How I intend to vote on the offer

Hurrah! The UCU HEC have finally decided that members are going to be allowed to vote on the offer that was negotiated between the unions and the employers at ACAS. Took a while for us to get here, but common sense has, at last, prevailed.

According to the email that I got this morning, the offer will be put out to consultation next week accompanied by a report from the negotiators. Part of me feels like I should wait until I’ve seen those reports before I decide how to vote. But then I got called “a bit suspect” on Twitter last night for not making my views known, so here they are.

If you want a preview of the reports, then it might be worth looking at a couple of blogs that some of the negotiators have published: this one on USS and this one on the Four Fights. It’ll be interesting to see whether the latter is also accompanied by a report from the negotiators who were actually involved in the negotiations, rather than the elected negotiators who weren’t present at the ACAS talks. If you’re interested in knowing more, I would also suggest that you read the briefing that was prepared for members attending the BDM last week.

Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s how I plan to vote, based on what I’ve seen and heard so far.

The tl;dr is that I’m voting “Yes” on USS because that’s the only reasonable option, and I’m (slightly grudgingly) voting “Yes” on the Four Fights because I think we’ll achieve more by continuing negotiations than we will by taking further industrial action over the next few months.

UPDATE: There has been a lot of discussion on Twitter about what we’re actually being asked to vote on. Will wait to see how it’s worded once the consultation opens, but when I say vote “yes” I mean that I’m voting to suspend industrial action temporarily, not that I’m voting to end the dispute.

On USS — I will enthusiastically vote “Yes”

There’s no reasonable case for voting “No” on USS. The only people who are arguing for a “No” vote are people who want to keep us out on permanent strike. Sorry if you think I’m not being comradely in saying this, but it’s true. The agreed position on USS between us and the employers is a big win for members that are in USS, let’s accept it and move on.

On the Four Fights — I will be voting “Yes”, but with reservations

I think the vote on USS will be overwhelmingly to accept, but I honestly have no idea how the vote on the Four Fights will go. I think that there are strong arguments for both accepting and rejecting here, and I don’t want to dismiss or rubbish the opinions of those who take a different view to mine. But, on balance, I am likely to vote “Yes” when I get the opportunity next week. Why?

The pay offer is paltry, and I know that we all deserve more. But I am also unconvinced that we have a realistic chance of pushing the employers much higher. Even if we did, I worry that a higher pay offer would mean redundancies at some universities — including my own — and could also lead to the collapse of the national JNCHES negotiation structure. I also think that if we do take further action in pursuit of a better pay offer, then the financial cost of that action could be greater than any gain in increased pay. This isn’t something I’m happy about, but I think that we’re stuck with poor pay settlements until the HE funding and student allocation model has been fundamentally reformed.

The non-pay elements — the Three Fights that are leftover after pay — are more complex, and this is where communications around what’s on offer have been incredibly unhelpful. If you follow UCU Twitter — and if you don’t, now definitely isn’t the time to start — then there seem to only be two ways of seeing the offer. Either it’s a historically significant victory, or it’s a total sell-out. For me, it’s neither of these things, and it’s unhelpful that we’ve been dragged into seeing it in these binary terms.

What’s on offer is further negotiations under agreed Terms of Reference, to a specified timescale. Some members feel that this sounds like a promise of jam tomorrow, and I can understand those feelings. But I also think that any resolution of the remaining Three Fights is going to take time. I don’t think that there’s a realistic scenario where we can reach a lasting settlement on these issues without spending time sitting around the table thrashing out the detail.

While I appreciate that another 12 months of negotiations sounds hellish if you’re stuck in precarious employment, we need to remember that we’ve been fighting the Four Fights since 2018 — it has already taken five years of industrial action to get us to this point. If we’re able to use the proposed negotiations to reach meaningful agreement with the employers, then I think that it’s worth waiting another year.

Not everyone will agree, of course; I understand the arguments against and sympathise with them. The issue, for me however, is whether taking further industrial action now — in the form of the Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) — is likely to lead to improved offers on the Four Fights. A well-supported MAB at this time of year is a serious escalation that could deliver the large-scale disruption needed to accelerate negotiations and reach an earlier settlement. An MAB that has less support can be circumvented by management, using scab markers and changes to academic regulations. A poorly supported MAB could still mean significant pay deductions for participating staff, but may not give us the leverage we need to move the employers.

On balance, I think that it is better to accept the poor pay offer, and focus on ensuring that the negotiations are a success. But if I am in the minority of members — and I suspect that I could well be — then we have to throw everything at the MAB.

Whatever is decided, it’s vitally important that it comes from the entire membership. A vote to reject will give employers a clear message: that this isn’t just the view of a few adventurists on HEC, but represents the will of the thousands of us who are going to be taking action. A vote to reject is also a message to our fellow members; the MAB isn’t something that’s being done to us by HEC, but is something that a majority of us have actively signed up to.

On the other hand, if the membership votes to accept the deal, then those who have argued for rejection must also be able to move on. Accepting the current offer means that industrial action is suspended for the immediate future. The dispute would not be over, but members would have made it clear that they wish to prioritise negotiation over industrial action, for the time being.

Whatever our view, and however we choose to vote, I hope that we can all accept the results of the member consultation, and move on in a way that respects the views of the majority of the membership.