Introducing Bijan Parsia!
Dear subscribers,
Today, we’re introducing Bijan Parsia (he/they) from the University of Manchester, who is running for a second term as Disabled Members’ rep from HE. In this mailout, Bijan reflects on the current crisis, as well as UCU’s ongoing internal splits over strategy.
We’ve just entered the final week of the election period, which means our focus should now be on scooping up every possible remaining vote. NEC seats have recently been won and lost on extremely narrow margins, so every last vote counts!
You’ll find more information about all UCU Commons candidates on our website. We have also written an explainer of the role of NEC and the elected officers, how the voting system works, and why it is vitally important to vote in these elections. Please keep reading and sharing it!
The UCU national officer hustings were held on Wednesday 5th February, and the recording is now available online. We strongly recommend giving it a watch.
If you haven’t yet voted, don’t delay. The last day to order a replacement ballot is Monday 24th February. The last safe posting day (without adding a First Class stamp) is Tuesday 25th February. Ballots can still be posted until Thursday 27th February, but if you wait until then, make sure you attach a First Class stamp. The ballot closes at 5pm on Monday 3rd March.
Please keep voting, and keep telling your friends and colleagues to vote!
In solidarity,
UCU Commons
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Bijan Parsia elections mailout:
I’m running for a second term as Disabled Members Representative (HE) to the National Executive Committee (NEC). This will be my third term on NEC.
It is clear that we have strong disagreements about how to effect positive change in the sector. In general, UCU has a lot more agreement about *goals* than we do about *strategies*. I think it is important to develop a shared understanding of what worth trying under what conditions. Here’s a rough framework I use.
# Situation Analysis
Obviously, there are lots changes we want and often management doesn’t what to make those changes. Hence, we negotiate, and if that fails, we declare a dispute, and, if we don’t see progress, proceed to industrial action (IA). But before we go down this path, we all, *always*, analyze whether the changes are possible.
For example, it is UCU’s position that student fees should be abolished everywhere in the UK. I have yet to see anyone suggest that we declare a dispute on that with, oh, UCEA or even with individual institutions though, in fact, institutions can set their own fee level and thus set it to zero.
Obviously, if an institution did this without an alternative source of funding (e.g., from the Government) the institution would immediately collapse for lack of funds.
Thus, even if we did get a ballot out and made threshold and went on IA, we would not achieve our goal no matter how many people went out on strike. I don’t think anyone thinks that many people would go on strike or that we’d meet threshold.
While the goal (abolition of student fees (though we should be talking about international fees too)) is (arguably) just and, indeed, pressing, no one has ever suggested declaring a dispute or, heck, even negotiations on this. Feasibility is a key feature of any analysis. If we can reasonably assess that the employers will never give, IA is pointless.
Similarly, if we cannot mobilize members in sufficient numbers to make the 50% threshold, we probably cannot mobilize them in sufficient numbers to move employers. Without a power dynamic analysis…who’s willing to go on strike, the effects of them going on strike, the pain it causes employers, and how well the employers can counter those effects…there’s no reasonable discussion to be had about IA.
Industrial Action isn’t magic, it’s an exercise of power. It’s not a symbolic power, it’s an actual power. If the power disparity is too great, no amount of enthusiasm will make up for that.
# The Current Crisis
There are many crises afflicting UK Higher Education. There is the long, endless burn of causalisation afflicting so many people. There’s the current hot burn of redudancies and workforce contraction across around two thirds of universities. These interact, of course. Where there is a high profile voluntary severance scheme or involuntary redundancy notice, you can be sure there are unrenewed or even more fractional casual contracts. There is ongoing pay erosion. There is the possibility of institutions collapsing.
The Government seems supremely unconcerned with neither the perennial injustices nor the existential threat of Higher Education. The only move they made was to give a small bump to the tuition cap which was swamped by the rise in National Insurance.
Yes, the response of the Labour Government to the fiscal and job apocalypse in HE is to effectively impose more costs which are proportional to size and renumeration of the labour force.
As a Trade Union, UCU has to oppose these job cuts. But each redundancy has local variation which needs local response. Of course, the Government could design a package that would help all institutions in need, but it is unclear that IA would move the needle here. A Government indifferent to >10,000 jobs lost and the risk of institutional collapse in areas where the local university is a key pillar of the viability of the local community doesn’t seem like one to be moved by adding striking university staff to the mix.
At the very least, those who believe otherwise owe a more specific story of the causal mechanism. What’s the evidence that a national strike will bring a rescue package? Are we relevantly similar to public sector unions which have won victories against the Government especially given that Universities are not classified as public sector.
# Public Reason
I first ran for NEC in response to the levy following on the very weird 2019 “escalating” strikes. These were held without additional consultation or even mobilization of members (I don’t recall anything) and were weird. The arguments given did not make sense to me. While I feel the moral imperative to not cross a picket line, I think elected leaders have a moral imperative to the members they represent to make clear, sensible, and justifiable decisions.
I recall the current candidate for Honorary Treasurer speaking to my branch about the USS strikes. She said that when members asked her how long the strikes would need to last, she replied, roughly, “One day longer than the employers can hold out”.
I’m still puzzled by that.