‘The urgency for sweeping change in universities could not be greater’

On April 20,  University of Bristol University College Union (UCU) announced to Bristol Uni management the start of a marking and assessment boycott (MAB).

It’s new phase in its long-running industrial action over decades long declines in pay, ever-worsening workloads and unpaid overtime, ever-present and stubborn inequalities in pay for BAME, disabled, LGBTQ+, and female staff, and the precarious and zero-hour contracts that have created a mental and physical ill-health epidemic in the sector.

This latest announcement followed the results of an earlier aggregated national ballot of 145 institutions that saw a majority of members opt for further action. This is after long periods of strike action every year running as far back as 2018, with 15 alone in the previous six months, except 2020/21 when UCU stood down its action so staff could focus on support students through the pandemic.

The MAB will undoubtedly impact students, including third year students who had to suffer the A-level grading fiasco of the pandemic. But student unions and groups remain wholly supportive of our action.

Their continued support contrasts with the unsympathetic and wholly disproportionate response of Bristol University management to our very reasonable demands for fair and decent pay, reasonable and paid workloads, and job security.

Multiple rallies have taken place in Bristol, with university staff calling for an increased pay offer, fewer temporary contracts for employees and a change to their pension terms – photo: Rob Browne

Unlike some other more understanding universities, instead of publicly backing our action, the university has decided to impose a 50 per cent salary deduction for every day of the MAB, even where marking comprises only a very small proportion of staff member workload.

Management intend to commence deductions on the day work is made available for marking, rather than the day it is due, extending the days on which pay is deducted by up to three working weeks.

What is also worrying are the mitigations already in place and planned by the university to reduce MAB impact instead of pressurising their employer representative, Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), to negotiate with UCU.

These mitigations, such as removing the usual oversight of experienced exam boards and potentially allowing students to graduate without having achieved the requisite number of credits, will devalue degrees and lower standards.

The university’s response is all the more concerning in light of the fact that its own staff are unable to pay their bills, choosing between heating and eating, and using food banks. This is all happening, furthermore, in the midst of an unprecedented nationwide cost-of-living crisis exacerbated in Bristol’s case by rocketing rents (up 25 per cent in just four years) and soaring house prices (doubling in 10 years).

It is also important to recognise that the imposition of deductions on already hard-pressed staff will have a knock-on effect on the wider city economy, with disposable incomes further depleted.

Senior university managers on six-figure salaries would barely register the drop in income. For our members, it means though having to decide whether they must postpone their own meals to feed their children.

………………………………..

Read next: ‘Today I strike because enough is enough’

………………………………..

UCU does not therefore take such action lightly. But pay has been in freefall for two decades or more now, falling 25 per cent in ten years alone, staff pay and employment contract security is still determined by gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and ableism.

Employers still recruit qualified staff on temporary contracts when there is absolutely no need and staff can work each week over two days or more unpaid. Not only does this shame our employer and others like it, it makes a university job increasingly the preserve of those that can afford it, a privilege based less on merit and more on familial support.

The usual response from UCEA, the university’s representative, is the unaffordability of our demands. However, the sector is awash with surplus cash, the UK university sector generated a record £41.1b in 2020/21, and more than £40b is held in reserves, and as we also know from international comparisons, the current funding of our higher education system through exorbitant and debilitating tuition fees is a political, indeed ideological, choice.

Elsewhere, university tuition is free for all, with the not unreasonable understanding that graduates will repay the taxpayer many times over during the careers as doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers and so on as well as the understanding that an educated society is better than one that isn’t.

It is therefore no surprise that our ongoing struggle with our employer is also about the future of our education system.

https://twitter.com/DrJoGrady/status/1658846753204969472

As UCU general secretary Jo Grady recently wrote: “Our fight for better pay and conditions in universities isn’t just about giving our members the security they deserve but building a better and fairer higher education sector.”

The urgency for sweeping change could not be greater either as universities are growing ever-reliant on the lucrative but highly volatile international student market, with all the risks to reputations and quality this presents.

Many readers will be supportive of our action as are many staff even if not currently UCU members. Our membership numbers continue to grow fast, and we represent members in many areas of the university, including in the highest levels of management. We call on them to continue contributing to our hardship fund so that the effect of punitive salary deductions for MAB participation on staff and their loved ones is minimised.

That said, it is undeniable that staff will be severely impacted financially by the university’s hard-line determination to deduct 50 of pay each day of the MAB. Our resolve remains strong, however, and our commitment and determination to transform education for the better as unwavering as ever.

Our belief is that through the willingness UCU has shown to negotiate, Bristol University and other employers will eventually decide that the risk to this summer’s graduations of their intransigence is too great, and that the issues that plague the sector must be faced up to, and we believe they will as a result finally get around the table – indeed, this is how the pension element of our dispute has been resolved, so why not also with staff pay and conditions?

Were this to happen, a negotiated settlement would then be possible, one that provided job security for all staff, irrespective of role, category, or characteristics, that rewarded staff for all not just some of the work they did, that provided working environments conducive to having a family and a social life, and as importantly a settlement that remembered the sacrifices staff made and the great risks they took during the pandemic to keep their students safe and their studies going.

This rather than warm words of sympathy or future vision is the least our brilliant students and great city deserve.

Dr Jeffrey Pocock is University of Bristol and South West UCU branch anti-casualisation officer and committee co-chair and tutor in academic language and literacy

Main photo: Rob Browne

Read next:

• Jeremy Corbyn to speak at St Paul’s ‘festival of radical politics’
• Junior doctors go on strike to demand fair pay
• Bristol staff and students stand in solidarity as strike begins

Listen to the latest Bristol24/7 Behind the Headlines podcast: