Image Credit: Lucy Heywood
The University and College Union (UCU) has announced a ‘two-week period of calm’ after breakthroughs in talks with university employers. The next two weeks of planned strike action will therefore not go ahead.
Strike action has been ongoing since Wednesday 1st February with a significant portion of the University of Oxford’s February teaching days so far being disrupted. Strike action was planned for Tuesday – Thursday for the week commencing Monday 20th February and Monday – Thursday for the week after that. After breakthroughs in negotiations with the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), these strikes were called off on Friday 17th February.
In a press release earlier in the week, the UCU announced that they had ‘entered Acas negotiations with the employer representative’ on Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th February. Acas, or the Advisory, Conciliation, and Arbitration Service, is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions. It aims to improve employment relations in disputes like the one between the UCU and UCEA. These negotiations seem to have led to satisfying progress on the UCU’s end.
In a five-minute social media video addressed to UCU members, the union’s general secretary Jo Grady announced that the UCU had ‘made significant progress in [their] negotiations with the employers’ covering both ‘pay and pension disputes’. Grady said that the two weeks of calm will enable the UCU to hold ‘intensive negotiations with the aim of delivering a final agreement in both disputes for the endorsement of the union’s democratic bodies and of course, and crucially, our members.’
Grady recognised that the ‘key issue’ of this standing-down for many members would be whether the UCEA could be trusted to compromise in negotiations. She reassured union members in the video that ‘nobody at UCU will be fooled’ going into these crucial talks, and they go into them knowing that ‘the threat to the employers remains.’ Grady confirmed that from Wednesday 22nd February UCU members will be voting in a reballot to give the union a ‘mandate for a further 6 months [of strike action] if we need it.’ She said that university employers are aware that they ‘will not walk away from this dispute until it is won.’
The video also saw Grady clarifying that the aim of the dispute is ‘not to take strike action’ but rather to ‘reach an agreement’, commenting that ‘we do not want [UCU members] on picket lines for a minute longer than [they] have to be.’
The second half of the online announcement saw the focus switch to what the UCU have already achieved since strike action began. Grady mentioned that the UCEA are currently ‘consulting their members with a recommendation that they give them a mandate to end the use of involuntary zero-hours contracts on campus.’ She said that this would help tackle ‘one of the worst forms of insecurity’ for university employees if it goes ahead and that it gives the UCU a ‘powerful platform’ to remove even more insecurities. Grady called the move to end involuntary zero-hours contracts a ‘down payment on real change’ and recognised that it would not solve the issue completely.
The UCU additionally announced the beginning of a process to restore university employees’ pensions after significant cuts were announced in 2022. They revealed that it would ‘potentially lead to a reduction in the percentage of [an employee’s] salary that [they] pay into it every year.’ They also plan to agree to remove the lowest point of the university pay scale, as well as ‘a review of the pay spine that will benefit everyone, especially the lowest paid.’ Grady concluded the UCU’s achievements by stating that although the offer on pay was ‘not significantly improved’ from the offer the UCU previously rejected, the offer has been ‘remodelled to ensure the lowest paid get more.’
With regard to the negotiations, Grady announced that the UCU will establish time-limited talks where ‘parameters will be defined in advance for new agreements’ regarding ‘tackling casualisation’, ‘improving work-life balance’, and ‘reducing [employees’] workloads.’ The union also plans to launch ‘meaningful negotiations on equality pay gaps with data collection, monitoring, and clear expectations’ for employers. The UCU aims to turn their progress into a ‘full agreement’ that their members will be satisfied with.
Grady made clear that the UCEA are aware if they do not follow through, ‘not only will we resume our action, [but] we will win our reballot and be prepared to escalate further.’ In urging UCU members to vote ‘yes’ on the upcoming reballot, she proclaimed that the union ‘cannot and will not take [their] foot off the pedal.’ The video ended with Grady stating that by voting yes, the UCU will ‘get across the line’ and end the dispute between employees and employers.