Grady4GS

The following questions were submitted by the current elected USS negotiators, Mark Taylor-Batty (University of Leeds UCU) and Jackie Grant (University of Sussex UCU). I will provide my full response below.

The questions

As you know, from the beginning of USS negotiations in 2022, UCU’s USS negotiators sought full restoration of benefits and compensation for the lost benefits between 2022-2024. We have heard claims recently about how our success in that dispute has been due to the change in the financial status of the pension scheme. What part of the success do you put down to the work of UCU negotiators, and what part down to industrial action, and what part the shift from notional deficit to notional surplus in the scheme?

The joint statements between UCU and UUK in the early part of 2023, which built on the earlier co-ordinated local joint statements, outlined the path and the ultimate restoration and recovery of benefits. A pause in industrial action, following an overwhelming vote to ‘note’ that progress, was instrumental in allowing negotiators the space to action the detail of those completed agreements. Do you still stand by your public recommendations at the time to either ‘note’ or ‘reject’ the progress in that ballot, and/or do you think anything else could have been sought and achieved with continued industrial action on USS?

What pragmatic, realistic and achievable objectives for the USS scheme would you propose as the key issues now, as we now pursue the goal of stability in the scheme in dialogue with employers? And what are potential paths to achieving these objectives?

MY RESPONSE

It is true that negotiation, in conjunction with the pause in strike action, were crucial to securing a victory in USS. Just as it is true that the successful ballot results in 2022 and 2023, and UCU members’ clear dedication to never giving up on their pension secured victory too. As someone with oversight of the entire process, I list here the factors that I believe to be the most important:

1. result of two national aggregate ballots, which demonstrated to employers we weren’t giving up
2. a change in the composition of the negotiating team
3. a pause in industrial action
4. a favourable valuation/set of numbers.

Some claim that our pension would have been restored without points 1 to 3. Such a claim is not based in reality. Numerous workers in other sectors have faced the same battle as us, and none have had their pension fortunes reversed simply because the figures were finally ‘on their side’. Those peddling this narrative are talking down the hard won victories of fellow UCU members.

We were making progress in negotiations as early as November 2022. In my opinion, the combination of Mark Taylor-Batty and Jackie Grant on the negotiating team did make a significant difference, as did a slightly different negotiating team from Universities UK (UUK). The tone change and the willingness to find common ground meant that a solution for the USS pensions dispute became possible. This has not happened in the three years before that.

However, the progress that was being made behind closed doors was only able to become public commitments because of the pause in strike action. The pause was crucial, and I am not sure this has been clearly understood. It was the agreement to pause which allowed the employer to openly and publicly commit to things, which up until that point they had only discussed with us in private. Without the pause in action, I am not sure if we would get to where we are with USS benefit restoration and recovery. The same is true if we had rushed to a marking and assessment boycott in December 2023. In the USS dispute, I believe standing down action became a much more powerful negotiating tool than threatening more. Employers in USS institutions wanted a resolution, and needed an indication from us that we did too.

As general secretary I do not get a vote in the higher education committee (HEC), and so I did not get a vote on whether to ‘note’ or ‘reject’ the USS offer. At the time I believed the vote should have been an ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ option but HEC decided that the vote would be ‘note’ or ‘reject’. We were accepting the progress to date, agreeing to stand down action in order to negotiate, but (as we had been in previous years) ready to take action if necessary.

I think to many members the notion of ‘note’, as determined by HEC, was confusing. However, in the long run, given such an overwhelming number of members voted to ‘note’ (99%), it is clear that the bureaucratic distinction to ‘note’ rather than ‘accept’ was largely irrelevant to most UCU members. However, it did leave us open to nearly calling a new re-ballot on USS all over again, which would have severely damaged progress. Congress 2023 voted for a re-ballot on the USS dispute, but thankfully HEC did not trigger it. Moreover, I think the issue of voting ‘note’ denied the union the ability to celebrate properly what was an unequivocal victory. Even now the USS victory is portrayed by some as a damp squib. I think how that was managed by HEC needs revisiting, because what it represented said more about divisions and factions on HEC, than it did on what was in the best interests of UCU members.

Looking forward, now the final deeds on restoration, recovery, and contribution rates have been agreed, over the next three years we need to focus on the following:

1. Stability: the valuation methodology must be reviewed and we need to see changes to the valuation investment strategy introduced. Reducing volatility and increasing stability is our key objective. We must resist any moves by the employer to sideline this crucial work, and we cannot leave it solely to the USS Trustee to oversee. I believe UCU is well-placed to do this, but it means we must have the joint negotiating committee (JNC) involved in the above.
2. UCU USS reps: it would be good to establish a forum where we share directly with USS reps information from negotiations and give clear instructions as to what role they play, so we ensure what we are trying to achieve nationally is supported locally by employers. This could be the production of joint statements and so on. It is crucial we use our USS reps to keep good relations on track, and hopefully give us local opportunities to campaign with, and if necessary, lobby employers. In the past we have seen some local UCU branches do this, but I would like to see us formalise this process so that it can be deployed more strategically.
3. Negotiation: we need to consolidate the good practice we have seen in UCU this year. This means we need to find ways to keep hold of good negotiators, which is a complex process given they are elected annually by Congress.
4. Future changes: we should seek to promote our victory, but also educate members about likely future changes that could occur in USS. For example, it is unlikely that we will keep this very low contribution rate. So we need to speak with members and outline what future contributions rates could and should be. I see the involvement of USS reps as outlined in point 2 crucial to this too.
5. Ethical investment: there have already been a series of meetings with various activist groups about how we can exert pressure on USS to behave more ethically. This has also included engaging with senior legal counsel on the law around the limits of fiduciary duty. We also have a number of meetings scheduled with USS to discuss our concerns. We need clear divestment from fossil fuels, but also clear divestment from the military-industrial complex, such as firms we know have links to providing weapons deployed on civilians.
6. The USS joint negotiating committee (JNC): the arrival of the new independent JNC chair has been welcome (Akbar Khan, who replaced Judith Fish). He has been part of a tone shift. The same is true of the new USS CEO (Carol Young, who replaced Bill Galvin). I hope that we can find a way to review what has worked well, and what has not worked well in the JNC, and if appropriate make recommendations on how it could function better.