Solidarity Federation Education Union (SFEU)

Nine months to the day since our comrade’s formal grievance against Aberystwyth University was filed, we can confirm that the grievance has been upheld on all counts. The university have agreed to pay the difference in salary between Grade 6 and Grade 7 for the two years and five months that the Grade 7 duties were performed on a Grade 6 contract. HR have also agreed to review their guidance in regard to role and person profiles for each grade and to look at other instances of staff who are currently working with similar mis-aligned responsibilities. The SFEU have been proud to support our comrade on this journey – victory was never in doubt!

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The Solidarity Federation Education Union (SFEU) is a new union that cuts across the divide and has members in different education sectors within the same workplace. Here is the view of one of our student members on the current University strikes being taken by Unite, UCU and Unison, among other unions. Our power lies in organisation and in a unitary union based on direct democracy.

"What about the students?"

Unison, Unite, EIS, GMB and UCU have all proceded to cancel their strikes as a result of decisions by their union General Secretaries or Executives, a position that emerges out of the ACAS talks. To the majority of members of these unions, it's not clear exactly what they've been offered beyond a "limited improvement" to the pay offer for 2022-23. After so much sacrifice, this doesn't sound great.

The Solidarity Federation Education Union (SFEU) condemns the decision made by the General Secretary of UCU to suspend the current strike action, a step that has been taken in UCU's words "To allow our ongoing negotiations to continue in a constructive environment we have agreed to pause action across our pay and pension disputes for the next two weeks and create a period of calm". Nothing concrete, as far as we can see, has been agreed by the employers. Even on the pensions front, according to the UCU statement, we are told that we are only "at the start of a process" that will restore benefits.

The Solidarity Federation Education Union (SFEU) utterly condemns Leeds University management’s contemptuous disregard for the nationally agreed strike protocols in threatening 100% wage deductions for "partial performance" of duties and in demanding that cancelled lectures be somehow replaced in the future. A strike by definition means the withholding of our labour, not simply re-arranging that labour to another day. Staff members are not paid when they strike - replacing cancelled lectures just adds to the unpaid workload that caused staff to strike in the first place and dilutes the impact of the industrial action. These threats constitute an aggressive escalation and a cruel attempt to gain leverage by imposing punitive measures on staff during a cost of living crisis, which management have cynically attempted to hide behind the facade of “dedication, passion and care for our students”.

In a recent informal UCU poll, over 80% of those who voted, declared their opposition to the latest employers' offer. This offer, while it did represent some improvement on pay, did little to reassure University and College workers on the question of historical pay decline and on issues such as casualisation. The strike continues and we must force UCEA to come up with a much better deal. Education workers will stay out till they do.

The NEU have overcome restrictive anti-union laws with planned strike action to happen over 7 days in February and March. Although 88% of voters said yes to strike action, oppressive laws mean that teachers and support staff had to be balloted separately. Additionally, members in England also had to be balloted separately to those in Wales. And on top of that, each ballot needed greater than 50% turn out to be lawful. The result was that teachers and support staff in Wales met the statutory requirements to strike; in England, teachers did but support staff did not.

SFEU supports the upcoming Further and Higher Education strikes, due to begin on 1 February and to be spread over 18 days between then and the end of March. This is a welcome escalation and our best bet for a positive outcome (short of an all-out strike). This wave of strike action will seriously disrupt teaching right at the beginning of the new semester and beyond, but the key issues of growing casualization, wage theft, pension degradation and untenable workloads remain unresolved, universities need to be held to account. If our voices are still not heard, we need to get behind and implement the marking and assessment boycott, timed for maximum effect in May and June.&nbs

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According to a UCU report, the university sector has been systematically trying to downgrade roles amongst its academic staff in an attempt to save money i.e. expecting a Grade 6 to do work previously done by a Grade 7.

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The Solidarity Federation Education Union (SFEU), will be standing with colleagues this week as we see staff at Universities and Colleges across the country striking in protest at worsening pay and pension provision. This action follows last month’s overwhelming ‘yes’ vote in a series of national ballots. After more than 8 in 10 of those voting, voted for action, the 24, 25 and 30 November may see as many as 70,000 UCU members on strike.