May 2009 ballot postponed
Dear all,
You will have heard by now that the ballot has been suspended. The decision to suspend was taken partly because the union has agreed to take the dispute to ACAS and partly because of the threats by some 78 employers to use anti-trade union legislation to take the union to court over the accuracy of membership information. The general secretary has made it clear that if there is no resolution to our pressing concerns on redundancies and pay -- remember that the unions have just collectively rejected a revised, whopping 0.4% pay offer -- then the ballot will be re-started in the Autumn. These issues have not gone away and I have no reason to believe that the union's decision to postpone the ballot signals any kind of acceptance of the need for redundancies or a pay cut.
At last week's general meeting, members asked me to press the Warden on our invitation to hold a joint open meeting with him on issues underlying the ballot. I have heard back from him that he feels that it would not be appropriate to hold any additional meetings outside the established negotiating machinery (like the JNCC at Goldsmiths and New JNCHES nationally). He also pointed out that there will be open meetings for all staff on finance and staffing at Goldsmiths this Thursday and Friday. I would urge you attend these meetings and to raise, where appropriate, our legitimate concerns about redundancies and pay in the HE sector as a whole as these are certainly relevant to discussions about the future of Goldsmiths as an individual institution.
Des Freedman
President,Goldsmiths UCU
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross London SE14 6NW
Minutes of the 13 May general meeting now online
Available here or download as a Word document 
(.doc)
Report from GUCU meeting on the ballot - VOTE YES!
A well attended general meeting of Goldsmiths UCU on 13 May passed the
following motion:
‘Following a detailed discussion and clarification of the ballot and the
issues at stake, this meeting resolves to urge all members to vote YES on
both counts.’
The meeting also called for a short statement to be
circulated to members outlining the key arguments underlying the ballot.
Why should you vote YES?
• Because two-thirds of HE institutions are facing serious cuts and
redundancies often as a result of ‘restructuring’ and not necessarily of
financial deficit. The employers are exploiting the economic downturn to
justify job losses and have done nothing to alleviate these threats.
• Because the union – in conjunction with ALL the other HE unions
including the NUS – is asking UCEA to produce an agreement that allows
both employers and unions to work together to minimize the threat of
compulsory redundancies. The UCU is NOT seeking a guarantee of no
redundancies across the HE sector but a national agreement that would
allow all sides to commit to procedures that look at alternatives to
redundancy and that protect jobs and educational provision.
• Because a strong vote from the membership at this time would encourage
UCEA to negotiate seriously over the coming months; a low turn-out or a No
vote weakens UCU’s position now and in the future.
• Because it would allow us to launch a campaign on a timescale of our own
choosing and to work with the other HE unions wherever possible.
• Because the ballot, despite the propaganda from the employers, is not
about an 8% pay demand. It is true that we have been offered a 0.3%
increase which amounts to a pay cut. But the employers are trying to trade
jobs for pay and a positive vote in the ballot would help defend both.
• Because a No vote would signal to the employers that UCU members accept
the need for redundancies and cuts that will devastate not just our
members but the whole prospect of well-resourced higher education.
DEADLINE FOR VOTING IS 12 NOON, FRIDAY 22 MAY.
IF YOU HAVEN’T RECEIVED YOUR BALLOT PAPER YET, PLEASE GO TO
http://www.ucu.org.uk/heballot09 AND CLICK ON GOLDSMITHS
Des Freedman
President Goldsmiths UCU
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross
London SE14 6NW
Letter in response to the Warden's Message on the UCU Ballot
also can be downloaded as a Word document (.doc)
Dear colleagues
I would like to thank the Warden for raising some of the issues at the heart of this dispute. The UCU branch at Goldsmiths has not yet met to discuss the ballot, though it will be doing so on Wednesday May 13th (12.30pm in RHB 137). In the meantime, I thought it would be useful to reply to the Warden’s comments on the ballot.
It is worth pointing out at the outset that the dispute with the employers’ collective representative, the University and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA), is not simply between the universities represented by UCEA and the UCU. All of the trade unions recognized in the HE sector have rejected the pay offer of 0.3%, and all have expressed concerns about threats to job security across the sector at a time of deepening recession. Indeed the National Union of Students has, in the last few days, signed up to our demand for a national agreement on job security.
Job Security
The prospect of significant redundancies in the HE sector is what directly underlines the UCU’s decision to ballot members at this point. The preservation of the sector’s capacity to contribute to the education of an increasing proportion of our population at a time of recession, and the preservation of employment stability for those who work in the sector is a key concern for all of us.
The unions have not invented the threat to jobs in HE. When the trade unions’ negotiators met the representatives of UCEA, it was the latter who declared that at a time of recession the unions would have to choose between jobs and pay. That was their bargaining position, and in just so many words. They came to the table clearly intending to use the recession, and what they hoped would be fear of job losses, to hold down wage settlements so as to reverse the small advances made by staff as a result of the 2006 dispute. Indeed, that was their privately acknowledged intention in the strategy seminars organized for the universities’ personnel departments by UCEA over the last year: how to roll back the unions’ relative success in the 2006 dispute. That was why they entered the national negotiations with an announcement that some 99 of their affiliated institutions were planning significant job losses. It was not a figure discovered by the UCU or by Unison, or by one of the other unions. It was a figure wielded by the employers’ representatives in the negotiations.
That is why the unions in the national negotiations are now seeking, as a matter of urgency, a national agreement on the avoidance of job losses. A time of recession is when the education sector should expand as a preparation for the future. It should not be facing job losses, and intensified pressure on resources. Indeed, the news that there has been an 8.8% increase in application for FT undergraduate places in September 2009 demands that more, not less, money should be available for HE at this time. Additionally, the use of poor RAE results to make cuts and redundancies, as was announced by the University of Liverpool, is nothing short of scandalous. There is no justification and no objective need for government to cut back on HE spending – witness President Obama’s decision, in the middle of a recession, to spend extra billions of dollars on higher education and research. But here the employers’ representatives nationally have refused even to discuss an agreement on redundancies, claiming that this is for the individual universities to determine. We know, however, that it is entirely within UCEA’s remit to draw up such an agreement to which every university ought to commit.
The Warden is right to talk of the ‘good relations’ between staff and management representatives at Goldsmiths and we appreciate management’s declaration that ‘we have no current plans for compulsory redundancies’. Yet Goldsmiths is not an island. There may be no immediate pressure for job losses here this year but, if staff/student ratios worsen dramatically in 100 other HE institutions, and if the fee cap is relaxed next year, the pressure on all universities and colleges will be to seek what are euphemistically called ‘efficiency gains’.
In reality, redundancies do not increase efficiency. Rather they undermine the quality of the educational service and they demoralize and demotivate staff. They result in the centralization and alienation of administrative and technical support, the ‘rationalisation’ of library and information provision, an increase in class sizes and the multiple delivery of lectures, an increase in the workload for those who remain, and a consequent decline in the students’ access to tutors and support workers, and in the quality of students’ overall experience of education. What happens in other institutions this year will be, in all likelihood, what will be forced on Goldsmiths in the future.
That is why our responsibility is not just with our own institution but also with the sector as a whole, and why our horizon cannot be defined by the very short term. That is the sense in which the campaign by the UCU and the other unions is not simply about the sectional interests of our own members but about the defence of university education as a public good. And that is the sense in which this dispute, and any consequent action, is not against the interests of our students but precisely for their benefit as safeguarding the quality of the provision designed for them. That is why the Goldsmiths should press UCEA to adopt the same kind of approach in respect of redundancies that the Warden has adopted here and thereby to encourage its universal adoption. Something of this kind, with appropriate procedures and protocols in place, is precisely what the UCU is seeking nationally.
Pay
Although job security is the key concern of the ballot, pay is not altogether irrelevant to UCU members. However, the Warden’s focus in his letter on the UCU’s claim for an 8% rise is a little disingenuous. He knows well that this figure was formulated as an aspiration over six months ago, well before the depths of the recession that have now been reached, and in response to the provocative declaration by some universities that they would only be offering 0%. Indeed, the Warden has made it clear to us that he thought that such bullish comments were extremely unhelpful. He also knows that there is now a joint union demand for a reasonable pay settlement for next year.
In fact, you might have been a little surprised to find not a single mention of the employers’ 0.3% pay offer to us in the Warden’s letter. Perhaps this is simply because a 0.3% offer is so hard to justify. Some employers are claiming that the 0.3% offer is reasonable because, on one measure of changes in the cost of living (RPI), inflation is now negative at -0.4%. This does not refer to the fact that RPI is now negative only because of the reduction in tracker mortgage rates, the fall in property prices, and the small reductions in buildings insurance. In respect of other prices, inflation is far from negative. According to the CPI measure (which excludes property-related costs), inflation is now running at 2.9% (March 2009). A 0.3% pay offer would lead to a return to the sedately declining real incomes of staff in HE that we had been experiencing for the two decades before the 2006 dispute. One does not need to be an economic wizard to realize that in the 2009-10 academic year inflation will be somewhere between 2% and 2.5% so a 0.3% settlement would be significant cut in real income.
The Dispute
The Warden does not wish for or seek confrontation, and neither do the unions. Our dispute is with the universities and colleges collectively, as represented by UCEA. The Warden states that he knows that ‘you would not wish to damage Goldsmiths or its future’ when choosing how to vote in the ballot. I am sure that we all agree on this. However, in facing our ballot papers, we must ask ourselves what the response of UCEA would be were we not to seek an agreement on redundancies and to accept the right (and the prospect) of employers to make devastating cuts? What would be the response of those managements (fortunately not our own) whose ambitions for radical restructuring and a cull of staff has only been restrained by anxiety over what such aggression would provoke from the UCU and from the other unions? What would then be next on the agenda? That is not difficult to answer: our final salary pension scheme looks to be the prime candidate.
UCU has been obliged to undertake a ballot for action at this time since, given the lack of any assurances on redundancies, the negotiating timetable mean we need to move to a precautionary ballot while negotiations are taking place. If we leave it until the end of the process we will not be able to take effective industrial action this academic year. It is essential though to be clear that a ballot for industrial action does not commit UCU to taking such action. We will only resort to industrial action when all other options have been exhausted. It is worth noting, however, that the threat to make disproportionate pay deductions in the event of ‘Partial Performance’, as contained in a recent letter from the director of human resources, is not helpful. Whilst this is now official UCEA policy, such excessive deductions have in the past been shown to be provocative, and may also open to legal challenge.
At Goldsmiths, the trade unions have a productive and collegial relationship with the University’s senior management based on a recognition of a shared commitment to the educational principles of openness and inclusivity. That we may now have differences over the fact and character of any dispute is unsurprising. For this reason we invite the Warden to present the University’s case over pay and redundancies to a meeting of all staff where the Union can also present its case. We suggest a discussion and not a formal debate since we would prefer to seek commonality of purpose rather than to emphasise division. We suggest that this meeting be held at a convenient time during the next three weeks.
The notice given by the Union is not a reckless attempt to derail negotiations but a consequence of the employers forcing us into an unsatisfactory negotiating procedure and for their failure to win the resources necessary to guarantee jobs and to provide a decently-resourced HE system. I hope you support the UCU in this vital struggle and look forward to seeing you at the general meeting next week.
Yours
Des Freedman
President, Goldsmiths UCU
Emergency General Meeting: Weds 13 May, 12.30pm RHB 137
Dear all,
You are shortly to receive a ballot paper from the UCU that will ask you
to support industrial action against proposed cuts and redundancies in the
HE sector.
In the context of a situation where UCEA, the employers' organisation,
told the UCU back in March that it expected some 100 institutions to
announce collective redundancies, it is vital that we provide a clear
response to UCEA that there is no justification for these job cuts.
The union had given UCEA until 20 April to provide a credible response to
its demands for the need for a national agreement to avoid redundancies in
the UK universities. A successful result in the ballot will help to make
the employers appreciate the gravity of the situation and stop dragging
their feet.
We are calling an emergency general meeting for all members at Goldsmiths
on Wednesday 13 May at 12.30 in RHB 137. The meeting will be addressed by
Matt Waddup, national head of campaigns and organising at the UCU. There
will also be an opportunity at the meeting to discuss the latest on the
Pay Forum and the promotions procedure and various other campaigns.
There is much more information on the dispute itself at:
http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3642
In the meantime, I do hope that you support the robust position the union
is taking against the devastating cuts and redundancies in our
universities.
best
Des
Des Freedman
President Goldsmiths UCU
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross
London SE14 6NW
Minutes of the 30.04.09 exec meeting now online
You can view them here or download as a Word document (.doc)
Challenging the Global Market in Education
Challenging the global market in education - building international solidarity in post-school education: a conference
Date: Saturday, 9 May 2009
Venue: London University Institute of Education
10am-4pm
More info (including online registration) here.
Urgent Support Needed for London Met UCU/UNISON
For more details on the situation and suggestions on what you can do, look here.
Archive of previous news items:
December 2008 and January 2009
Any questions? email us at
Read the statement from Sally Hunt on the postponment of the HE ballot, dated 18 May 2009
Read the joint statement against HE job cuts (signed by NUS, UCU, Unison, Unite, GMB and EIS).
