UCU pushes for trade dispute against Education Secretary

Activists in the University and College Union (UCU) are pushing to reinstate a trade dispute with the Secretary of State for Education.

This follows a request from numerous UCU branches to discuss advancing a dispute, which led to a HE sector conference on 14 October.

Times Higher Education have reported that this goes against advice from the UCU’s higher education committee working group, who have suggested that a dispute with the education secretary to address the redundancies crisis is “not possible under the current law”, and action should be thus paused.

However, this has not completely ruled out the possibility of a dispute regarding poor Higher Education funding, with the goal of pay rises for members. This route, though, would not address the redundancy crisis that is becoming a reality for many academic staff.

I would be delighted if a legally sound and effective route could be established. But until that happens, I believe we have to take seriously the conclusions of the work already undertaken, rather than returning repeatedly to arguments which have already been examined in detail

Michael Abberston, Cambridge UCU Vice-President

This comes amid job cuts at UK universities as funding dwindles. At the University of Aberdeen, more than 100 jobs are set to be cut to help them save £10 million, and staff at the University of Nottingham are at risk of 2,700 redundancies.

Cost cutting initiatives have also spread across Scotland and to colleges such as Lakes College, Cumbria, where staff voted overwhelmingly to enter a formal industrial dispute.

Striking from academic staff is becoming more common as the universities of Glasgow and Lincoln face harsh cuts and get closer to bankruptcy.

Despite the overwhelmingly dire picture of higher education funding, Warwick has not been impacted to the same extent and remained in a financial surplus last year.

Micheal Abberston, Cambridge UCU Vice-President has made a statement claiming: “I would be delighted if a legally sound and effective route could be established. But until that happens, I believe we have to take seriously the conclusions of the work already undertaken, rather than returning repeatedly to arguments which have already been examined in detail.”

Strikes have had little impact thus far, and so the UCU believe they have no choice but to move towards a dispute with Lucy Powell, the current Secretary for Education.

On the UCU’s website, they claim to protect “every job, every course, every campus” and have a sign-up form on their website to join their campaign pushing the government to address the “broken further and higher education systems”.