Like all trade unions UCU is fighting a constant battle where new members are recruited but existing ones lose their jobs and leave the union. As a result, the issue of finance in the UCU is now a prominent question. Darrall Cozens, delegate to the UCU Congress 2013, argues that finance is not just a monetary issue, but a political issue of developing campaigns that will galvanise existing members and build the union by recruiting new members.
At the end of May UCU held its annual Congress in Brighton where the issue of finance played a very prominent role. Like all trade unions UCU is fighting a constant battle where new members are recruited but existing ones lose their jobs and leave the union.
In the first 5 months of 2013 there were significant net losses of members. In 2012/13 new joiners were 15.9% lower than in 2011/12. In May 2013 total membership stood at 116,522 compared to 123,677 in May 2011 and 118,958 in May 2012.
To win new members UCU has been conducting a recruitment campaign with the participation of 238 branches covering 70% of the membership. By mid May 1,522 new members had joined as a result of the campaign. However, this was only 20% of total joiners in 2012/13. In other words 80% of new members joined irrespective of the campaign which is very resource intensive at national, regional and local level.
So while new members join, many existing members leave as they lose their jobs although some of them continue to work in a post-16 education sector. The number of leavers still working cite financial reasons/subscription increases for leaving and this rose from 36% of the total in 2011/12 to 56% of the total in 2012/13. The next largest reason is joining another union. This accounts for 20% of leavers. So besides a membership loss due to job losses we are also losing members for financial reasons and to other trade unions. UCU is therefore not meeting the needs of some members.
Given this increasingly dire financial situation UCU Congress was told that the union would not be able to fund its day-to-day operations by Autumn 2014 unless urgent action was taken. Congress delegates were therefore put between a rock and a hard place by being presented with two alternatives – sack staff and implement cuts to union activities to cut expenditure or increase subs to increase income. Quite rightly Congress delegates could not vote for staffing cuts – how can you face up to an employer who wants to sack your members if you are sacking staff yourself? They therefore voted for some cuts to union activities and to increase subs. Yet we have seen above that subs increases actually leads to a membership loss!
The repercussions of these Congress decisions have been percolating through the union membership over the summer period. For example, there are some 5,000 retired members (RMs), like myself, who continue to play a role in the union. Some of them are life members who do not pay subs (only 89.7% of the union members – 104,548 – actually pay subs), some paid a lump sum on retirement for life membership and some, like me, pay a sub based on the lowest earners. All RMs have now been told that if they do not pay a sub, they are no longer members! So just as subs increases have been shown to lead to membership loss of those at work, it could also lead to many RMs ceasing activity, although there are many who will pay as they see the survival of the union as paramount and will therefore make sacrifices to ensure that.
However, I believe that the whole issue of union finances has been posed in the wrong way as solely an issue of finance. UCU calls itself a campaigning union and to campaign it obviously needs finance – after all, finance is the sinews of war! But here we find ourselves in a strange position. We cannot campaign without finance yet campaigning and building the union is the only way to raise finance and therefore increase income. So finance and campaigning must go hand in hand. Yet over the past period campaigning in UCU has consisted in the main of publishing a regular list of campaigns that reads more like a list of disputes and issues where there are no campaigns!
We are under attack, as are all workers, as we are made to pay through austerity for a crisis we did not cause. Education cuts means course closures, redundancies, reduction of hours and even sackings as at Halesowen College. There is a general trend in all areas of the economy to reduce the cost of labour to increase the profitability of capital – see the massive increase in zero hours contracts and the increasing casualisation of lecturing staff.
At some stage, and so far this has not happened, we have to say as a trade union that enough is enough. We have to develop a campaign that has a chance of being successful in stopping the onslaught on jobs, wages, terms and conditions. It may be in one institution or even one region. It may mean shutting down a college/university with indefinite action and members being supported financially through a levy of members at work.
If we do not fight back and stop the rot, we will continue to haemorrhage members, income will go down, cuts will be made and staff will be sacked as you cannot continue to raise subs from a dwindling number of members no matter how self sacrificing they may be. Eventually, we come to a point of no return and when we reach that point, our union, UCU, will seek to get out of the crisis through amalgamation with other unions. That has been the history of unions who have become too small to survive.
In one way, that would not be a bad step. If we had one united trade union for all workers in education irrespective of at which level they work, that would give us some clout. But that is something to be done voluntarily by trade union members in all education unions after a process of discussion and persuasion.
For the moment UCU has to identify an issue, win it by campaigning, show members that we can win and therefore act as a beacon to attract new members. If we do not grow, we are doomed. You cannot get blood out of a stone.
The Halesowen 4, despite the words of support from UCU, lost their jobs. The pretext used was the little-known Employment Rights Act of 1996 and the clause relating to “some other substantial reason”. That has the potential to inspire management in other institutions to go down the same road. Which of our members will be next in the firing line and what will we as a trade union do about it?
We will not win every battle but we must win some to give members confidence to fight and to recruit those who are not organised. If we don’t, we are doomed. Finance therefore is not a monetary issue, it is a political issue of developing campaigns with aims, strategies and tactics that will galvanise members to fight to win and thereby build the union by recruiting new members.