The demands of the UCU Left negotiators do not withstand scrutiny
Comments on their minority report
A majority (4 of 6) of UCU’s USS negotiators — as well as a majority of UCU’s Higher Education Committee (HEC) — have recommended that union members vote to “NOTE” continuing joint work with UUK, thereby pausing industrial action over USS for the time being. They write:
We do not believe that any further gains can be made from UUK at this stage that would either accelerate the timeline for the restoration of benefits or improve the outcomes for members. [my emphasis added]
By contrast, a minority of two of the six UCU negotiators, who are from the UCU Left faction of the union, are urging members “to continue industrial action to get clear unconditional commitments from employers”, including the following two:
“1. Removal of the condition on employers’ assessment of sustainability.”
“3. An explicit commitment to benefit restoration by individual employers confirmed in the legally-required consultation.”
As I shall explain in what follows, these two demands are highly problematic. This is a continuation of a pattern of their issuing demands which do not withstand scrutiny. [UPDATE: See this Twitter thread for a discussion of the flaws with their other two demands.]
The sustainability demand
Their first demand misrepresents the joint agreement.
There is no condition “on employers’ assessment of sustainability” (my emphasis added). In other words, the joint statement between UCU and UUK does not say that employer assessment of sustainability is a necessary condition of restoration of benefits. Rather, it says this: “we [i.e., UCU and UUK] jointly agreed to prioritise the improvement of benefits to pre-April 2022 levels, where this can be done in a demonstrably sustainable manner;”.
If UUK denies, whereas UCU affirms, that benefits can be restored “in a demonstrably sustainable manner”, this disagreement would ultimately be resolved by the independent chair’s casting vote in JNC, after UCU has tabled and UUK has opposed a restoration of benefits.
Hence, the UCU Left negotiators are mistaken in claiming that “employers could decide that it is not possible to restore our axed benefits in a sufficiently sustainable manner and that would be it for benefit restoration.” Employers lack such unilateral power to block restoration.
Especially given the history of past independent chairs in siding with employers, one would have grounds to fear that the current independent chair would resolve such a dispute in favour of the employers. But it is important to acknowledge that neither side has veto power, under existing agreements and the scheme rules, over whether benefits are restored. They would need the support of an independent chair who has been recently chosen by agreement of both UCU and UUK.
There remains the following case, on the merits, for both sides to have agreed to prioritize restoration of benefits “in a demonstrably sustainable manner”. The minority of negotiators write the following:
We should also learn from the experience of 2018 when we stood down action to get the Joint Expert Panel (JEP) and the next step was our benefits axed in 2022 following the 2020 valuation.
First, it is worth noting that the JEP, which was established as the result of 14 days of strikes in 2018, was instrumental in preserving defined benefits uncut for the next four years. That was a remarkable accomplishment which nobody anticipated at the time.
Second, the proper lesson to draw from this is that one needs to look beyond the current valuation and also try to ensure the likelihood that benefits and contributions can be sustained through the next valuation as well.
That is precisely what both sides are working in concert to achieve, in their agreement “to develop and implement a robust and transparent mechanism for managing risk which can provide more sustainable benefits and contributions for future valuations.”
Such sustainability is in the interests of both members and employers. It would therefore be perverse to launch a marking and assessment boycott to try to strip out the joint UCU-UUK commitment to restore benefits “in a demonstrably sustainable manner.”
The demand for an unconditional employer pre-commitment to benefit restoration
In defence of their third demand, the UCU Left negotiators write:
UUK are also required to consult with individual employers. Many of them have made statements supporting prioritisation of benefit restoration, but there is no guarantee that this will lead to support for benefit restoration in the consultation.
To try to provide the relevant guarantee now, the third demand calls on employers to pre-commit to a particular position arising from the consultation on the valuation before they have had sight of the relevant consultation document in late June at the earliest, for a consultation that is scheduled to run from July to September.
But how does it make good sense to send members out on costly industrial action now to try to force their employers to provide an unconditional pre-commitment to benefit restoration before the costs of such restoration have been spelled out in the consultation document?
Insisting on an unconditional employer commitment to benefit restoration at this stage is especially problematic, given that such a commitment could not be conditional on members agreeing to restoration of the DB/DC salary threshold in a subsequent 60-day member consultation which would not close before December. Why insist on an unconditional employer commitment at this point, rather than one conditional on members also agreeing to such restoration?
Moreover, just as it would be unreasonable to demand that members pre-commit to restoration of the DB/DC salary threshold before they have had sight of the relevant consultation material, it is unreasonable to demand that employers pre-commit to benefit restoration before they have had sight of the relevant consultation material.
Unless one prioritizes sending members out on a costly marking and assessment boycott above all else, there is no fierce urgency to the call for such an unconditional employer commitment NOW.
UPDATE: I have now posted this Twitter thread which discusses problems with the other two demands of the UCU Left negotiators:
