Grady4GS

The following questions were submitted by University of Winchester UCU branch. I will provide my full response below.

1. Members at Winchester, like many post-92s, are concerned about their job security with course closures and redundancies being an annual occurrence. As general secretary, what will you do to combat this trend?

Not only is the Conservative government mismanaging the entire tertiary education sector, but it is also obvious to anyone who has been paying attention that they despise post-92 universities specifically as sites of social mobility and opportunity. At the same time, they have been more than happy to use education as a political football when it suits them. In post-92s we have some of the worst managers of any sector–and we have to acknowledge that the fact we have resisted redundancies and much more is a testament to the strength of members in this impossible climate.

That said, we do have redundancies as an annual occurrence, partly due to financial mismanagement, but also as a product of funding requirements, with no control over student numbers or student distribution. Certain degrees are not funded properly. To combat the trend we need a multitude of actions–most importantly, a different funding model, rather than the current one which does not even work on its own terms. Some tentatively optimistic news is that we almost certainly will have a Labour government coming at the next general election, and while a Labour government will be far from perfect we need to hold their feet to the fire on this. As the incumbent candidate, I have already established connections with ministers and politicians over the last five years, and I will continue to have a constructive yet critical relationship with them if re-elected.

2. Winchester was one of several institutions that faced 100% deductions for the marking boycott in 2023. Winchester’s amendment to Motion 11 at Congress 2023 (11A.1) called for the union to actively campaign for a change in the law. As general secretary, how will you help deliver this policy?

We have–and will continue–to come at this problem from two directions. The first is political. One of the motions UCU moved at TUC 2023–which carried–was to get punitive deductions for partial performance recognised as an unfair form of wage theft. As I mentioned in the previous answer, we are very likely to have a change of government soon, and Labour have said they will repeal harsh anti-trade union laws on minimum service levels within their first 100 days in office, So, we are working with the current shadow cabinet to make sure that punitive deductions is also something they will directly address. The second is legal. As well as challenging the deductions experienced by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) in 2022, we are exploring taking legal action over punitive deductions from the summer MAB in 2023. We have provided the latest update on this in the Friday Email dated 26 January 2024.

I think it is also worth stating that higher membership density will also address this issue. Employers will be less likely to try and defeat us with punitive mechanisms like 100% deductions if they face the prospect of the majority of staff taking part in industrial action.

3. As general secretary, what will you do to defend TPS given UCU’s victory on USS pensions?

Unlike USS pensions, the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) affects many more workers than those in post-92 universities and further education colleges within UCU. The problem is that–due to their animosity towards HE workers, especially at post-92s–the current Conservative government has specifically moved to support every single other sector which has TPS workers, including those in FE, but not post-92 universities. This is shocking but not surprising, and the entire TPS crisis has been caused by the government’s own poor economic forecasting. The way to deal with the knock-on effects of this crisis is to tackle them as they arise at branch level, backed up by a robust national plan, which the union is currently formulating. You can read more on TPS and what we need to do in my manifesto for HE.

4. How will you help UCU campaign for a student distribution system in higher education, in accordance with UCU policy agreed in motion HE29 from Congress 2023?

The question of student number controls has a history in UCU. One of the former members of the higher education committee (HEC), who worked at a humanities department at a post-92 university (University of Lincoln), identified the way that some pre-92/Russell Group universities ‘stockpiled students’ and therefore put forward a motion on student number controls for the HEC meeting on 30 April 2021. As general secretary I have no vote in HEC but I very much welcomed the HEC motion at the time; unfortunately the motion was not carried because a faction within HEC decided to vote it down.

It is, however, clear that there is a clear strength of feeling among UCU members who believe that some form of student number controls is vital for the fairer distribution/growth of students across the HE sector, to prevent departmental closure and institutional failure. Therefore I once again welcomed this motion when it came to UCU Congress 2023 via Canterbury Christ Church, Edinburgh, Bangor, Kent and University of East Anglia UCU branches, and I was extremely glad to see it passed. The problem of chronic over- or under-recruitment of students, caused by the marketisation of education and tuition fees, is the core of two huge problems within the HE sector. The first problem is job insecurity: redundancies in post-92 universities, and casualisation in pre-92 universities where staff are employed on temporary contracts to teach a subject where student numbers have exploded. The second problem is impossible workloads: at those pre-92 universities that have over-recruited students, managers have not allocated the resources or hired new permanent staff to teach those students, so the workload for existing staff pile up from year to year.

For what it’s worth, I believe that this is now finally recognised as a problem by politicians too, and UCU are lobbying hard for a political solution. You can read more on my plan on equal student distribution, and how we tackle it, in my manifesto for HE.