UCU Left’s Trotskyist politics are driving UK HE’s perennial strikes

This reading of things is somewhat simplistic, and thus comes across as just more factional infighting (even if its core message has some merit). Don't get me wrong I hate UCU Left was much as anyone - even more than I hate other factions (including pseudo- "we are not a faction", fations), which is saying something. For example, the authors talk about the BDM and HEC meeting in late 2022. Its true that a proposal for indefinite strikes was pushed through. Its also true that the BDM voted against a proposal for indefinite strikes. But my experience of the consultation that led up to that BDM, and the reports of people present at it was one of frustration that the terms of debate were so narrow, and that the only options available were those dictated by the GS. For what its worth my branch did vote for an indefinite strike in a whole brach e-Vote (where as I voted against it). I can't help thinking that it was a rebellion against feeling that they were being told what to do with by the GS. The story was the same for the vote on the employers offer in spring last year. People rebelled against the feeling they were being manipulated by the GS, with her podcasts that only put one side of the argument etc. In this way, perhaps the difference is that UCUL is better at keeping its manipulation of people subtle enough they don't notice it. Both these cases show the downsides of eConsultation-like processes - its only as good as the questions asked. I'm not particularly keen on the democracy of the loudest voices you get with branch meetings either. I don't think either method, as currently used, really allows us knowledge of how the majority of the membership think. Of course, one thing that does is the industrial action ballots, and whether it was engineered by UCUL or not, people did keep voting for more action. There does seem to be a feeling that Grady is unwilling to implement the policy that HEC decides. Perhaps that is because HEC is unrepresentative, and UCUL steamrollers poor or impossible policy through. But we've ended up in a situation where we have poor policy (set by HEC), implemented badly (by Grady/Central Office).

I think that there is an element of the narcissism of small differences here. Both the faction being criticised, and the faction the authors favour, have a great deal in common. The current UCU leaders (Jo Grady backed by a group called 'UCU Commons', favoured by the authors) run a well organised campaign against the expression of gender critical views on campus, in tandem with activists and EDI (part of uni HR departments). This campaign is formulated by cliques of activists - tiny groups of members are involved. The 'charters' and 'policies' they draw up can have a material effect on any lecturer articulating gender critical views on campus. Edinburgh is a clear example (the attempt to censor the film Adult Human Female) but there are far more. Personally, until there is a faction or individual who is prepared to defend individual right to free speech within the law (without which there is no academic freedom), the union is doing more harm than good. My own branch openly opposes academic freedom when they see it as contradicting 'safety', and safety, for them, is contradicted by any speaker holding forthright gender critical opinions. I say this as a life long trade unionists, current UCU member and former committee member who has stood in national elections in the past. Ultimately, democratic rights, and real member involvement, are pretty alien to both factions.

The low point of UCU left influence came at the annual conference last spring when it staged a procedural ambush to pass a motion opposing support for Ukraine. I doubt whether 1% of members agree. A professional public-sector union can do without this brand of student activism.

Surely the role of the General Secretary is to unite or better still eradicate these factions and bring the members together to fight for common goals. The way UCU has been run has been shambolic and to try and call the reversion of the pension contributions a win to justify years of strikes is laughable when everybody knows it was simply as a consequence of changes in the financial markets and an increase in the value of the USS investments. The union needs to be run much more professionally and better engage its members, which was clearly evident by the pitiful numbers that attended the childish Youtube events. The whole strategy and tactics of the union need to be addressed with the constant striking which achieved very little reassessed. Given the poor financial forecasts being posted by Institutions, we can already expect a battle in relation to the next round of pay and conditions discussions and we need a union and leader better able to secure much better deals for its members than we have had recently. The focus shouldn't be about criticizing rival factions just to get votes for your GS of choice, it should be about making this union stronger and better

I have no idea if it still happens but when I was the UCU NEC several years ago the leading SWP members of UCU Left used to meet with the SWP's industrial organiser in a cafe on Camden High Street before meetings of UCU's national committees: NEC, HEC, FEC . I also remember a leaked internal SWP report from the organiser of the SWP's UCU faction which reminded SWP members of the UCU NEC that their primary responsibility was to the SWP. not to UCU members.

Dear Ian, I’m pleased you find our core message has merit. Re your main point, no democratic process is perfect and we do not advocate the complete replacement of UCU’s democratic structures (NEC, Congress, etc.) by e-consultations of all members. Rather, we argue that the latter (which the SWP/UCU Left try to block entirely) should – especially when it comes to critical decisions regarding ongoing industrial action, acceptance or rejection of employer offers, etc. – be part of UCU’s deliberations as they not only inform and include all members in key decision making but also help ensure buy-in and maximize mobilisation. Beyond that, it’s difficult to respond to your claim that our analysis is simplistic since you do not specify how it is so. If you’d like to elaborate, we’ll do our best to respond, but please read the long version on the Campaign for UCU Democracy website (link above): reducing 7000 words to 900 did necessitate some simplification.

Dear Bjb4, Just for the record, neither John nor I are in UCU Commons. Neither of us voted for Jo Grady in 2019, but we will do so this year as we believe she is the only candidate who truly supports all-member democracy (as opposed to democracy limited to the 2-3% of activists who regularly attend meetings) and the kind of alternative strategy we have outlined - in more detail, please note, in the longer version of our piece on the Campaign for UCU Democracy website. She is also the only candidate who seems to recognise the importance of UCU’s FE members, who none of the other three candidates mention in today’s THE interviews.

Dear Robert, Their Ukraine motion at last year’s Congress certainly was a low point for UCU Left, as shown by the comments to the subsequent article on the UCU Left website defending it which (from a quick survey) attracted more Comments than any other UCU Left article has ever had, all of them highly critical and several announcing that the writers were going to quit UCU as a result.

Dear kjk, I have sympathy with your wish to eradicate all factions – a plague on all their houses, etc. Having lived through the Labour Party’s Militant Tendency years in the 1980s, when I decided to get more involved in UCU twelve or so years ago, I wanted, like you, to avoid getting involved in factionalism. In fact, for a while I devoted myself purely to acting as a personal cases rep and stayed out of the union’s internal politics. However, I have come to see factions as being inevitable in any political organisation, and to some extent beneficial as they create opportunities for members to debate amongst themselves outside of formal meetings. But you also have to see the differences between factions. UCU Left is the only one in UCU that has its own membership fees, AGMs, committee, and three-line whipping of voting, and the only one created and run by a revolutionary socialist party that has a political agenda separate to the interests of union members. None of the other groupings I have seen over the years - IBL, Agenda, Commons, CUCUD - even aspire to that level of union-within-a-union organisation, because it is anathema to them; in fact, they’ve largely arisen from frustration with the toxic effect the SWP and other Trotskyists (e.g. Socialist Party/Appeal/Alternative, AWL, rs21, some of whose members do not join UCU Left and claim to be independent when standing for election but vote with them once on NEC) have on the union and would not exist if it were not for UCU Left. That is the reason for our intervention – to point out the “political deception” underpinning UCU Left, which many members of UCU are unaware of.

Dear Joe, Yes, that was still the case when I was on NEC: two or three would meet with the SWP industrial organiser before going to the UCU Left caucus which preceded the NEC/HEC/FEC meeting. To add to this, as we say in the CUCUD long version of our piece: “UCU Left’s executive committee is dominated by SWP members, while the SWP itself is led by a 15-person Central Committee that includes three academics, Alex Callinicos and Camilla Royle (both Kings College London) and Joseph Choonara (Leicester University) as well as SWP full-time employees such as Mark Thomas (not to be confused with the well-known comedian…) who directs the party’s trade union work. Membership of the SWP’s larger, 50-strong National Committee is shrouded in secrecy but is known to include prominent FE activist Sean Vernell, who proposed the UCU Congress motion on Ukraine, as well as other UCU members.” I have been a member of the Labour Party for many years, but have never met with any of its officials before a UCU meeting to get the party line.

I am a UCU member but have totally lost faith in the union and will probably never take any notice of its actions or calls ever again. There are several reasons for this but the main one is how clearly undemocratic from an ordinary members' view it has become - ignoring the majority of members' wishes. The other reason is its continued support for students over academics (i.e. those who actually pay our subs and who the union is supposed to be here for) when it comes to any viewpoint an academic may express that the UCU has decided it doesn't like, especially over the sex/gender the debate. Worse than management and disgraceful - what is the point of a union if it will not defend a member against an unjustified student backlash and worse, actually supporting the backlash? This is the problem when a union is not just seriously politicised but also taking hard-line stances on so-called culture war issues. I pay my subs for now due to work precariousness but for no other reason.

Not impressed with this article at all. It reads like something produced by the Daily Mail, the usual scare tactics of the right. There will always be factions in any political organisation and there will always be debate. What are you scared of!? All you end up doing is sewing division when we need unity.Btw I am not a supporter of the SWP or any other Trostkyist sect