UCU CongressAberdeen 26th March 2010

Speech

First UCU ScotlandCongress speech by Lesley C McIntosh as President.

We meet at a time of savage attacks on tertiary education in the UK. Most notably, massive financial cuts in England and more funding loss in Scotland – but more on that later.

It’s not just HE that is under attack but all of us in the public sector. All public sector unions need to support each other and it seems to be up to us and our sister education unions, to fight for tertiary education in the UK, since the Governments in London and Edinburgh appear to have a very different agenda from us.

I heard on the news last night, from a Railworks Manager “… don’t let the trade unions hold the country to ransom …”. When I was at school, I was told by my history teacher to never believe in those words. When I was around 13, I didn’t really know what she meant but now I worry that the public think that any strike is the trade unions’ fault rather than seeing the intransigence and macho-style of the Managers.

It’s up to us to put out very clear messages to the public, to other trade unions and students and their parents, as to why any industrial action may have to be used and how Management are treating us – not as staff valued for the job of work that we do, but as readily disposable parts of macho, managerial-led business.

Government cuts in University funding means threats to our jobs. Protecting those jobs is a basic role of the union.

Our General Secretary, Sally Hunt, who was with us at our Executive meeting and Congress dinner last night, was recently interviewed on TV and asked something like “At a time of cuts in the public sector, shouldn’t Universities also bear the brunt of this?”. The answer was, and I’m paraphrasing here – can we afford to demote HE, especially at a time of recession when we need to build our economy for the future, both our future and that of future generations, and so need to increase (not decrease) the skills of the working age population and support innovative research?

We should be investing in the future and education. Certainly, as we are now seeing this academic year, Scots have turned to University at a time of lack of jobs and it looks likely that even more will apply next year for fewer places.

We don’t just want to save jobs for our own personal sake but are passionate about education (that’s why we work the long, unpaid extra hours that we do – something that Management seem unable to comprehend) and we wish to save education for future generations – for surely if we don’t defend education now it truly will be difficult to rebuild it.

Back in October at the SNP conference I praised the Scottish Government for listening to our arguments which challenged the short-term fix for the recession and for the increase in funding for higher education set out in the draft budget. However, according to the new funding allocations released this week by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the overall cash increase for Universities of 0.9% means a real terms funding cut of over 1% when inflation is factored in at 2% for 2011 (according to this week’s budget). This is a real term funding cut for all Scottish Universities.

It is shameful that University principals in Scotland have accepted (or should I say awarded themselves) salary increases of nearly 8% on average, ranging from 2 to a huge 17% increase (and remember that these are increases on already very high salaries). All this at a time when higher education is dealing with the tightest financial settlement since devolution.

At the last meeting of the higher education roundtable the Michael Russell new Cabinet Secretary agreed with the need to “take stock” on higher education in Scotland, but indicated that he needed time to consider the most appropriate way to do so. We agree it is time to take stock as we said to the previous Cabinet Secretary before she launched into the Taskforce report which was largely met with widespread dismay across the sector.

We have concerns about the proposed changes in the new funding streams but our biggest concern is the lack of dialogue with the sector around not only the taskforce but the interpretation of it’s Report, the ‘New Horizons’. This and the impending financial constraints make it the right time to have a broad and encompassing dialogue on the purpose of higher education in a modern Scotland and its contribution to our economic, social and cultural future.

Indeed, UCU Scotland has been pressing for a nationwide discussion on this with all concerned parties – with other staff and student unions, political parties and the Scottish public – a discussion that was launched by UCU Scotland in October 2008 by my predecessor, Terry Brotherstone, at a Conference on ‘Intellect and Democracy”. What does HE mean to us and to others and what do we all want it to be? Certainly we do not wish to pursue the failed business agenda that is increasingly being foisted on Universities by Government and the SFC.

We’re told, and we know, how important education is but is it being protected or are Institution Managers being encouraged to, or at least not dissuaded from, using the budget cuts to cut back on staff and not on their pet projects – which usually means flash new buildings? They may think that’s the easy option but we’re here to tell them something different.

I’ve focused on lack of sufficient funding and indeed we will debate motions at our Congress today, condemning the lack of sustainable planning in the Teacher Education budget and threats of course closures and redundancies. But threats to HE manifest themselves in different ways. We will also hear discussion today on defence of Academic Freedom, work-load induces stress, creeping privatisation, abuse of casualised staff and the list goes on. We will be urging the Scottish Government to support an inquiry into the future of Scottish Universities for a modern Scotland.

With these threats, now more than ever, do we need strong, local branches, who can support each other but we also need to look to continuing serious dialogue with our sister union the EIS and raising communal issues with NUS Scotland, for basic trade union values of collective solidarity and support.

While the future looks gloomy, we are meeting extraordinary attacks on staff with robust defence and have success stories, both in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK: in Stirling, where lack of consultation and high-handed Management are leading us to the steps of the Employment Tribunal; in Glasgow Caledonian, where we support staff who have been sacked by email; in Strathclyde, where the severance scheme has been implemented under the glare of the union; in Kent and Leeds, where redundancies have been reversed.

All these amazing achievements have occurred due to the hard work of our members and activists but would have been made much more difficult without the dedicated work of full-time UCU officials and here at UCU Scotland we have truly professional backup from the Regional Office in Edinburgh. I would like to thank all the staff for their fantastic support – it’s only when working more closely with them over the past 10 months have I truly realised the great work that they do. So, Ann (Cowan) & Eleanor (McGowan) for keeping me straight, Tony (Axon) for his political awareness, Deborah (Shepherd) for never giving up (even when her tyre bursts on the road up to Aberdeen), Claire (Johnston) for her unbending enthusiasm and Mary (Senior) for starting with UCU Scotland last September with her feet running – and she’s never stopped.

There’s much that I haven’t said but I’ll finish by thanking the rest of the officers, Ann (Gow) and Angela (Roger) for their support and experience and especially to Terry (Brotherstone) and Gordon (Watson) who have stood in for me on several occasions – we have all worked as a team and I look forward to working together in the turbulent year ahead.

Thank you.

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