The University and College Union (UCU) is a British trade union in further and higher education representing nearly 120,000 academics and support staff. UCU is a vertical union representing casualised researchers and teaching staff, "permanent" lecturers and academic related professional services staff. Definitions of all these categories are currently rather ambiguous due to recent changes in fixed term and open-ended contract law. In many universities, casualised academics form the largest category of staff and UCU members.
History UCU was formed by the merger on 1 June 2006 of two British trade unions: the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE). During its first year, a set of transitional rules was in place until full operational unity was achieved in June 2007. During the first year of the new union the existing General Secretaries (Sally Hunt and Paul Mackney) remained in post, managing the union’s day-to-day business jointly. Paul Mackney did not stand for General Secretary of UCU owing to ill-health and Sally Hunt was elected general secretary of the union on 9 March 2007, and took office on 1 June 2007. Sally Hunt was re-elected twice, in 2012 and 2017, but was then forced to resign for health reasons in February 2019. Jo Grady was elected to be the next UCU general secretary in May 2019 and re-elected for a second term in March 2024.
Positions
Privatisation of education UCU campaigned against private finance initiative transfers and joint ventures, such as those proposed by INTO University Partnerships.
Stopping casualisation UCU campaigns heavily to reduce academic casualisation, including the use of temporary contracts to employ tutors, lecturers and project researchers. UCU's view of project research is that research is performed more efficiently by professional and stable career researchers, based in researcher pools and assigned to projects internally as they come up, as in most non-university project-based organisations. As in industry, researchers between projects should be considered "on the bench", paid out of full economic costs from previous grant income, and use their bench time to manage new project bids and fulfill their continued professional development quotas. Hourly paid bank workers on zero-hours contracts have also been represented by UCU, and in universities such as Edinburgh these positions have been replaced by full-time jobs as a result.
Industrial action
2006 HE industrial action
Until the merger, AUT and NATFHE members in higher education were involved in ongoing 'action short of a strike' - including boycotting setting and marking exams, and 'Mark and Park' where members would mark coursework but did not release marks and this action was continued by the UCU. Staff were taking industrial action over issues of pay, and the gap that has grown up over the last 20–30 years between their remuneration and that of other similarly qualified public-sector professionals. Prime Minister Tony Blair promised that a significant percentage of new money released for universities would be put towards lecturers' pay and this had not happened. AUT and NATFHE rejected an offer of 12.6% over three years which was made on 8 May, UCU News, 15 May 2006. and a further offer of 13.12% over three years made on 30 May.AUT seeks two-year pay deal and full review into finances for the third year, UCU News, 31 May 2006.Lecturers reject latest pay offer, BBC News, 31 May 2006
Concerns grew that students would not be able to graduate in 2006.Students 'not able to graduate', BBC News, 13 May 2006 The National Union of Students' leadership supported the staff's action and, although the matter was raised at various meetings, NUS support for staff was never successfully challenged. In response to feedback from a group of students' unions, NUS advised AUT/NATFHE (UCU) that their support for action could not be indefinite and was wholly dependent on seeking a fast resolution. Many students' unions from around the country went further and openly condemned the action taken by the staff unions as holding the students to ransom. To support the industrial action the new union, on its very first day of existence, organised a 'day of solidarity' by its higher education members. This included a demonstration in London which ended with a lobby at the headquarters of the employers' body, the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association (UCEA).Members mark UCU launch with HE pay solidarity events, UCU News, 1 June 2006Lecturers stage march over pay, BBC News, 1 June 2006
Following further talks on 6 June 2006 between UCU and UCEA, sponsored by the TUC and Acas, the UCU agreed to a ballot of its members on the 13.1% offer (with an increase of around 15% for lower paid members of non-academic university staff) over three years, with the important proviso that any monies docked from striking staff would be repaid and that an independent review would consider the mechanisms for future negotiations and the scope of funding available to universities for future pay settlements. The pay increase was phased over the three years, with the final year's figure subject to further increase in line with inflation. The boycott of assessment was suspended on 7 June 2006.University pay talks reach deal, BBC News, 6 June 2006.Deal reached in university pay talks, UCU News, 6 June 2006.
2013 UK higher education strike
UCU members took part in industrial action across the UK on 31 October 2013.
2018 strike for USS
In 2018, members took part in strike action in February and March in a dispute with Universities UK (UUK) over the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). In 2019, members took part in strike action in November and December in another dispute with the UUK over the pension scheme and with the UCEA over pay, workload, equality, and casualisation.
Boycott of Israel Since 2007, the UCU has been controversially involved in the academic boycotts of Israel and for rejecting the previously accepted definition of "antisemitism". Some Jewish members resigned following claims of an underlying institutional antisemitism.
2007
On 30 May 2007, the congress of the UCU called for the UCU to circulate a boycott request by Palestinian trade unions to all branches for information and discussion, and called on lecturers to "consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions". Dr John Chalcraft, of the London School of Economics, said: "A boycott will be effective because Israel considers itself part of the West: when Western civil society finally says 'enough is enough', Israelis, not to mention Western governments, will take notice. A non-violent international boycott, like that of South Africa, may well play a historic role in bringing down the Israeli system of apartheid."
The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), established by British academics in 2004 to promote academic boycotts of Israel and to support Palestinian universities, did much of its work within the UCU. In September 2007, delegates at the Liberal Democrat conference voted to condemn the UCU's "perverse" decision, and called for UCU members to reject the proposal and continue to engage in "the fullest possible dialogue" with their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts.
2009 There was a great deal of discussion concerning the links between the calls for boycott and a growth of antisemitism in the UK, and on British campuses in particular in 2009. While organisations such as Engage or Scholars for Peace in the Middle East argue that widespread antisemitism is at the root of the problem, some academics dispute this and say that it is a self-defeating argument.https://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371034026&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter This was particularly the position taken by a representative of Israel's universities in the UK, Professor David Newman who, while countering the attempts at academic boycott, did not see all such activity as being inherently antisemitic. Newman, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Israel's Ben-Gurion University, focused his activities on strengthening scientific and academic links between Israel and the UK, and was influential in creating the BIRAX research and scientific cooperation agreement between the two countries – an agreement which was promoted by successive British Ambassadors to Israel, Tom Philips and Matthew Gould, and which has been funded, among others by the Pears Foundation in London.
Professor Neve Gordon, a professor of Political Science at Ben-Gurion University, published a column in the Los Angeles Times in the summer of 2009, supporting boycott activity against Israel for as long as the country continued with its policy of occupation. This led to demands for his dismissal by many of the university supporters and donors in the United States, and resulted in a lively debate about the limitations of academic freedom among Israeli academics.
In 2009, the UCU passed a resolution to boycott Israeli academics and academic institutions. However, the vote was immediately declared invalid as UCU attorneys repeated previous warnings that such a boycott would likely trigger legal action against UCU.Jessica Shepherd, "Lecturers vote to boycott Israeli universities" The Guardian, 27 May 2009. The UCU also rejected a resolution urging them to examine the trend of "resignations of UCU members apparently in connection with perceptions of institutional antisemitism".UCU Conference votes down amendment to investigate antisemitism-related resignations, Engage, 27 May 2009 Tom Hickey, from the University of Brighton, put forward one of two motions calling for lecturers to "reflect on the moral and political appropriateness of collaboration with Israeli educational institutions".
Camilla Bassi, from Sheffield Hallam University, opposed the boycott, stating that it would "not help anyone" and would be "part of an anti-Jewish movement." Jeremy Newmark of the Jewish Leadership Council and joint head of Stop the Boycott, sharply criticised the boycott proposal, stating that: "Whether you are a trade unionist wanting a powerful union or whether you are a long-standing campaigner for peace, it is clear that the UCU has taken leave of its senses." Later that year, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology rejected the academic boycott of Israel, stating that being able to cooperate with Israeli academics, and hearing their views on the conflict, is critical for studying of the causes of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and how it can be resolved."NTNU says no to academic boycott of Israel" . Press release. Norwegian University of Science and Technology. 12 November 2009
2010 At the 2010 conference, UCU members voted to support the BDS campaign against Israel and sever ties with the Histadrut (Israel's organisation of trade unions). Tom Hickey, from the University of Brighton, who introduced the motion, stated that the Histadrut had supported "the Israeli assault on civilians in Gaza" in January 2009, and "did not deserve the name of a trade union organization". An amendment to this motion, which sought to "form a committee which represents all views within UCU to review relations with the Histadrut" and report back in a year, was defeated. The UCU's boycott motion invoked a "call from the Palestinian Boycott National Committee" for "an isolation of Israel while it continues to act in breach of international law" and calls to "campaign actively" against Israel's trade agreement with the European Union.
2011
At the 2011 conference, the UCU voted to adopt an academic and cultural boycott of Israel and to disassociate the UCU from the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)'s discussion paper on a working definition of antisemitism.