Unity! UCU Conference 2012

Unity!

Opportunities and dangers

By Martin Levy UCU meets in the midst of a critical period for the labour movement.The coalition government’s slavery to a narrow fraction of big business and more especially finance capital, which has no allegiance to national economic growth, is revealed on a daily basis – most recently perhaps in the leaking of the Beecroft report on employment rights, prepared by an asset-stripper who represents all that is most parasitic about British finance capital.

The Con-Dems continue their multi-faceted attack on the public sector, driving down wages, attacking pensions and clearing the way for greater privatisation, while all around them the failure of their austerity policies to produce economic recovery becomes more apparent.

For UCU members, this period sees continued downward pressure on pay, the attack on our pension schemes – driven in part by the need to make them more attractive to ‘alternative providers’ – and the insecurity generated by continual restructuring, merger and renegotiation of contracts.

All this is taking place against the background of emerging competition from private companies and the accelerated erosion of the professional and public ethos that has shaped our members’ consciousness since the emergence of publicly funded and regulated colleges and universities.

This is a time of great opportunity and great danger. The opportunity is to rebuild our strength around popular struggles, to be a bulwark against the tide of attacks and to play a full role in turning back austerity. The danger is the risk of catastrophic defeats and demoralisation which could set our union back decades, leaving our workforce prey to the privateers.

It is obvious to almost everyone that we cannot fight on all fronts at once. What should be UCU’s strategic focus?

1 Strengthen our organisation and support base We must have sustained support for recruiting and organising at branch/LA level.

That means resources targeted at engaging with our members and potential members where they are, together with help in building collective democratic cultures. continued overleaf

Communists at UCU Congress and Sector Conferences 2012

Key votes Pay The current offers in both FE and HE are not acceptable, but we must be sure that members are consulted and involved in deciding whether we choose to fight.

Running an industrial action ballot and getting a No vote would do the union untold damage.

We have to start to build a campaign to break the cycle of pay cuts. In further and adult education, this means supporting FE1 and FE1A.1. In higher education, it means supporting HE1 and HE1A.1.

We also need to recognise that the attack on public sector pay, including the threat of regional pay, is part of the government’s strategy to make working people pay for the financial crisis, and to reduce the cost for potential privateers. This strategy can be defeated, but only if we work together with other unions. In Congress, support motion 40.

Bargaining Local bargaining is a threat in both sectors but motion 42 as it stands would be inoperable on point b. We already have college managements who have effectively dumped national bargaining. Amendment 42A.2 from the NEC should be supported and 42A.1 opposed.

UCU Structure Motion 57, proposing that regional officials should be elected, sounds very democratic but in fact would damage the support which our members currently receive.

Our regional officials are highly trained, knowledgeable and experienced, particularly in bargaining. The most popular lay candidate in an election would be unlikely to fit that bill. Oppose.

Motion 61, proposing a biennial Congress and increased use of consultative ballots, should also be opposed. Congress and sector conferences are the opportunity for holding our NEC and national negotiators to account.

Motion 62, stressing the importance of national, regional and branch democracy, should be supported, but NOT with amendment 62A,1, which would set up a Congress-elected commission as a separate power structure to the NEC. If Congress decides to change the size of the NEC, then the NEC must be tasked with bringing forward propositions for implementing that. continued overleaf

Key votes continued Motions 63 and 64, on consultative ballots, should be opposed as too one-sided, and (in the case of 64) seeking to undermine the results of an existing consultation. Motion 62 (unamended) is far more balanced.

Motions 65-69 concern the changes to UCU structure proposed by the general secretary.

Of these, we would urge support for 67, which instructs the NEC and the general secretary to draw up plans while consulting at regional and local level. Compositing amendment 67A.1, and clause 1 of 65, are too restrictive on the size of the NEC. Motion 66 should be opposed as it essentially means ‘No change’.

Motion 74, the proposed rule change on election of national negotiators, should however be opposed, if not remitted, as it does not specify the term of office for the negotiators, nor eligibility criteria.

Furthermore, the relationship between the negotiators and the sector committees/ conferences still needs to be spelled out: to whom are they to be answerable? It could, for example, be specified that negotiator candidates would have to be employed in an institution covered by the bargaining unit and/or be a member of the appropriate sector committee. Other possibilities not included in the consultation should also be considered, eg that the negotiators be elected by the appropriate sector committee. On that basis we consider that the matter requires further consultation and debate, and that it would be better if motion 65 clause 3 were remitted.

Motion 75, a rule change to institute a ballot on a ‘final’ offer should be supported as a speedy method of applying pressure on the employers’ side without waiting for the relevant sector committee. 75A.1 should be opposed as it reinstates the status quo.

Motion 76 should be opposed as it would allow committees to submit motions to special meetings of Congress or sector conference without those committees having met!

continued from front page 2 Fight strategic industrial battles Congress and the NEC must identify the struggles which we must fight and those where we can win, and we must be honest with members about what our objectives are. On pay, we must be sure that the members are involved in deciding whether we choose to fight. For pensions, see next page.

3 Build an alternative to austerity and privatisation UCU must play its part in the political struggle against the Con-Dem government and austerity policies generally. We must mobilise to help make the TUC’s October 20 demonstration a far bigger statement of mass resistance than 26 March 2011. Our branches/LAs and regions must get out into the community, using trades union councils and anti-cuts campaigns to reach the wider public, projecting a coherent alternative.

The People’s Charter for Change represents a comprehensive set of alternative policies for the labour movement to unite around. It is a strategic response that not only seeks to tap into and mobilise the common sense understanding of a broad alliance of interests, but also encompasses a set of policies that strike at the causes of Britain’s crisis – the over-dependence on finance capital, arms manufacture and mineral extraction companies. The Communist Party urges UCU branches to engage with the Charter and to take it to the centre of the union’s campaigning. The TUC must be won to place the People’s Charter at the heart of its ‘alternative economic strategy’.

4 Defend the equality agenda at work and in society.

UCU can be justly proud of its role in promoting the equality agenda in the workplace and society. But all the gains of the past few years are now being eroded by the Con-Dems’ austerity programme. In particular, women – who make up 65% of public sector workers – are already seeing

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unemployment reaching record heights.

Ethnic minority women are more likely to be in temporary jobs so they are at even greater risk of becoming unemployed. Cuts throughout public services are placing additional burdens on women as carers. UCU has long supported the Charter for Women and we need to ensure that it is actively taken up and promoted by the whole trade union movement.

5 Shape education policy The attack on public education, which started with New Labour, has been accelerated by the Con-Dem government. We need to rebuild the case for publicly owned and regulated education, not just as a social good and a liberating force, but as a part of the alternative economic and political strategy.

Our sector should be a motive force in reindustrialising the economy on the basis of new green industries, and it should be tasked with educating people to become critical and collectively active citizens. UCU must help build a broad alliance here with other teaching unions, and lead the debate about what a democratic, public education system should look like in our colleges and universities.

6. Build a genuine broad left in UCU The Independent Broad Left (IBL) was formed as a response to the sectarian approach of parts of UCU Left. The Communist Party supports IBL as a vehicle for uniting the left on the broadest possible basis and for developing left union leadership that starts from where the members are, rather than where we imagine they ought to be. IBL has made big steps forward, but it needs to be expanded into the branches and regions and become a focal point for policy discussion about the future of our sector.

Martin Levy is a member of the Communist Party executive committee and editor of its theoretical and discussion journal, Communist Review. He is Northumbria University UCU branch chair.

A weekend of rallies, meetings, debate, food, music and Marxism

Pensions USS dispute

by David Goode The HE Sector Conference on Friday afternoon will hear arguments for a resumption of industrial action in the USS dispute.

“Nothing substantial has been achieved during the suspension so far,” some will argue; “we are no better off now than we were last January when we suspended the action, and we should resume the work to contract immediately and plan for an escalation of the industrial action at the beginning of the next academic year”.

“The General Secretary’s poll of members,” some will say, “is nothing more than a cynical attempt to bamboozle us into continuing the suspension and giving the upper hand to the employers”, and that giving our members the opportunity to have their voices heard and express their opinions is somehow dangerous and anti-democratic!

But is any of this actually true? With all that rhetoric and scaremongering it can be difficult to tell, and we need to pause and take stock of what has really happened since January, to separate the facts from the flannel, and get to the real situation as it stands now.

Some progress has been made as a result of the talks that have taken place with the employers from February. The comparison exercise between USS and TPS has been completed and has shown the pre-92 employers that they have a major problem as the USS scheme for new entrants is worse than the scheme offered to those in post-92 institutions.

But the work has not been completed. It has always been clear that it will be October before the talks reach a conclusion. Both sides need to explore the scope for funding possible adjustments in benefits to address the gap between the existing scheme and the scheme for entrants joining since last October.

Let us be realistic, this cannot happen as quickly as we would like. And neither would we want things to be rushed or not done carefully and properly.

The union’s USS Committee, which includes our experienced elected negotiators, recognises that there has been limited progress but believes that the negotiating team should continue the talks with the employers while progress is being made.

Last year, our negotiators came to conference and asked us to re-ballot the members. Conference supported them. It was this decision that meant that we could persuade the employers that the dispute was not over. We should take their advice

seriously.

Now that we are talking once again with the employers, and getting somewhere, we need to press on, allowing at least the scheduled work over the summer and for the work of the Programme Group to conclude in October. To do otherwise would jeopardise the progress made thus far, and to put future negotiations and potential improvements at risk.

Delegates representing USS members should support HE25 and oppose HE25A.1, HE26 and HE27. In Congress, motion 89 should be opposed.

David Goode is vice-president of Cambridge University UCU and chair of the Eastern & Home Counties Regional Committee, and writes in a personal capacity.

TPS debate After four – and in London, five – days of strike action by our members, the TPS campaign, has reached a critical juncture. This is a battle which UCU cannot win by itself.

The decision by unions to go into talks on the separate public sector schemes after November 30, instead of standing united on principles, has allowed the government to ‘divide and rule’. On the one hand: PCS remains determined to strike nationally – provided other unions will do the same; POA and Unite NHS members struck on May 10; while the BMA has voted to strike for the first time since the 1970s. But, on the other hand: our sister unions in the TPS, the NUT and NASUWT, were absent from the May 10 action and indeed they will not strike again till the Autumn; Unison and GMB have just reached a proposed deal over the local government pension scheme; and it is becoming increasingly difficult to motivate our own members to take strike action – indeed, we risk their walking away from the union in droves.

UCU Left’s strategy is becoming clear – to dress a political strategy up as an industrial one. As their latest discussion statement says, “… we need escalating industrial action as quickly as possible. If just three of the unions (PCS, NUT and UCU) had agreed to take several days of consecutive action this weak government would have been forced back to the negotiating table. Being forced to give genuinely ‘significant’ concessions would have precipitated a wider crisis in the government

and its possible downfall.”

Most members, when presented with such a statement, would regard it as puerile drivel.

This government is not weak: it may have minor differences of tactics, but it is united in its determination to dump the burden of the crisis onto working people and to cut the cost of public services so that they can be more easily privatised. That is what the pensions issue is about – Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander admitted that in the House of Commons in September. And the response to that has to be a strategic one, focusing not just on pensions but on broadening the battle lines. If we want to win on pensions alone then we have to stop talking glibly about escalation but spell out to our members that it is going to require sustained joint continuous strike action. But if we take a more strategic approach then we can incorporate the pensions issue into a much broader campaign, building strategically sound and sustainable relationships with other unions to achieve that. The joint declaration of intent announced by NUT and NASUWT gives us one clear opportunity to build such an alliance.

We recommend all TPS delegates to support the Northumbria University Branch late motion, ‘TPS Strategy Following Strike on 10 May’.

Broadening the Battlelines: the pensions struggle

by Bill Greenshields ISBN 978-1-908315-07-6 £1.50 from www.communist-party.org.uk

Morning Star

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Wanted!

A political voice for working people

by Robert Griffiths Millions of working people are on the move, demanding change. Millions reject the idea promoted by big business and media, the banks, hedge funds and Con-Dem government that past levels of public expenditure are the main cause of the economic and financial crisis.

They reject the remedy dictated by the City, the EU and the European Central Bank, that massive public spending cuts and a savage attack on the wages and pensions of public sector workers are necessary in order to reduce the public sector deficit.

The policy of the Labour leadership to align itself with this analysis betrays the millions of workers and their families who look to Labour.

Statements by Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Liam Byrne, backing deep cuts in public sector wages and pension entitlements, and in welfare benefits, represent a shameful capitulation to the banks, the Con-Dem regime and the right-wing mass media.

Labour's lead in the opinion polls is more the product of government mistakes and reflects a change in public opinion shaped greatly by the resistance to cuts. The refusal of the Labour Party leadership to give a lead on policies which defend public services, jobs, wages and pensions, and which would revive economic growth, highlights how the interests of the labour movement – which are also those of the people of Britain – go unrepresented.

Millions of working people, in Labouraffiliated and non-affiliated unions, need a Labour Party that defends their interests, stands up for public services, opposes the whole rotten set-up in corrupt, big business, rip-off Britain – and renounces a British foreign policy that mires us in aggressive war, the mass slaughter of civilians, international kidnapping and torture and a new generation

of nuclear weapons.

This raises the need for the affiliated unions to campaign to change the policies and if necessary the composition of the Labour Party leadership. This is an important part of the bigger question: how can the labour movement ensure that its collective views and interests are represented in parliament?

This challenge must be faced by the whole movement, including those unions, like UCU, the school teacher unions, PCS and others, not affiliated to the Labour Party.

The Labour Party was founded by the trade unions. It receives the support of over onethird of voters and can reach wider sections.

But this support is not guaranteed, is increasingly volatile and could quickly disintegrate if the party's right-wing course is maintained. The trade union movement, and its members, have a duty to reclaim the party.

Three steps to take the power The Communist Party considers that affiliated trade unions should:

Hmaintain their affiliations, but cease paying donations to the Labour Party centrally, until its leaders and MPs oppose real cuts in public sector wages, and express solidarity with workers fighting to defend their jobs, pay, conditions and pensions.

Hconvene an all-Britain conference at the earliest opportunity to discuss the current crisis of political representation for workers and their families.

Hconsider demanding that a special emergency conference of the Labour Party be held to consider a fundamental change of economic and financial policy on the capitalist crisis, public spending and investment, public sector wages and pensions, privatisation and taxation.

Should the Labour Party continue on a rightwing course, its future will be at risk and the trade union movement will have a duty to reestablish a mass party of labour capable of winning elections, forming a government and enacting policies in the interests of the people, not the bankers. At some point, either at the initiative of the TUC or some other body, a special conference of all labour movement organisations should be called to discuss the political representation of the labour movement in the House of Commons.

In the face of the current ruling class offensive against the working class and the mass of the people generally, the labour and trade union movement needs to develop the maximum clarity and unity. For its part, the Communist Party will continue to develop its Marxist analysis, project an alternative economic and political strategy for the working class and its allies and strengthen nonsectarian left unity. H Robert Griffiths is general secretary of the Communist Party. He has written an open letter on the crisis of political representation.

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