Day 7

Penultimate day of strike for 2019 and our numbers are still strong! We had interesting chats with students (who, again, stressed their full support even though some of them are busy canvassing leading up to the general election!).

We received the visit of Martyn Moss, Regional Official for North West, who congratulated us on the turn out which he says echoes the commitment he has seen in Liverpool and Manchester. He noted that employers used to refuse to discuss pay gap and that our efforts had forced them to go back to negotiations – strikes work! Martyn also informed us that 3,000 new members joined UCU over the past ten days, proving that the issues we are fighting against are widely shared across the sector.

Julie invited us to read this ‘seven deadly sins of HE‘ blog note by Lee Jones, and to reflect on further issues in HE that we have been discussing in pickets and online over the past 7 days. She also clarified what Action Short of Strike (ASOS) means: to withdraw goodwill which is what our sector runs on. This for example includes: going to graduation ceremonies, covering for sick colleagues, etc. She noted that while we did take place in climate emergency action on Friday, we also need to declare a Higher Education emergency (some people on twitter have been using the hashtag #ExhaustionRebellion).

We also received the visit of Steve Bradley, interim VC, who didn’t want to address us all on the megaphone but talked to a few of us who managed to make their concerns about the University’s stance on taking all strike deduction pay in January heard. We hope that he leads HR into spreading these deductions over a few months as we’ve asked.

In the afternoon, we gathered for a ‘teach out/workshop’ on crafting policy at Lancaster UCU. We talked about university governance and the lack of transparency regarding capital expenditure, as well as the role of surveys: how they are being used, what is not working and whether there’s a better way they could be used.

At the national level, negotiators met with UUK on 2nd December. Jo Grady has asked in a letter to Phil Harding (UUK JNC Chair) that USS’ chair of board step down (at least temporarily) following lack of goodwill in attempts to share information and solve the dispute.

This meeting led to a statement by UCU on their twitter account noting that the strike efforts were working and that meetings would take place at the end of the week between national UCU and branches to discuss ways to move forward.