Our college, our community, our union

'Our college, our community, our union' is a broad campaign in defence of education.

Support the campaign

Visit the activist campaigning resource centre for some ideas on how to get involved.

• The campaign
• Getting a better deal for FE staff
• Campaign in action - key events timeline
  

LATEST

UCU calls on government to abandon plans for adult learning cuts after college leaders warned that hundreds of courses may face the axe

Adult learning cuts will put hundreds of courses at risk warns UCU

Campaigning against funding cuts

UCU and the other FE trade unions have launched an online petition as the first step in a fight for funding for further and adult education that will be crucial to saving jobs and courses in the next few years. As we run up to the next general election it is vital that we raise the profile of the crucial role that further and adult education play in our communities and the national economy. Now is not the time to be putting the infrastructure of FE, both human and capital, at risk with funding cuts. See the joint unions' petition statement and help the unions' campaign by signing the petition online now.

Further delays in college building crisis

UCU today called for an urgent resolution to the building crisis in further education, after the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) said there would be further delays in announcing funding: UCU calls for end to delays in college building crisis

FE buildings, 16 -18 & Train to Gain funding for FE colleges in England

UCU has issued a bulletin updating branches on actions already taken and those planned by UCU and the other FE unions on the emerging funding crises in FE England. This includes information on the College Capital (Buildings) Funding Programme, 16–18 LSC funding allocations and Train to Gain funding:  UCU branch update: buildings programme & funding, Apr 09 (.pdf) [162kb]

UCU manifesto for further education

The collapse of the global financial markets has already brought about an unprecedented rethinking by politicians and economists about how we run our society. Unfortunately, further and adult education, due to inadequate funding, the way funds are distributed and the government's emphasis on skills and accreditation, is not in a position to be able to respond to a new period of mass unemployment:  Further and adult education: responding to a new economic and social climate, Mar 09 (.pdf) [600kb]

'Time to pay up' campaign

The trade unions are calling time on the minority of FE colleges that are refusing to implement nationally agreed pay deals negotiated with the Association of Colleges (AoC). The six recognised unions (ACM, ATL, GMB, UCU, UNISON & UNITE) have come together to launch the 'Time to Pay Up' campaign to target offending colleges. All unions are committed to joint national and local campaigning.

Read more here:  campaign launch notice and model letter to college principals calling for urgent negotiations on full implementation (.rtf) [16kb]

UCU is currently engaged in targeting colleges that have still to pay the shortened pay scales agreed in 2004. This will continue to be a major focus of our activity and we hope that where possible other unions will now join us. The aim of this new joint initiative is to widen and increase pressure on employers to honour national pay settlements. Breakthroughs have been made at several colleges.

Find out more here: IOU - no more teaching on the cheap

Cuts to A level provision

UCU is very concerned about the marked increase in the number of A level courses being dropped by FE colleges. These developments not only threaten our members' jobs and pay, but they also threaten to erode their professional status and to destroy their public and community function: find out more about A level cuts

The campaign

The slogan 'our college, our community, our union' expresses the reality that further education is under pressure from a range of developments:

• a public policy context that emphasizes skills for business over community-based learning for all and which fails to allocate sufficient resources to fund professional pay levels
• marketisation, which threatens to turn education into a commodity and which throws colleges into destructive competition which each other and with private sector providers
• privatisation, whereby colleges are removed entirely from democratic control and stripped of their community function.

All of these developments threaten our members' jobs and pay, but they also threaten to erode their professional status and to destroy their public and community function - providing education for people of all backgrounds, all ages, all abilities and all communities.

That's why UCU has launched a broad campaign to defend education. 

'Our college, our community, our union' is a campaign that recognises that these pressures are interlinked and reinforce each other and that thereby enables us to campaign effectively on all these issues. The NUT has already signed up to this campaign and other sister unions in the education sector will be invited to join.

Getting a better deal for FE staff

Pay, rising workloads, increased stress, the threat of privatisation, course closures, overwhelming bureaucracy and cuts in funding for the needy are all significant issues for FE members. In this context what we are paid may just be one issue, but it is a mark of the respect we have from employers and government.

Why is it, then, that FE members in England:

1. teach school children, but earn less than school teachers
2. teach A-Levels, but earn less than sixth-form teachers
3. provide HE in FE, yet earn less than university staff?

UCU is seeking a better deal for FE staff which matches the rise in prices and the contribution members make to our colleges. Alongside this, a significant number of English FE colleges are still not paying the recommended pay to teaching staff because they haven't implemented the revised pay scales agreed in 2004 which reduced the pay gap between FE staff and schoolteachers.

UCU is fighting these issues under the umbrella of  'Our college, our community, our union'.

Campaign in action: key events timeline

How key strands in the campaign are unfolding:

• November 2008 - IOU: no more teaching on the cheap
  
  UCU launches a new campaigning initiative to get the significant number of English FE colleges still not paying the recommended pay to teaching staff to implemented the revised pay scales agreed in 2004. UCU has been asking those colleges to bring their pay into line with others and pay the agreed rates for four years: IOU - no more teaching on the cheap
• Our college, our community, our union - September 2008: UCU raises fears over A-level provision
  
  UCU raises concerns about the marked increase in the number of A level courses being dropped by FE colleges; developments which not only threaten our members' jobs and pay, but which also threaten to erode their professional status and to destroy their public and community function: find out more about A level cuts
• Pay - October 2008: members vote to accept pay offer
  
  College lecturers vote to accept 3.2% pay offer
  
  A special conference in September 2008 had agreed to recommend that members accept the 2008-9 AOC pay offer of 3.2% from 1 October 2008. The conference recognised that the offer did fall significantly behind the 6% claim and the current rate of inflation, but felt it was the best that could be achieved in the present circumstances: Special FE sector conference recommends members accept pay offer
  The original offer from the employers on May 2008 was 2.5%.
• Pay - June 2008: lunchtime protests
  
  Pay talks were scheduled for 5 June. To put the employers under as much pressure as possible ahead of these discussions, branches organised joint union lunchtime protests on 4 June to demand a better deal: Pay protests: 4 June
  London members repeated the action on Monday 9 June as pickets turned out and members stayed away across the capital's colleges. This sent a clear message to college principals that FE members will not settle for low pay and will not go away: read the strike day reports
• Pay - April 2008: members strike
  
  College lecturers in England went on strike on Thursday 24 April in support of a demand to bring their pay up to that of schoolteachers: College lecturers walk out across England
  
  Many strike reports from across the country have come in. See also reports on the national and local media.
  
   Read Sally Hunt's speech to the London rally (.pdf) [63kb]
  
  A briefing was sent to MPs in affected areas:  read the briefing here (.pdf) [66kb]
• Our college, our community, our union - March 2008: NUT and students support campaign
  
  UCU receives a massive boost with the news that both the National Union of Teachers and the National Union of Students (NUS) are supporting the 'our colleges, our communities' campaign:
  Unions join forces to get a better deal for education staff
  Four million learners join UCU campaign for a better deal
  
  Download: and
• Our college, our community, our union - March 2008: 'Get organised' recruitment week
  
  UCU's 'get organised' recruitment week rolled out during 3-7 March.
• Our college, our community, our union - December 2007: Joint education union rally
  
  UCU took part in a joint education union rally in December 2007. See pay rally videos
• Our college, our community, our union: Happy Christmas 2007 employers
  
  To kick off the 'Our college, our community, our union' campaign, in just over two weeks before Christmas 2007, UCU collected thousands of signatures from hundreds of colleges across the country for our Scrooge card to the employers which was sent to the Association of Colleges after a pay offer for English colleges of only 2.55%. See College staff say 'no' to Scrooge employers' deal