once a fortnight. At the Higher Education Sector Conference on 28 May delegates voted to ‘encourage all HE branches to establish strike committees while in dispute’ and ‘to establish a UK wide committee in all national HE disputes to increase members’ involvement and participation in building disputes and shaping their direction’.

 None of this has happened. Neither has the summer reballot which was also voted through at HE conference. The general secretary was censured at Congress this year over her flagrant disregard for union procedures but this was ignored by her at the most recent meeting of the National Executive Committee.

Improved offer?

An email from the general secretary, Jo Grady, reported that the union was now to ‘give UCEA one final opportunity to enter into negotiations to resolve the UK wide dispute’ to seek an improved offer on pay and conditions, an immediate end to all punitive pay deductions, a return of all punitive pay deductions and a commitment from employers to recognise staff’s entitlement to leave and to a reasonable workload on their return to normal working. It is not clear what happens if UCEA decline this list of demands or what the UCU strategy is in such a scenario. Our union’s willingness to come to the negotiating table has never been in question. It is UCEA which has repeatedly refused to speak to us unless we stood down the MAB. There were fears expressed from a number of branches at the BDM that we were being prepared for a sell-out.

Additionally, if we give up on our leverage, there is little incentive on the employers’ part to give us a decent offer. With a lot of marks still outstanding, the union is in a position of strength. If we pause the MAB and return to marking over the summer, momentum will be lost and some colleagues may be too demoralised to go back to the MAB in September.

Members have made huge sacrifices both financially and emotionally to get us to where we are. The MAB by its very nature places huge strain on individuals and this is very uneven, as only those who are assigned marking are implicated and union density varies within and across branches. Other staff have been pledging and are donating large portions of their salary to sustain those who are in some cases being docked 100% of their pay. Students have been amazing in their support and are placing the blame for this debacle at management’s door.

It will be a tragedy if all this effort is thrown away because those at the top of the union care only about the union finances. The punitive salary deductions and arbitrary marking schemes in many universities have shown members exactly how undervalued they are by management. This has strengthened members’ resolve to attain fair and decent wages and working conditions, and to fight for a university model that respects staff, students, and their education. With the government using interest rates and direct intervention in wage bargaining to discipline labour, it is vital that we hold our ground and support other unions to do the same.