According to Esther Muddiman, Rowan Campbell and Grace Krause, "the industrial action undertaken by members of UCU in 2018 in response to a dispute about pensions provision ... acted as a catalyst for discussions about workload, staff wellbeing, equality, pay and conditions – and, we argue, moved the issues of precarity and casualisation up the agenda and brought about new ways of community-building in HE". Accordingly, these concerns formed the basis of ballots for industrial action across all UK higher education unions (
UNISON,
Unite,
EIS,
GMB and UCU), running parallel to industrial action on pensions. From September to October 2019, UCU balloted members for industrial action in two disputes: renewed industrial action on pensions (for those institutions participating in USS), and new industrial action on pay and conditions (which UCU called the 'four fights'—pay inequality, job insecurity, rising workloads, and pay deflation—for all higher education branches). Ballots were undertaken separately for each institution in the belief that turnout might pass the 50% of members required by the
Trade Union Act 2016 at a sufficient number of institutions to enable meaningful industrial action, while averting the risk of an aggregated national ballot falling below the 50% threshold. It was argued that it was necessary to make industrial action possible on both issues at once to avoid gains to overall remuneration made via one channel being negated by losses on the other.
Ballot on USS pensions (31 October 2019) On 26 May 2019, UCU's Higher Education Sector Conference voted to commence a further dispute with USS employers. UCU wrote to relevant vice-chancellors on 7 June asking them to avert possible industrial action by committing "to uphold the level of contributions no higher than 26% (8% for members)", in the first instance by seeking to influence USS policy via employers' representatives on the Employers' Pension Forum (EPF) and the UUK nominees to USS's joint negotiating committee. The Union asked that, failing that, employers "must cover any increases in full that are needed to maintain current benefits until USS's governance and valuation methods and assumptions have been overhauled". On 31 October 2019, UCU reported that of 64 branches balloted, at least 43 had passed the 50% turnout threshold or were otherwise able to take industrial action. The national aggregate of votes (with four institutions still to be counted) achieved a 53% turnout with 79% voting for strike action.
Ballots concerning joint higher education trade union national pay claim (31 October 2019) 2018-19 pay negotiations In March 2018, the UK's Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff began its round of negotiations for pay in the sector for 2018/19, with unions demanding a large pay uplift. On 6 June 2018, UCU commenced a consultative ballot to determine whether to conduct a formal ballot for industrial action in relation to the UK Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff's negotiations over 2018-19 pay. The ballot closed on 27 June 2018, with 82% of participating members voting to reject the offer from the university and Colleges Employers' Association of a minimum pay rise of 2 per cent, rising to 2.8 per cent for the lowest paid. UCU formally declared a trade dispute on 24 July 2018. On 21 August 2018, UCU served statutory notice of its intention to ballot members for industrial action regarding the 2018-19 national pay dispute. The ballot opened on 30 August 2018. Likewise, on 29 October Unison reported that although a majority of voting members had supported strike action, the vote was frustrated by insufficient turnout. On 7 November, UCU's special higher education sector conference decided to run another ballot, this time aggregating votes across the sector rather than running a different ballot for each university. On 23 November, the ballot was scheduled to run from 14 January to 22 February 2019. This ballot achieved a turnout of only 41%, so again led to no industrial action.
2019-20 pay negotiations On 1 May 2019, employers' final offer in the 2019-20 pay negotiations was 1.8%, rising to 3.65% for the lowest paid (deleting the lowest point on the pay scale to ensure a living wage for all staff). For most members, the offered raise was below inflation (then 2.4% RPI), and unions called for an increase of RPI+3% or of £3,349 – whichever was greater. Later that month, the UCU congress resolved to campaign to win an industrial action ballot on this offer, with a campaign naming the 'four fights' of pay, equality, casualisation, and workload. Unite and Unison also resolved to ballot on pay. On 31 October 2019, Unison reported that although around 66% of members voting had voted for strike action, turnout had not passed the 50% threshold. Likewise, Unite announced that 73.3% of members had voted to take action, but that turnout had been 32.1%. On the same day, UCU reported that of 148 branches balloted, at least 54 had passed the 50% turnout threshold or were otherwise able to take industrial action. The national aggregate of votes achieved a 49% turnout with 74% voting for strike action (with four institutions still to be counted). It was estimated that the strikes would affect over a million students. Spokespeople for UUK and Universities & Colleges Employers Association argued that UCU did not have a strong mandate for action given that the majority of branches had not qualified to take strike action. The UUK spokesperson expressed hopes that the industrial dispute could be resolved without strike action and that UCU 'will now join us to consider governance reforms and alternative options for future valuations' regarding USS. The UCea spokesperson argued that the 2019-20 national pay negotiations had delivered a pay deal 'at the very limit of what is affordable'. Opinion among university leaders was not uniform, however: on 15 November, the vice-chancellor of the University of Essex argued that 'the University of Essex is willing to increase contributions to the scheme to sustain critical features of the USS, including defined benefits'. On 19 November, UUK and UCEA jointly wrote an open letter 'to staff impacted by the UCU pensions and pay disputes', partly arguing that 'the publication of the JEP's second report will present UUK and UCU with the opportunity to develop a valuable and sustainable future for USS' and that while universities 'simply cannot afford to put more into this year's pay increases than they already have', UCEA had invited negotiations on 'workload, gender pay/equality and casual employment arrangements'. UCU's response included the argument that 'you cannot refuse to talk about pay yet say you want to talk about closing pay gaps that exist for women and
BME staff' and that 'we are always keen to negotiate and will attend talks to try and avert the disruption the strikes will inevitably cause'.
Strikes take place (25 November – 4 December 2019) Strikes began on 25 November. According to figures subsequently gathered by UCEA, 29.2% of UCU members at the affected universities took strike action, representing 5% of all staff at those universities (not all of whom were in the constituency represented by UCU), though around 26% reported pockets of high impact on teaching. As in 2018, striking staff at a number of universities ran educational 'teach-outs' off campus, which were open to students affected by the strikes. On 27 November, negotiators from UCU and UCEA met, with UCEA pledging to consult its members on 'gender and ethnicity pay gaps, casual employment arrangements and workload' ahead of a meeting the next week, while stating that it had no mandate to alter the pay increase that had been implemented for the 2019–20 academic year. Employers' organisations continued to argue that the strike represented a minority of staff in a minority of universities, with Oxford Brookes University's vice-chancellor Alistair Fitt arguing further that 'the call for more money comes at a time when universities are operating in a challenging environment amid increased competition, a freeze on tuition fees, and prolonged uncertainty over the implications of Brexit'. A few universities were reported as being heavy-handed in their response to the strikes, with the University of Liverpool attracting criticism for telling its students they must not join picket lines;
Sheffield Hallam putting a form online for students to record which lecturers were on strike (which attracted a large number of satirical submissions); and the
University of Birmingham telling its staff that picketing on campus would be trespass (which attracted a large petition in opposition). As the strikes began, the
Guardian published an editorial arguing that the strikes represented "a battle for the soul of the campus" and that "the market model in higher education has created an intellectual precariat who are right to fight back". Soon after, the
Financial Times ran en editorial arguing that "while academics and universities might not want to hear it, if the USS is to continue operating, the money has to come from them", and also saying that "the current industrial action carries wider significance than the fate of a disputed retirement plan. It has exposed the precariousness of Britain's higher education system as it has become more of a marketplace", and calling for an "independent inquiry" into the handling of the USS valuation "by all key players, including the Pensions Regulator". The
National Union of Students supported the strikes, as did the Labour shadow secretary for education,
Angela Rayner. Support from individual university students' unions was less clear, with some, such as the
University of Birmingham Guild of Students, taking an explicitly neutral stance.
Reading University Students Union voted to support the strikes, but was unusual in doing so.
The Times reported that 'by and large' students 'support their lecturers and their anger is with universities and vice-chancellors'. In
Edinburgh, students occupied
David Hume Tower in solidarity with the strike, while students at
Strathclyde University occupied a lecture theatre (both in support of the strikes and in protest at what they called 'rampant mismanagement, alleged corruption and irresponsible fossil fuel investment at the University of Strathclyde'). Students at the
University of Stirling occupied a management building for two weeks, later receiving an eight-week suspension in punishment. Some scholarly societies, such as the
American Studies Association, expressed support for the strike. The 2019 strikes took place in a somewhat different regulatory and legal environment from the 2018 ones, due to the establishment of the
Office for Students and the emergence of a body of case-law from the
Office of the Independent Adjudicator on the compensation of students for lost teaching in the wake of the 2018 strikes. Growing anxiety about the position of international students whose visa requirements for class attendance might be affected by the strikes, in the context of the
UK Home Office's hostile environment policy towards migrants, was also in evidence.
Following strike action (5–12 December 2019) In the wake of the strike action, UCU called for 'action short of a strike' in the form of 'working to contract', interpreted primarily as working only the hours notionally required and not rescheduling teaching missed during the strikes. As in 2018, universities' responses to this varied, with some threatening pay deductions for 'partial performance' in the event of staff not rescheduling teaching and others not planning to deduct pay. Press coverage included mentioning the University of Liverpool for threatening partial pay deductions and Reading for threatening 100% pay deductions, whereas Cambridge offered to reimburse lecturers for pay lost during the strikes if they rescheduled teaching.
Second report of the Joint Expert Panel on pensions (13 December 2019) 13 December saw the publication of the Joint Expert Panel's second report. This recommended changes to the governance of USS, to build on "the establishment of a new, jointly agreed purpose statement and shared valuation principles". Reporting focused on the Panel's proposal to introduce a dual
discount rate into the USS pension scheme, whereby the fund supporting members who had retired would be put into low-risk, low-return investments, but the remainder of the fund (accruing to working members who had not yet retired) would be free to be invested in higher-risk, higher-return holdings. The report was welcomed by UUK and UCU and media reporting suggested that negotiations in its wake could lead to the cessation of impending industrial action; as strikes loomed in February, however, the UCU general secretary Jo Grady commented that 'most importantly, employers have not yet offered to cover the unfair contribution increases that are pricing members out of the scheme', implying that this was a key sticking point. The report also recommended three-way talks between UCU, UUK and USS on the governance of USS to lead to future pension policies being more satisfactory to scheme stakeholders. The 'tripartite group' first met on 17 January 2020. In mid-January 2020, the
University of Sussex launched an "industrial action ex gratia scheme" to compensate students up to £100 for inconvenience caused by the ongoing industrial action. It this became the first UK university to offer compensation while industrial action was still in process. On 15 January, the
Wellcome Trust published the report 'What Researchers Think About the Culture They Work In', which found that 29% of respondents felt secure in their jobs. On 20 January, UCU published a report on 'the dehumanising effects of casualisation in higher education' that noted that '67,000 research staff were on fixed-term contracts, making up two-thirds of the total research staff employed at universities, alongside 30,000 contracted teaching staff, many paid by the hour. A further 69,000 academic staff were on "atypical contracts" and so are not counted in the main staff record, while an estimated 6,500 were on zero-hours contracts'.
UCEA publish negotiating position (27 January 2020) On 27 January, UCEA published a document 'offered as part of a potential composite JNCHES settlement for 2019-20' addressing the Four Fights issues, with the exception of pay (where the pay rise offered remained at 1.8%). UCEA noted that it had been 'given the scope to go further than ever before as a national employer representative body', proposed to set 'expectations' for the employment practices of individual institutions, and summarised its offer at sector-level thus: • For
contractual arrangements, a new trade union/employer working group to examine the annual national staff record (HESA), looking for example at trends in 'zero hours' and 'hourly-paid' employment, and contractual arrangements across protected characteristics. The group will produce a report of the analysis and findings. • For
workload and mental health, trade union/employer work to further develop the national Stress and Mental Wellbeing resources through our established HE Safety and Health Forum, Trade unions, Universities UK and UCEA involvement in advancing sector-level initiatives to address staff mental health issues. • For
gender pay gap, trade unions and employers to develop an HE specific 'checklist' of suggestions to address blockages and enablers of women's career progression and balanced representation in gender dominated roles. There will also be collection and analysis of the overall data. • On
ethnicity pay, trade unions and employers to examine and report on national ethnicity pay gap data and investigate kinds of actions and interventions being taken by employers. Both also commit to encouraging colleagues to disclose protected characteristics.UCU welcomed these offers as progress but criticised the lack of an improved offer on pay and argued that UCEA needed to provide universities with 'a clear set of mechanisms for policing and enforcing the expectations which they are signing up to'.
Strikes recommence (20 February 2020) Before the strikes , 26 February 2020. On 3 February 2020, following consultation with branch representatives at the union's Higher Education Committee, UCU announced fourteen days of strike action, escalating over a period running from 20 February to 13 March: 20–21 February, 24–26 February, 2–5 March and 9–13 March. During February, UUK consulted its members on the possibility of making a new offer in the pensions dispute, responding to UCU's request that employers shoulder more of the burden of rising pensions contributions. 84% opposed the idea of making a new offer. Meanwhile, UCEA did not alter the offer it had made on 27 January. During the same period, the
Times Higher Education reported restiveness among some UCU members about the desirability of further strikes.
Weeks 1–2 (20–26 February) Strikes began on 20 February, with 74 universities affected, and news reporting on the day focusing on the determination of striking staff picketing in rainy weather. Following a few days with little apparent progress, UCEA resumed negotiations with UCU on Monday 24 February, and UUK resumed negotiations on Tuesday 25th. Negotiations continued throughout that week.
Week 3 (2–5 March) Negotiations went on
Week 4 (9–13 March) Little news emerged from negotiations, and on 11 March UCU negotiators on the Four Fights made it clear that good progress had been made on three, but that the sticking point for them was pay, and argued that UCU members would need to continue industrial action to achieve improvements in that area. Meanwhile, debate on USS was complicated by USS beginning their 2020 valuation, with UCU criticising USS's valuation methods and calling on UUK for support. No significant change appeared to have come about in employers' willingness to shoulder more of the rising costs of the pension scheme. As the strikes came to an end, UK universities found themselves under a relatively sudden set of pressures as the
COVID-19 pandemic led to falling projections for international student recruitment, and UK universities rapidly switching their teaching to online modes. UCU cancelled rallies on the last day of strikes to reduce the risk of infection.
Responses to the strike Student support at the outset of the strike was estimated at 47% by an unscientific poll reported by the BBC. With continued NUS support for the strikes, twenty-six students' unions wrote to the Minister of State for Universities, the chairs of the UCEA and USS trustee boards and the Chief Executive of Universities UK, expressing support for UCU and urging a swift resolution to the strikes. As in previous strikes, there were student occupations, in this case of the Old Schools in Cambridge and the South Cloisters of UCL. UCU members continued to find innovative ways to picket, with developments including a group of picketing runners circumnavigating the University of Leeds campus. == Developments from March 2020 to December 2021 ==