AUT Strike Action

As you may or may not know the AUT (Association of University Teachers) have voted to call a strike on Tuesday the 7th of March. In itself this is not unusual, there was a similar action in 2003, the problem is that a resolution to the current clash between union and employers (the University and College Employers Association- to which UKC is affiliated) has the potential to drag on and be a pain in pretty much everyone's arse. The problem is centred around the dispersal of the increased income that will be received next year in the form of top-up fees. AUT claim that they were promised 33% of said windfall to improve basic salaries and they won't get it, so they will strike. The current offer is somewhere in the region of 3-5%. If the strike is ineffective- and in the short term it probably will be- then their next tactic will be implemented on Wednesday the 8th and involves a refusal to grade/moderate any essays until the issue is resolved. Your grades will thus be frozen.

There are a couple of salient points to bear in mind. Firstly, the basic wage of a junior lecture is exceptionally low and I think you'd struggle to find someone who would argue that they don't deserve some sort of increment. Secondly, the top-up fees system is an absolute disgrace that contravenes a direct governmental promise. Thirdly, UKC has already spent the money it will receive in September. Fourthly, this debate has precisely nothing to do with students who will suffer most from an attritional conflict of the kind AUT has proposed. Lecturers who strike, directly by not turning up or indirectly by not marking work, will no doubt have sanctions imposed against them but then, it’s their fight. Whilst one can wish them well, it certainly shouldn't affect the last generations of students not to pay top-up fees. Any final-year student who leaves in May ungraded faces problems with applying for further education and for employment. This possibility is yet distant, but the mere fact that AUT feels comfortable entertaining it is worrying. The following quote is from AUT general secretary Sally Hunt:

"Our decision to take industrial action has not been taken lightly. The employers have had months to stop this happening and, even after our resounding mandate from members for industrial action, they still haven’t made us a pay offer. I am extremely saddened that it has got this far and can fully understand the fears and frustration of students and their parents. How the employers can claim their staff and their students are so important to them and then treat them so shabbily is beyond me. The universities are gambling disgracefully with students' futures and I would ask them to think again and at last offer serious negotiations without pre- conditions." (http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1527)

This is naturally obfuscatory. It is not the universities "gambling" (though they are far from blameless), but AUT themselves. The indirect strike action is not a unilateral result of AUT not receiving the money they want, it is contingent upon AUT's reactionary policy. We needn't be involved at all and such involvement is unseemly for us and them. Professor Rod Edmond suggested that a boycott of internal, non-academic administration as an alternative. Such an action seems fitting in a number of ways. It would relieve lecturers of a volume of work; it would interfere with the University's internal policy without damaging students' futures and, most importantly, would highlight the correct issue - that the pay lecturers receive is insubstantial to cover the extra duties demanded of them. Hunt claims that strike action was a last resort, that damage to students is "the last thing we want to happen" which begs the question "if it’s the last thing you want, why is it the first thing you're doing"? Aside from this little paradox there is a counter-argument that AUT was fixed upon instituting strike action and ignored a UCEA offer for talks last month. It is also far from certain that the action is welcomed by the majority of AUT's members: whilst the exact figure remains nebulous, it has been suggested that just over half the members actually voted when the motion to strike was made. Come Tuesday, the issue could well just evaporate if few enough members boycott the day's work.

Leaving these uncertainties to one side, let us have a closer look at UKC. The following link is to a brief internal .pdf that was sent to academic and academic-related staff on the subject:

http://www.kent.ac.uk/registry/personnel/notices/ac_and_ar_aut_pay_dispute.pdf

The gist, for those that cannot be fucked, is that the expenditure on academic staff for 05/06 is £36m which will rise to £47m over three years if AUT demands are met. The projected extra income from top-up fees over those three years is £12m. Thus, if these figures are accurate, AUT are demanding that nearly all the added income go towards pay increases. That is ridiculous and makes their offering up of student stability as collateral all the more distasteful as it would mean that rolling problems with student accommodation would again be passed over in the yearly budget. So essentially, we suffer regardless, especially those new students who will be paying astronomical fees and still living in questionable rooms. Taking a step back from this issue, perhaps there are broader concerns with the way UKC deals with its current finances. I'm anxious to avoid this article drifting back into the turgid debate over sabbaticals and the Union, but with new sabb positions being opened every year and lecturers still on a pittance it does beg a question of financial focus. As a student, I would far rather be taught by someone who is well-paid and content than fund more pointless societies (or that goddamn football pitch). Xavier Roger recently advocated that the editorship of KRED should be a sabbatical position which, in light of this discussion, shows how ludicrous the situation has become. A first step should be to annex any society that fails to break even; indeed, how any society could fail to do so is beyond me...

...and here we go again. All these little pebbles of annoyance cluster together to create a potentially huge problem for students. In actuality, I would expect UKC/UCEA to call the bluff and that a compromise will be reached; I really cannot see how any lecturer worthy of the name could ever muck about with students' applications for jobs and further study. And yet the fact that it is on the agenda worries me. The big-business aspect of universities has never been especially appetising and this huge scramble for the highly contentious new money that UKC has done nothing particularly to earn only highlights this. Some rough calculations show that each student individually pays £25 p/h for seminars and lectures, there are some 14000 students each receiving between 6 and 12 hours of education a week. So there's plenty of money, its just being distributed poorly. So then, UKC is incompetent, UCEA are tight-fisted, AUT are disingenuous and run by someone who's grasp of spin was clearly achieved in an evening class. Final-year students- close the door on your way out...

By J.L. Cranfield

Copyright March 2006