As we are approaching further key steps in our USS and Four Fights disputes – with the employers’ intention to reject the UCU proposals on USS, the JNC tomorrow and the next HEC meeting planned for Friday 25 February – we are making the responses to our consultation of the HEC members public.
After the 18 January Branch Delegates’ Meetings and the HEC meeting the day after, 39 branch delegates (representing 27 branches throughout the country) signed a letter to the members of the HEC to query how they voted in the HEC meeting which decided on the next steps in relation to strike action in the USS and Four Fights disputes.
We noted, first, that the 2021 Higher Education Sector Conference reaffirmed that the Four Fights and USS disputes must be kept together; secondly, that the Branch Delegates’ Meetings on 18 January 2022 was very strongly in favour of escalating strike action and of keeping the two disputes together. According to our analysis of the google docs written by delegates: 95.1% of the branches that explicitly expressed a view at the USS BDM supported escalation and 82.9% supported the view that the two disputes must be kept together. At the meeting on the Four Fights, 81.4% of delegates explicitly expressed support for escalation; 67.1% expressed the view that 4FF and USS disputes should be kept together.
Given that regrettably no vote was taken at the BDM, we asked HEC members whether the HEC considered the branches’ positions before the vote, and whether they decided to follow the branch position supported by the majority of branch delegates or not. We also asked HEC members whether they voted to separate the disputes or voted for actions (like regional rolling strikes) that were not put forward to branch delegates at the Branch Delegates Meeting. 18 members of the HEC replied; 19 members did not reply. This is in itself quite significant as we informed HEC members that we intended to publish their responses online for the sake of democracy and transparency.
This is what we gathered for the responses we received:
- The BDM documents were made available to HEC members but no summary or quantitative analysis was provided of the 100+ pages. It is therefore not entirely clear how the delegates’ positions were fed into HEC discussion.
- The Mayer and Hersh motion, which respondents believe reflected the majority position at the BDM, was narrowly defeated at the HEC.
- HEC members were not clear on what forms of action they were voting on e.g. type of strike actions. Some HEC members believe that the next steps of the Four Fights and USS disputes passed at HEC decouple the disputes; some others do not think HEC voted to decouple the disputes.
- The regional/national action was part of a set of recommendations proposed by UCU senior national official Paul Bridge but was not related to anything submitted in advance to the BDMs and appears not to reflect the view of any branch at the BDM. There was a move to vote on taking these recommendations in parts, but this did not pass, and some members of the HEC felt they had no other choice but to vote in favour in order for the strike to go ahead.
We urge UCU members to take these responses (or lack of responses) into account when thinking about the future of these disputes and democracy in our union.
Name | Role | Voted for escalation? | Voted to keep two disputes together? | Voted against regional strikes and proposals not submitted to BDM? | Replied? |
Vicky Blake | President (HE) | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Marian Mayer | Rep disabled members | Yes | Yes | yes | Yes |
Bee Hughes | Rep. LGBT+ members (HE) | Yes | Yes – Despite being the only representative of LGBT+ members on HEC, Bee was not permitted to vote on USS because not at USS university | Yes | Yes |
Robyn Orfitelli | Rep. migrant members (HE) | – | – | – | Yes – did not attend because of unavoidable personal reasons |
Holly Smith | HE – London and East | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Rhiannon Lockley | HE – Midlands | Yes | Yes | Abstained | Yes |
Linda Moore | HE – Northern Ireland | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Lena Wånggren | HE – Scotland | Unclear | Unclear | No | Yes |
Ann Swinney | HE – Scotland | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Deepa Govindarajan Driver | HE – South | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Aris Katzourakis | HE – South | Yes | Yes | Unclear | Yes |
Mark Abel | HE- South | Yes | Yes but wasn’t allowed to vote on the next steps of USS dispute because in pos-92 institution | Yes | Yes |
Vida Greaux | HE – Wales | Yes | Yes | Unclear | Yes |
Jo McNeill | HE – UK-elected | Yes – missed the meeting because of unavoidable personal reasons | |||
Marion Hersh | HE – UK-elected | Yes | Yes | Unclear | Yes |
Lesley McGorrigan | HE – UK-elected | Yes | Yes | Abstained | Yes |
Saira Weiner | HE – North West | Yes | Yes but wasn’t allowed to vote on the next steps of USS dispute because in pos-92 institution | Yes | Yes |
Pura Ariza | Rep. women members (HE) | Yes | Yes but wasn’t allowed to vote on the next steps of USS dispute because in pos-92 institution | Yes | Yes |
No responses from:
Justine Mercer (chair) | Vice-President (HE) | No | |||
Steve Sangwine | Honorary Treasurer | No | |||
Victoria Showunmi (vice-chair) | Rep. Black members (HE) | No | |||
Ben Pope | Rep. casually employed members (HE) | No | |||
Joanna de Groot | Rep. women members (HE) | No | |||
Joanne Edge | Rep women members (HE) | No | |||
Sarah Brown (vice-chair) | HE – London and East | No | |||
Claire Marris | HE – London and East | No | |||
Emma Battell Lowman | HE – Midlands | No | |||
Chris Grocott | HE – Midlands | No | |||
Bruce Baker | HE – North East | No, on sick leave | |||
Joan Harvey | HE – North East | No | |||
Ruth Holliday | HE – North East | No – on sick leave | |||
Philippa Browning | HE – North West | No | |||
Sally Pellow | HE – South | No | |||
Ann Gow | HE – UK-elected | No | |||
Adam Ozanne | HE – UK-elected | No | |||
Bijan Parsia | HE – UK-elected | No | |||
Chris O’Donnell | HE – UK-elected | No | |||