Sitting
at the negotiation table with creditor governments or employers and trying to
find an agreement, must put strong pressures on negotiators of debtor countries
or trade union representatives. Syriza initially seemed to be in a very strong
position. Having won the Greek elections in January 2015 on a wave of
anti-austerity sentiment and widespread disenchantment with traditional parties
of the centre-right and centre-left, the Syriza government embarked with great
vigour on a course of establishing an alternative course to Greece’s problems
in the Eurozone (The
Guardian, 26 January 2015). This position was strengthened by a national
referendum on 5 July 2015, when a clear majority of all regions in Greece
rejected further austerity as the outcome of negotiations with the Troika (The
Guardian, 5 July 2015). And yet, only a week later the Tsipras government
caved in and accepted draconian austerity measures. What happened?
 |
| Student Occupation at Nottingham University |
Very
similar in the UK at the moment, UCU had a very strong mandate to carry out
sustained industrial action. In most of the affected institutions, there was an
unprecedented participation rate of ca. 58 per cent, with a large majority of around
88 per cent endorsing strike action (UCU, January 2018). And
the action went well. From around the country reports came in that record
numbers of members participated in picket lines, receiving significant support
by students. At Nottingham University, even the Students’ Union as a whole
endorsed UCU industrial action. In some places such as Bath, Bristol,
Leicester, Liverpool, UCL and since yesterday also at my University of
Nottingham, students underlined their determination in student occupations of
key university buildings. And yet, what happened? On Monday evening, 12 March,
the UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt circulated a message that an agreement had
been concluded with the employers.
At
closer scrutiny, this so-called agreement was terrible (see UCU
‘agreement’, 12 March 2018). A reduction in the defined benefits section to
£42000, an increase in employee contributions, a reduction in the accrual rate
to 1/85 and the introduction of an inflation cap of 2.5 per cent, implying that
for every year that inflation was higher than 2.5 per cent (as, for example, in
2017), the value of the defined benefits part would be reduced. Overall, the
calculation is that instead of the 40 per cent cut implied by the employers’
initial proposal to move to a defined contributions scheme only, the cuts would
now amount to 33 per cent (UCU
University of Leicester, 13 March 2018). In general, this agreement was
still based on the highly discredited USS Fund valuation and, to add insult to
injury, UCU committed itself to encourage colleagues to re-schedule cancelled
teaching. Hardly a good and satisfactory agreement!
Why
did UCU in the end then reject the ‘agreement’? As soon as the General
Secretary had circulated the agreement, members emailed, sent tweets and
responded via Facebook in protest against this ‘agreement’. Similarly to the
case of Syriza in 2015, a key hashtag emerged on Twitter. In 2015, it was #ThisIsACoup, referring to
the ongoing negotiations in Brussels deep into the night, now it is
#Nocapitulation. Why did UCU not give in unlike Syriza in 2015? The key answer
is that unlike in Greece in 2015, the agreement by the UCU negotiation team
still had to go through democratic procedures, within which members could have
their say. Before finally accepting the ‘agreement’, a meeting of the Higher
Education Committee (HEC) of UCU, made up of elected representatives, had to
give its final consent. Prior to its meeting on Tuesday, 13 March 2018, UCU had
called on branch delegates to come to London for a meeting to report back on
the reaction of UCU members.
 |
| Day 14 of UCU strike at Nottingham University |
It
was at this meeting that the decision of rejection was made. Representing the
UCU branch of Nottingham University at that meeting, I witnessed how one
delegate after another expressed their members’ disappointment, outrage and
anger over this ‘agreement’. In Nottingham, we had consulted members widely via
email and organised an open committee meeting at short notice, which was
attended by over 150 members. UCU members at Nottingham overwhelmingly rejected
the agreement and delegates reported similar developments from other universities
across the country. In short, developments this week over the USS strike
indicate the importance of democratic procedures, which allow individual
members a direct input in decision-making. Branch delegates at the meeting in
London were not elected, but represented directly the position of members on
the ground.
Although
in a better position than Syriza in 2015, not all is well in UCU’s internal
democratic structures. Branch delegates, who had reported the position of
members at Tuesday’s meeting, were not allowed to vote. After the briefing
session, HEC met separately to make the final decision. Considering the
overwhelming rejection of the ‘agreement’ reported by delegates, HEC had little
choice but to reject the deal too. The episode indicates that much more
internal democratisation has to take place inside UCU to ensure that members’
positions and opinions are heard. On this occasion, this would have implied
that branch delegates participate in the voting. UCU must transform itself
beyond a representative democratic institution.
 |
| Day 14 of UCU strike at Nottingham University |
Since the rejection
of the ‘agreement’, the commitment of UCU members to see this conflict through
has increased further and students continue to support strike action. This is
uncharted territory for UCU and, of course, the outcome of this struggle is
still wide open. Significantly, questions related to pension cuts such as high
tuition fees, enormous Vice Chancellor salaries, hierarchical decision-making
structures in universities, casualisation of the workforce, as well as the very purpose of teaching have now
entered discussion. There are more and more voices demanding a fundamental transformation
of current HE in the UK re-establishing HE as a public good. UCU’s decision on
Tuesday has clearly put university managements on notice that the further marketization
of HE is no longer accepted. Solidarity forever!
Andreas Bieler
Andreas Bieler
Professor of Political Economy
University of Nottingham/UK
Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk
Personal website: http://andreasbieler.net
16 March 2017
Posts
Dear Andreas, thank you for your analysis. But, I find your comparison with the Greek case as poorly thought. In the case of Greece, the choice was either take the measures or had all the banking system abolished and the money supply cut off (meaning suspend all imports, etc, etc). That is either leave the euro and go back to the stone age, or take the unpleasant medicine. The populist left along with their far right government partners, had only themselves to blame for selling to the ill-informed and desperate electorate in Greece that they, somehow, will be much better where everyone else had failed (akin to create wine from water...). The comparison with UCU is unfounded. A similar situation would have been if UCU members were threatened with abolishing the HE sector as known, such as wholesale privatisation, and the like. That was not the case.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
George