In the guest post, an anonymous member explains why they are voting YES in both the current UCU reballots. If your ballot papers have not yet arrived, you can order replacement papers here. Ballots should be posted by 6th April at the very latest. If you'd like to volunteer to be part of the Get The Vote Out team for the branch, please drop us a line at rhulucu2018 at gmail.com today.

Here we are again, balloting for industrial action on both the USS and the Four Fights disputes. Why should this time be any different?

1. Taking Stock

Our employers keep telling us that meeting our needs is "unaffordable" or "unsustainable". What is curious about this talking point is that it is purely one way. Whether the continued deterioration of our working conditions, pay and pensions is affordable or sustainable to us is never on the agenda. Our needs are expendable, theirs are unquestionable. To them we are what they call us: "human resources". So they reduce their contributions when the line temporarily goes up and cut our pensions when the line temporarily goes down. So they refuse to pay us in line with inflation while amassing massive surpluses.

The dispute over our pensions erupted in full at the turn of 2017/2018. Back then, our employers came for our guaranteed pensions directly, trying to turn our deferred pay for services performed into savings accounts that may or may not provide an adequate pension. They wanted to offload the risk onto our old selves, those of us having worked decades for them; they wanted to completely turn the risk they are running of having a reduced bottom-line into our risk of dying in poverty. We stopped them. We stopped them because 2018 saw unprecedented strike action to defend our pensions in a sector that previously had not seen much more than a one-day strike here and there.

Yet our employers' desire did not go away, their desire to get their debt to us off their books so that they can contract more debt in their vicious fight against each other. (The implications of these sort of manoeuvres can currently be witnessed at Goldsmith where private creditors dictate redundancies.)

So our employers kept on coming for our pensions and secured themselves a big win in February 2022, when they took more than a third off our guaranteed pension (our deferred pay), making this perhaps the biggest pay cut in the modern history of UK Higher Education. We are now fighting to make them reconsider.

Add to that their outright refusal to even discuss our Four Fights demands – manageable workload, substantial pay increase, clear plans for ending widespread casualisation and for closing discriminatory pay gaps – and a rather grim picture emerges.

Indeed, still drunk on their victory, employers quickly announced that they plan to come for more of our pensions. They thought and presumably still think that a "bloody" dispute will decimate the union, giving them free reign imposing their policies in the future: selling degrees with a casualised and overworked labour force.

So far, so well known. Getting angry with our employers is easy with their attacks being this overt. The big question is if we can stop them. Here, the union's response has been, well, restrained. In response to what is summarised above, we have taken only 18 strike days and some actions short of a strike (ASoS). This left our employers with the following calculus: How do less than four lost weeks compare to getting rid of a third of our pension? They clearly decided that the gain was worth the loss. The new ballot upends this calculus with more extensive strike action and an assessment boycott.

2. Tactics

So far, the union treated strikes a bit like a protest, as a way to show our discontent. But in taking these steps towards escalation, the union returns to what made strike an effective tool in the past: the collective withdrawal of our labour to force the other side to concede to our demands. This is the card to play to win. We all know too well that our employers are in the business of selling degrees and not providing education. An assessment boycott thus hits them where it hurts their bottom-line. We can make their operation grind to a halt and we must use this power now to get them to reconsider:

A strike is not a protest, it is not a mere registration of discontent, not a demonstration or a symbolic gesture. Strikes tend to be accompanied by all these things but at its heart, a strike is a joint withdrawal of labour to force the employer to concede to our demands. We remind them that they are, in fact, dependent on our work by withdrawing it. This is not a step many of us take lightly due to the disruption this causes for our students. However, in order to be effective, this tactic of last resort must aim to cause disruption. At this stage of the dispute, it is neither better arguments nor popular support that sways the other side: we have had both of these for as long as the disputes have been brewing. Rather, it is precisely the disruption to their business that will make them concede that they cannot brush aside our needs as they have so routinely done in recent years. The best we can do to minimise the effect of strike action on our students is by making it count: when our employer sees that we are prepared to bring their business to a halt, this brings them back to the negotiation table. A weak, spotty, withered out strike tells them that they can manage the disruption, prolonging the strike and eventually leading to our defeat.

RHUL Strike FAQ 2021-22

Many of us in Royal Holloway UCU have been arguing for a more forceful industrial action over the last months and nationally the union now agrees the time for this has come. It is worth reminding ourselves that these tactics – strike days combined with marking boycotts – have worked recently in Liverpool and at the Royal College of Arts.

In the end it all comes down to being able to maintain industrial action to put pressure on the other side. Here, circumstances can make it easier or harder for us. We have a few of those in our favour:

  • As mentioned above, assessment boycotts are a severe but effective tool that have been deployed successfully in the recent past.
  • We have built up strike funds to support each other taking action.
  • We have the support of our students locally and nationally.
  • The cost of living crunch compounded with current "labour shortages" makes this a good time to insist that our livelihood must not be "unaffordable". Other workers in other industries are taking action, motivating and inspiring each other and us. Many other employees face the same conflicts with their employers as we do.

Vote "yes" for strike, vote "yes" for ASOS.