Anyone who is a member of a trades union that is affiliated to the TUC is entitled to attend Council meetings. This month the meeting will hear from George Deacon who will be talking about the Norfolk Against Universal Credit campaign. UCU members are welcome to attend the meeting, which will take place in the Angel Gardens Public House, Angel Road, NR3 3HT on Wednesday, 27th February 2019. The meeting begins at 7:30pm and members are advised to use the left hand door if they wish to avoid the main bar area. The meeting room is on the first floor. Please contact the NDTUC directly if you have any questions about the event.
Branch News
Review of Nae Pasaran
‘Many small people, in small places, doing small things, can change the world’, said the late Uruguayan writer, Eduardo Galeano. In his tremendously powerful and moving film Nae Pasaran (Chile, 2018), Felipe Bustos Sierra shows how just a handful of Scottish workers and trade unionists, in an East Kilbride Rolls Royce factory, did small things that changed political events in a long and narrow South American country on the other side of the world.
On 11 September 1973, Chile’s ‘democratic road to socialism’ came to a violent end with the death of the constitutionally-elected president, Salvador Allende, in a US-backed coup that installed the brutal dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Immediately, Allende supporters, trade unionists, the working-classes and shanty-town poor were redefined as ‘subversives’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘enemies’ to be eradicated. Thousands were rounded up for detention, to be held without trial, tortured and killed in improvised concentration camps. In a country of 10 million inhabitants (in 1973), academic Elizabeth Lira writes, it is estimated that 2,000 were killed, 1,200 ‘disappeared’ (their bodies likely thrown from planes into the sea), 200,000 forced into exile, and 50,000 tortured. Actual figures are probably far higher.
In 1974, Avon engines from British-built Hawker Hunter jets, belonging to the Chilean air force, arrived in Scotland’s East Kilbride Rolls Royce factory for repair and maintenance. In protest against the atrocities and human rights violations of the Pinochet dictatorship, engineers risked their jobs and livelihoods by refusing to work on the engines. Despite their bosses’ mounting pressure on them to do the job, workers ‘blacked’ the engines and left them outside to rust. They continued their boycott until the engines disappeared one night four years later, but they never knew what impact their actions had had in Chile.
In Nae Pasaran, Felipe Bustos Sierra, himself the son of a Chilean exile, investigates the very real impact of the Rolls Royce engineers’ actions. As he does so, he shares the unfolding story with four of the trade unionists involved in the boycott; Bob Fulton, Robert Somerville, Stuart Barrie and John Keenan. With humour, dignity, integrity and enormous modesty, these now-elderly men discover what their actions meant for Chileans during the Pinochet dictatorship. Towards the end of the film, one of the workers brushes off words of thanks from a Chilean former political prisoner, and instead highlights other words uttered by the Chilean: ‘I’d have done the same for you’.
Nae Pasaran is a powerful and moving portrayal of workers’ solidarity, across the world.
Hazel Marsh
(The film’s UK broadcast premiere is Sunday 24 Feb 2019 on the new @BBCScotland channel. The film will be available on BBC iPlayer for 30 days afterwards.)
Local response to the pay dispute
Dear colleagues,
As you may be aware, we narrowly failed to reach the 50% turnout threshold in the pay & equalities ballot nationally and were 33 votes short at a local level. I’d like to thank Reps and members for all their hard work over the past few weeks. As well as working to increase democracy in our union, these discussions have raised important local issues that will shape our priorities over the coming year. In particular, we as a branch will continue to pursue local issues around pay and working conditions to ensure that all colleagues, but especially those on temporary and casual contracts, feel represented by their Branch and their Union.
Pay ballot – wider context and where next
UEA: turnout 47.5%
Strike: 64.6% YES (210); 35.4% NO (115)
ASOS: 74.2% YES (241); 25.8% NO (84)
To put these results in a wider context, only seven institutions achieved over 50% turnout, with UEA placing in the top 25 in terms of turnout. As you can see from the results above, of those members who did vote, the majority supported strike action and the vast majority supported action short of strike. Unfortunately, the Branch and the wider Union has fallen foul of a combination of unprecedented growth in membership and stringent anti-union laws enacted by the current government.
We recognise, as well, that there are obvious differences between this pay dispute and the massive degradations to the pension scheme being proposed last year. For many members, that action, since justified by a range of financial experts, signified resistance to concerning trends in higher education that went beyond a single issue. We believe that the strong support for ASOS signifies that this concern about our sector remains beyond the establishment of the JEP and we will be talking with members to identify areas of local concern that we can work to improve.
We are particularly concerned that some of our Early Career and casualised colleagues have understandably interpreted this result as a sign that their Union and their colleagues do not support them in their fight for fairer contracts and pay. As a branch, we are committed to ensuring fairer conditions and work practices for all of our members and recognise that colleagues on precarious contracts are often hit hardest by the continuing erosion of our pay and conditions. While this ballot may have precluded industrial action on the current pay proposal, there is still a range of positive steps we can take at a local level to improve the working lives of members.
The recent staff survey highlighted significant dissatisfaction in terms of pay and benefits, excessive workloads, and persistent gender inequalities. As a Branch we have set up working groups to spearhead campaigns on the following issues:
- Anti-casualization
- Gender inequality
- Workload
To ensure that these groups represent the membership and have the capacity to enact real change, it is vital that their membership reaches beyond the current committee. Please get in touch with the UCU office (ucu.office@uea.ac.uk) if you would like to get involved in these campaigns locally.
What can we do now?
- For those missing the solidarity of the picket line, our first common room event takes place this Thursday 25 October 5pm in Scholars bar. This is your chance as members to guide branch priorities and suggest topics that you would like to discuss in a collegial forum. If you have any suggestions for future events, themes, and venues and are unable to make the meeting, please contact the UCU office (office@uea.ac.uk).
- Our Ordinary General Meeting will take place on Wednesday 31 October, 1pm in LT3. If you would like to propose a motion to the branch, please email the text to office@uea.ac.uk by the 30th October so that it can be added to the agenda.
- The next branch committee is Tuesday 13th November. If you would like to raise an issue to be discussed by the committee, then please email it to office@uea.ac.uk by Monday 5th November.
- While the JEP has reported and supports the arguments made during or industrial action, we would still strongly encourage members to influence the USS consultation (which closes 2nd November) to ensure that our views continue to be represented. You will find a template letter and more information on our website shortly. If you have any resources that you have found useful on the USS campaign, please do send these to office@uea.ac.uk and we can make these available on the website for other members to read.
- If you are interested in helping fellow members by becoming a caseworker, then please contact office@uea.ac.uk as we are currently in the process of organising some additional training with officials from regional headquarters.
The committee wishes to ensure that UCU@UEA continues to meet the needs of its members and focuses its efforts on issues that have a material impact on the lives of colleagues. We hope that you are able to contribute to the events above and encourage you to participate in whatever way you are able.
Yours,
Ben Jones (Chair, UEA UCU)
Acclaimed author cancels university appearance over pensions row
Prize-winning author Jon McGregor has pulled out of an appearance at the University of East Anglia due to the ongoing dispute over pensions.
The author was due to appear at the UEA Spring Literary Festival on Wednesday (7 March), but has said that he will not cross the picket line. Instead, he will headline an evening of readings at the Students’ Union in support of striking staff.
The ‘Writers for the Strike’ event will run from 5 – 7pm on Wednesday and will feature readings from leading authors including Sarah Perry and Megan Bradbury, as well as inputs from staff and students. It forms part of the ‘Alternative University’ – a programme of teach-ins and discussions organised by members of the University and College Union (UCU) taking strike action.
Author Jon McGregor said: ‘Although I had been very much looking forward to reading at the UEA Spring 2018 Literary Festival, I will not be able to do so while strike action in defence of university staff pensions is ongoing. I fully support the UCU action, and – in common with a number of university vice-chancellors, government ministers, and the opinion pages of the Financial Times – call on Universities UK to return to meaningful negotiations immediately to avoid any further disruption not just to students but to the role universities have to play in the wider cultural life.
‘I have never crossed a picket line in my life, and am not about to start now. Instead, I will be joining staff, students, and writers for an evening of readings and discussion as part of the Alternative University being put on by the Student Union.’
The pension dispute centres on proposals to end the defined benefit element of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) – a move which UCU says would leave a typical lecturer almost £10,000 a year worse off in retirement than under the current set-up.
In the recent strike ballot UCU members overwhelmingly backed industrial action. Locally, 87% of UCU members at UEA who voted backed strike action on a turnout of 66%.
UCU UEA branch spokesperson Ben Little said: ‘We really appreciate the support of all the writers and students who are making Wednesday’s ‘Writers for the Strike’ event possible. Strike action is always a last resort, but the threat to our pensions is so serious we have been left with no choice. We hope the university will seek to minimise any further disruption to students by ensuring that Universities UK commits to proper negotiations to resolve this dispute.’
UCU@UEA USS Strike 2018
UEA branch voted overwhelmingly – and on a record turn-out – to take strike action to defend the DB pension.
While there is debate over the financial implications of this, there is no evidence that maintaining a DB scheme is impossible. We believe that negotiations should resume to look at ways of managing the scheme.
The proposed change from UUK will disproportionately affect those at the start of their careers, or those intending to enter the profession in the future. We do not believe it is right that those colleagues should have worse work benefits than those later in their career; this would not be an act of solidarity, and is contrary to the communal ethos that underpins a university.
It is in this spirit that 1,000 professors – likely to be relatively unaffected by these changes – signed a letter to the Times Higher stating, “we want to stand shoulder to shoulder with all our colleagues, and especially the next generation, to defend our profession”. Similarly, we reject the current proposal on the grounds of its abandonment of early career staff, which will damage those colleagues as individuals, and the profession more broadly.
The planned strike days are as follows:
Week one – Thursday 22 and Friday 23 February (two days);
Week two – Monday 26, Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 February (three days);
Week three – Monday 5, Tuesday 6, Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8 March (four days);
Week four – Monday 12, Tuesday 13, Wednesday 14, Thursday 15 and Friday 16 March (five days)
There are strike FAQs here https://www.ucu.org.uk/uss-action-faqs
If you support the defence of pensions, and want to take strike action, it’s not too late to join UCU – https://www.ucu.org.uk/join