HE sector conference: Nov 10 - motions

Please note: some items were reordered onto the agenda. The final list of motions debated and the results of the voting will be available as soon as possible.

Section 1 - Strategy

1 Defending HE - University of Bristol

HESC:

Notes:

1. The drastic cuts proposed in higher education and public services.

Welcomes:

1. Following concern expressed from UCU branches, the convening of a HE Special Sector Conference to consider the attacks we face due to these cuts.

Believes:

1. UCU must take a strong position to defend the future and quality of higher education.
2. The Fund Our Future campaign to Defend Jobs/Defend Higher Education commencing on November 10th should be vigorously pursued and effective industrial action considered.
3. The timing of any such industrial action needs to be carefully considered and should commence when we have clear information about the government's intentions.

Affirms:

1. Its willingness to ballot for industrial action to defend jobs, pensions, conditions and the future of higher education.

Calls:

1. For the HE Special Sector Conference to discuss a detailed plan and timeline for action to resist all attacks outlined above.

2 Open University

This HE Sector Conference recognizes that members are deeply concerned about the proposed detrimental changes to pension funds and about the massive cuts to HE funding and consequential loss of employment in the sector.

Conference asks the HEC to organize and co-ordinate the campaign so that action on all fronts is as timely and effective as possible

3 Higher Education Committee

Conference notes with concern:

• The Browne Review proposals to introduce a market in student fees and to withdraw state funding from so-called 'non-priority' taught programmes;
• The huge cuts to university funding proposed in the comprehensive spending review

Conference believes that such proposals threaten to destroy UK higher education and leave generations without the opportunity of university education. This level of cuts threatens jobs across all parts of the sector, setting institution against institution and colleague against colleague, leading to the implosion of the entire sector. Only unity across the sector can prevent this nightmare scenario.

Conference deplores these most serious attacks on universities in a generation and resolves to run a vigorous political campaign placing our job security objectives in the context of a broader defence of education

3A.1 University of Liverpool

After 'Conference believes that such proposals', insert 'create social inequality,'

3A.2 University of Manchester

Add at the end of the final paragraph: '...and to co-ordinate nationally industrial action ballots at all institutions that face cuts in terms of compulsory and voluntary redundancies.'

4 Defend the single-tier USS with industrial action if necessary - Cardiff University

HESC recognises:

1. that, while rejecting the 0.4% pay offer, our other priorities are job security and defence of pensions
2. that we must defend job security and USS benefits for new and existing members
3. uncertainties following the Browne Report and Comprehensive Spending Review.

And calls upon UCU to:

1. recognize that the threat to jobs and the USS is fundamental and must trigger immediate industrial action if the consequences of public spending cuts and potential changes to the USS prove unacceptable to UCU members
2. build on collaboration with the NUS to mobilize students and staff against fees and job cuts.

5 Job Security - Northumbria University

In the light of the outcome of the Browne Review and the government's determination to implement it, as well as the planned cutbacks in the science budget, Conference resolves to work with other HE unions to step up the campaign for an agreement on job security with the employers, including:-

1. Institutions to commit (a) to limiting student recruitment in order to maintain the same market shares as at present and (b), to protect lecturers against increased teaching loads
2. Cross-subsidies, retraining and redeployment schemes within institutions to avoid compulsory redundancies
3. The setting up of a national redeployment scheme, regionally based in the first instance, so that staff threatened with redundancy in their own institution have priority consideration for suitable vacancies elsewhere
4. Protection of pension rights for those made temporarily redundant.

Section 2 - Tactics

6  Higher Education Committee

1. Conference notes the outcome of the recent regional UCU consultation: (a) that jobs and pensions were the priority issues and (b) that the employers' offer remained unacceptable with regard to pay and in every other respect
2. Conference resolves (i) to ballot on industrial action including discontinuous strike action and action short of a strike; (ii) to initiate two separate but parallel ballots on the employers' offer and USS pensions; (iii) to commence both ballots immediately after the meeting of the USS board on pensions on 20th January.

6A.1 Birkbeck, University of London

Insert at the end of point ii
(iv) to work closely with the TUC, other Higher Education unions and the NUS to co-ordinate campaigning.

6A.2 University of Northumbria

Bullet point ii: delete "(i) to ballot on ... to commence both ballots" and replace with "(i) to run a highly visible campaign explaining to members the necessity for balloting on action over the employers' failure to commit on job security, and to open a ballot on strike action and action short of a strike in February 2011; and (ii) to initiate a parallel ballot on USS pensions.

7 Northern Ireland HE Committee

HESC deplores the aggressive attack on HE by government and employers which forms part of a full blown neo-liberal agenda designed to privatise and marketise UK HE.

HESC recognises, however, that it would be playing into the hands of the enemy to wage a campaign of industrial action on three fronts simultaneously.

HESC instructs HEC to

1. Ballot on industrial action on pensions if the USS Board ignores the views of members expressed in the referendum
2. Create the broadest possible alliance in defence of jobs and education which can, as the impact of the cuts unfolds, take coordinated and aggressive action including industrial action.
3. Reject real terms pay cuts, recognising that action on pay will be necessary when objectives 1 and 2 have been achieved.

8 Industrial Action - Northern Region HE committee

UCU Conference notes:

1. UCEA has offered 0.4% pay rise (given inflation this is a de facto pay cut) which has been rejected by UCU;
2. UCEA has refused to make a national agreement with UCU on job security and avoidance of redundancies
3. UCEA has made no offer on assimilating hourly-paid staff to the pay spine on fractional contracts
4. Pay, jobs and pensions are all interlinked

HESC instructs HEC to ballot:-

1. The membership to prepare immediately for industrial action following the HESC, given the employers' refusal to give any guarantees on job security;
2. The pre-1992 University membership on industrial action immediately following 20th January 2011 should the employers decide to push through the punitive proposals to USS pensions on that date;

9 USS Pension Scheme - University of Manchester

Whilst Conference fully recognises the current injustices in respect of pay, the union's strategic priorities in the HE sector must focus currently on pensions, cuts and tuition fees.

Regarding pensions, the employers' vicious attacks on USS have provoked the strongest opposition and criticism of employers by our union members in years. The strength of feeling over this issue has the potential to unite all sections of the union and lays the basis for a much more confrontational response to the employers than UCU has mobilised to date.

With this in mind, Conference instructs the union: (i) to explore all possibilities to secure an injunction to prevent the USS Trustee Board meeting on 20th January 2011; (ii) to organise an industrial action (including strikes) ballot forthwith in defence of USS, with the intention that action be taken prior to the pending USS Trustee Board meeting whenever that occurs.

10 Pensions - Yorkshire and Humberside Regional HE Committee

HE Sector Conference resolves to ballot the pre-1992 university membership on industrial action immediately following 20 January 2011, should the employers decide to push through the punitive proposals to USS pensions on the 20th January 2011.

11 Composite: Jobs and the national pay claim - London South Bank University Southwark, University of Brighton Moulscoomb and Grande Parade, UWE, London Metropolitan University North

HESC notes:

• the CSR and Browne privatisation plan require a national agreement on redundancy avoidance, conversion of casual contracts, equal pay, and extension of the spine
• the gender pay gap persists at 15% to 20%
• the 80% cut to teaching funding proposed in the CSR
• massive increases in work intensity require local workload models consistent with national policy
• real incomes, eroded by 2.8% since 2006, would fall a further 7.7% by 2012, extrapolating 0.4% against expected inflation
• abuse of HPL contracts remains widespread.

HESC believes:

• defence of pensions is an intrinsic part of the fight for educational provision, jobs and contractual terms. Attacks on jobs, pensions and conditions shift costs on to employees
• we urgently need a national agreement on redundancy avoidance to defend educational provision and our members terms and conditions.

HESC resolves on an immediate ballot for industrial action in defence of public higher education, and in support of our demands:

• a national redundancy avoidance agreement;
• closing the equality pay gap;
• transferring HPLs to fractional contracts;
• extending the national framework pay spine;
• preserving real incomes;
• payment for external examiners.

HESC urges the formation of local UCU/NUS resistance and solidarity committees.

12 Composite: Balloting the membership over job security and pay - Goldsmiths University of London, Yorkshire and Humberside Regional HE committee

HE Sector Conference notes:

1. The systematic attack on public funding of the university system as contained in the Browne Review and the Comprehensive Spending Review
2. That UCEA has refused to make a national agreement with on job security and redundancy avoidance, and has offered a 0.4% pay rise - a de facto pay cut - which has been rejected by UCU
3. Pay, jobs and pensions are interlinked.

HE Sector Conference therefore resolves that immediately following the special Sector Conference, UCU ballot the HE membership on industrial action to defend jobs and conditions, based on the employers' unwillingness to negotiate over the joint unions' claim, in particular their refusal to give any guarantees on job security.

Given the employer's unwillingness to protect universities from cuts in staffing and provision, the UCU must demonstrate its willingness to consider serious industrial action to protect the livelihoods of its members.

Section 3 - Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS)

13 Northern Ireland HE Committee

HESC instructs HEC to play a leading role in forming an alliance with the school teaching unions to take action in defence of TPS.

14 Composite - Higher Education Committee, Northern Region HE committee

Conference resolves to monitor developments in relation to TPS and authorises HEC to consult with FEC and interested parties with a view to balloting for industrial action should any attempt be made to impose detrimental changes in an attack on TPS.

15 Composite - Yorkshire and Humberside Region HE committee, UWE, University of Brighton Grand Parade, London Metropolitan University North

HE Sector Conference believes that there should be industrial action to defend TPS. It calls for a national meeting of UCU members in TPS, from both FE and HE, to decide UCU's proposals for defending TPS. These proposals will then be made to and negotiated with the schoolteacher unions.        

15A.1 Compositing amendment - London Metropolitan University North

          First sentence, before 'industrial action', insert 'a plan of'.

Section 4 - Future planning: forms of industrial action

16 Forms of industrial action - University of Liverpool

Conference notes:

1. Boycotts of assessment, student recruitment and research-related activities remain particularly effective tactics.

Conference instructs the HEC to:

1. Immediately explore ways of organising assessment boycotts in ways that maximise disruption whilst avoiding the problem of employers rejecting partial performance (for example conducting marking and withholding marks)
2. Plan for extended discontinuous strike action. We propose 1 week per month, strategically decided to achieve maximum impact, where possible, co-ordinated with the actions of other unions for maximum disruption of university business.
3. Clarify its position on the industrial action it will use in any forthcoming campaign

16A.1 Birkbeck, University of London

Insert at end

4. Ensure that action short of a strike is as inclusive as possible and includes actions that are appropriate for all UCU represented staff, including academic related staff and research staff.