UCU branches plan coordinated fightback to ‘apocalyptic’ job cuts

Several branches of the University and College Union (UCU) have come together to form a coalition against the cuts happening across the higher education sector, saying that a lack of action from the central union is “making people lose hope”.

The “Save HE Committee” consists of more than 15 university unions including staff at some of the hardest-hit institutions such as Goldsmiths, University of London and the universities of Essex and Nottingham.

Formed after a brutal summer of job cuts, the group has published a “manifesto for higher education” and has organised a day of action for 27 October, the day before the chancellor John Healey unveils his latest Budget, which is not expected to include much salvation for cash-strapped institutions.

Branches at Nottingham and Goldsmiths – which are engaged in long-running strikes against their universities’ plans – will hold “funeral marches” for the sector on their campuses.

Other universities involved are Glasgow, Essex, Greenwich, London South Bank, Warwick, Newcastle, London Metropolitan and UCL. It includes representation from UCU and Unison branches.

Des Freedman from the Goldsmiths UCU branch, who oversaw the creation of the manifesto, said that the movement began over the summer when numerous universities announced major job cuts, and was motivated by a desire to ensure that “no one was left to fight alone”.

“There’s such frustration and fear for what we see as almost apocalyptic for certain branches, and yet there wasn’t a national response from the union,” he said.

The central UCU branch has since announced its own day of action for 20 November. Freedman welcomed the announcement but said: “We just wish it had happened sooner, we were forced to fill a vacuum”.

“They’re the ones who should be pre-empting all of this with their finger on the pulse. They should be the ones who are providing leadership in all of this, because otherwise lots of us are feeling very isolated.”

The manifesto argues that the crisis facing higher education is “not a natural disaster but one that has been created by bad political and economic choices” and commits to “building stronger mechanisms of support between branches, sharing resources, coordinating action and strengthening collective organisation across higher education”. 

Staff at Nottingham will dress as ghosts, ghouls, skeletons and other Halloween characters, and take part in the “funeral procession” to highlight “the nightmare of the restructuring programmes”. 

Andreas Bieler, vice-president of the Nottingham UCU branch, said that coordinating strike action is designed “to show the link between the problems across the higher education sector”.

He said the coordinated action “shows a certain level of seriousness and commitment to confront the changes, not just institution by institution, but also at a higher, national level, because we are unhappy with how our management at Goldsmiths, Nottingham, Edinburgh, for example, are dealing with the financial situations”.

Ruth Ballardie, co-chair of the University of Greenwich branch, and one of the authors of the manifesto, said: “I think across a lot of branches right now there’s been a lot of dissatisfaction with what’s going on in the sector, and the national UCU’s inadequate response.”

Consequently, members of her branch “were losing trust that anything could change”, and this coalition was “an opportunity to start giving people hope that there is something we could do”.

Ballardie said it had been “fantastic” coordinating with other branches because “to a large extent, branches have been left on their own to fight redundancies, so being part of sharing knowledge with other branches and other unions within higher education has been really encouraging that you’re not alone”.

Although she welcomed the day of action announced by the central UCU, “grassroots members and branches have been pushing and pushing for them to take more action…they’re doing it because they’re being forced to”.

Ballardie said the coalition plans to continue collaborating after the day of action, which will see her branch participate in a pre-Budget march through London to Downing Street, and they hope to hold a convention to launch the manifesto. “This is just the soft beginning,” she said.

Responding to the criticism of the union, UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “It is positive to see UCU members and branches building resistance that highlights the growing crisis in higher education.

“This activity will help to build momentum for the National Day of Action on Friday 20 November where every UCU branch in the UK will come together at all universities to protest against job cuts, course closures and the relentless attacks on higher education.” 

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com