Election results in: thank you

Well, the election results were announced this morning and I've been elected.

See the full details here on the UCU website.

This is just a quick message to say a very big thank you to everyone who supported and voted for me.

Very best wishes

Sally

A manifesto for our shared future

Together we can build a stronger union

My name is Sally Hunt. I have been honoured to be your joint general secretary since merger having been elected general secretary of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) in 2002.

Experience, vision and commitment

My parents were teachers, my brother is a lecturer - my personal values are rooted in education. This is my twelfth year at AUT/UCU – the last five as general secretary. I have the experience, vision and commitment to lead our new union and seek your support to continue this work.

UCU must focus on improving services so every member has access to help; on better lobbying so we can promote your professional interests, and on campaigning so we can win on workloads, pay and contracts.

As AUT general secretary since 2002 I put those priorities into action by:

• Doubling the number of regional staff to support members

• Increased lobbying on professional issues like academic freedom, funding, closures and RAE

• Improving pay; including the 2004 “MOU” agreement which increased earnings for many AUT members

• Retaining national bargaining

• Achieving the merger between AUT and NATFHE

• Balancing our budget every year

My focus now is on UCU’s future

In UCU, I have continued this work, campaigning to save jobs, lobbying ministers on academic freedom and workload, producing new guidance for fixed term staff and giving members who faced losing their jobs the opportunity to meet ministers face to face.

Now UCU must look forward, not back. Below I set out our challenges and my programme to deliver on them for you:

Championing our profession

UCU must champion our profession - celebrating universities as institutions of research and scholarship, colleges as the embodiment of life-long learning and both sectors as vital to a vibrant civil society.

Opposing education “for profit”

We must oppose anything which degrades that vision, including "for profit" universities, "contestability" in our colleges and the contracting out of prison education. All are privatisation by any other name.

Defending academic values

Academic freedom is the bedrock of democracy. I will lobby government to extend the to the rest of the UK the legislation won by AUT in Scotland that protects academic freedom for HE and FE staff

Reform of governance

We must challenge universities and colleges to reform governing bodies by making the case that academic freedom requires control of content to be with practitioners.

Better, fairer funding

We must take the argument for higher and fairer funding to the public, and explain that in our universities academic innovation and higher quality require more money not less. In our colleges we must argue for the eradication of the gaps in funding of 14-16, 16-19 provision, a review of resources for those delivering “HE in FE” on a shoestring and against cuts in adult education provision.

Acting on casual contracts

The union has thousands of members on fixed term, part-time and hourly paid contracts. We must negotiate with employers to increase job security but also address our arguments directly to funding bodies. We should campaign for funding councils in both HE and FE to make best practice in employing staff a condition of grants.

Reducing workloads

Workload is what members ask me about most. UCU members are dealing with an audit culture that is out of control, professionally demeaning and harmful to personal health and family life.

Together we need to tackle workload by campaigning for:

• A right to “self directed research time” for academic staff

• Enforceable limits on time spent on teaching, management and administration in HE and FE.

• Maximum student/staff ratios in HE and FE to protect members and quality.

• Increased professional support for academics in HE and teaching staff in FE

Improving pay and pensions

AUT and NATFHE made some advances on pay. Recent HE settlements have been better than previous, and the MOU increased salaries in pre-92 universities. Yet salaries remain low relative to other professionals, and a small gap is opening up between pre and post-92 institutions. UCU must benchmark the best conditions to "level up” so all members benefit wherever they work.

We must defend academic related members too, insisting on decent conditions, promotion, pay structures and respect for these key staff. Pensions are deferred pay and UCU must also resist attempts to reduce benefits in either USS or TPS.

A fresh start in FE

We now have a national agreement in Wales, but much more to do elsewhere. National strikes have become an annual event in FE. As I write we are waiting for 100 colleges to implement the 2003 agreement. New strategies are needed to deliver pay parity. Strike action should be used only where widely supported and as part of a wider campaigning strategy.

Improving services

In UCU I will continue to shift resources from internal bureaucracy to provide more professional staff to support members locally.

Delivering equality

Promotion, salary, contract and seniority should be based on ability not gender, age, race or anything else. This is an issue for everyone and UCU must do better at explaining its importance to members in terms which are inclusive rather than excluding.

Politically independent, members first

UCU must be politically independent, and avoid political infighting. We need unity not factionalism so I will increase member participation in policy making. I sought members’ views on research funding and will commission a new UCU manifesto for post-16 education, consulting you directly on what it should say.

Ballots before boycotts

Participation is also important to ensure policies have member support. If conference passes a motion for academic boycott of another country I want to put the issue to a ballot of all members first.

A union of all our members

I helped create UCU because we are stronger together. Whichever union you were a member of; whichever sector you work in, help me build a better, stronger union. I seek your support on that basis.

http://www.sallyhuntucu.blogspot.com/

Voices of our future part 1

I have met some extraordinary people in this election campaign – real life changers and I want to share some of their stories with you.

Lets start with Jane Hadcock who teaches English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) skills for life at Colchester Adult Community College. Like many FE members Jane is up in arms about the plans to charge fees for basic English classes. Please forget the election for five minutes and read my interview with Jane on why the work her and colleagues do is so important.

Jane, whenever you and I have spoken I have been struck by your fantastic passion for ESOL but what would you say to someone who thinks that too much taxpayers’ money is spent on helping people who are not able to "contribute"?

All our students contribute in some way or another. Many work in care homes. Do you want your mother or grandmother looked after with loving care? Our students are learning to speak clearly and politely; 'Would you care for another cup of tea?' 'Are you comfortable?'

Our students work in hospitals and write reports on your sick friends and relatives before the end of each shift. We help them write clearly. Our students are mothers who bring up children, who need to listen to those children read and to check their writing. We help them with reading skills and grammar. They contribute.

If I asked you to single out just one student who has benefited from the work of you and your colleagues who would it be?

There are so many. I could show you a woman who came to me afraid to use the telephone and now works as a nurse at Sutton hospital; I could even show you someone who has just now passed his English exams to enter university. Instead, I would show you one woman we have who is a long term student slowly building up her ability to spell and use grammar correctly. She is in the middle of a course. I would show you her because her benefits are not so easily measured as the others, but she has slowly improved and will pass on her ability to study to her children. I would also show you her because she has real graft and determination.

Tell me why this ESOL work matters so much in your community.

It matters so much in our town because we have a busy hospital. Some of our students keep that hospital clean, some help move patients around in that hospital, and our students also become the new doctors. It matters in our town because we go out and eat meals and drink, and our students are the ones who are waiters and waitresses in the restaurants that we go to. It matters in our town because we want everybody to participate, economically and socially. We don't want anyone left to sink – that is why ESOL and literacy and numeracy are so important.

Tell me in particular about women doing the course.

Most of our students are women: working women, mothers at home, go ahead women, shy women. They all want to carve out their lives in the UK, either by improving the jobs they already have, or readying themselves for possible future jobs by attending classes. Many lack confidence - we aim to help them. And in helping them we hope that we help their children, because literate mothers produce literate children.

Tell me about a typical class.

"Good morning. Please can I have your homework, - which could be asking them to write a letter to the council requesting help against anti-social behaviour. Then we get down to the lesson…. "right, today we are going to learn about life in an office, using different skills. Our first skill is speaking: what to say when arriving in the office on a Monday morning. e.g. "Hi, I've had such a nightmare journey you wouldn't believe it!"

The second skill is Listening - how to listen to those talking about their weekend: using body language and making encouraging sounds and using questions to show interest. Our third skill is reading: reading and understanding emails for example. Our final skill is writing: how and when to write a memo and how to write emails to someone you know in the office, and the different style you would use to someone you don't know in another office. If there's time, we will introduce the skills of following instructions and showing that we understand instructions by repeating them back to the person instructing us. And now, for tonight’s homework......"

Tell me about your colleagues.

We all want to see our students continuing their courses, getting the skills they need with the chance of fulfilling their potential. We care that they pass their exams, move on to the next level, take their next exam and soon... We care that the government continues to fund their classes. As tutors, we see very little difference between literacy students and our students. At the higher levels they take the same exams, at all levels they have the same aims: to fill in those difficult forms accurately; to do well in that difficult interview; to read with ease. It is wonderful to walk around our town and see our students or former students at work, with their children.

Jane, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. Finally, can I ask you as a UCU member in further education how would you explain to an HE member why your work should matter to them and what they can do to support you?

Our students just need those basic skills, the chance to integrate, in order to fulfil their potential. Some of our students do go on to university; others fulfil their potential in different ways but education is about giving people opportunities. Please support our students - why shouldn't they be given the same chance as everyone else? Free lessons allow everyone the opportunity to participate and achieve their potential.


Amen to that! Thanks again Jane and all the thousands of staff who do amazing work like this. In FE and HE we really are lifechangers and our stories are worth telling. If you want to tell your story here let me know.

Sally

PS. Now you have heard Jane's story go and find out more about UCU’s campaign against changes in support for ESOL, including the plans to charge fees for basic English courses which don't square with government statements about integration and social cohesion.

PPS. While you are there sign the UCU petition against privatisation in HE here http://www.ucu.org.uk/stopprivatisation

Defending staff means defending quality

Hello all,

Further to requests here is my article on how UCU can reclaim "quality". It focuses on the HE sector mainly but if you want to know more about "a fresh start for FE" which sets out similar ideas for FE members you can see my policy paper here.

Have a good weekend all and let me know what you think.

S

Academics must guard against losing their voice
Sally Hunt, Tuesday January 23, 2007
The Guardian

I helped to form the University and College Union (UCU) to deal with the challenges facing university staff in the next 20 years. One of the key things we need to do is to reclaim the concept of quality from vice-chancellors, ministers and their quangos. Quality should be our word, not theirs. To engage in quality is why university staff entered their profession. Delivering quality, despite all the hurdles, is why they are still doing their job, and defending quality is why many joined the union.

Defending quality means putting our arguments on workloads, pay and insecure employment in the wider professional context of the encroachment on academic freedom, diminishing control over curriculums, deskilling of academic-related jobs, threat of marketisation, and a growth of corporate, not collegiate governance.

In recent years, there has been a worrying drive towards creating a market in higher education. Universities are increasingly aping corporations and the government thinks the private sector is the answer to every question. UCU will continue to oppose "for profit" universities, and other attempts to marketise our work.

The key decisions at our universities are often taken by an unholy alliance of businessmen, employers and others with vested interests, with the occasional political inference. The voice of staff and students on university councils is being marginalised or drowned out by senior management or local business people. To maintain high-quality teaching and research and ensure the staff feel properly valued they must be part of any decision-making process.

Another challenge is funding. Vice-chancellors may be hopelessly divided on a host of issues, but most seem to agree that student fees must rise again if the UK is to retain its academic standing. I do not.
Higher education, which is a public good, needs more public investment. In 2006, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that public funding as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) was lower in the UK than the OECD and European averages, and lower than almost every major competitor.

Proportionately, public investment is also substantially lower than in the US, a country often lauded as a public-private model for this country by ministers. Since 1995, according to the OECD, overall investment in higher education has increased at half the rate of the OECD average, and also at half the rate of investment in schools.

Making students pay more for less is not the route to a world-class university system. Stable funding will not be achieved by reliance on the private sector. Excessive workloads are linked to the quality of education and we must campaign to reduce student-staff ratios. The ratio in universities is now higher than in schools. University staff are being asked to do more with less. A recent UCU survey showed that nearly half our members had been made ill by their job at some point, and members increasingly tell me that, while they remain totally committed to their work and their students, the pressure of the job harms their home or family life.

We must also defend academic values. UCU will stand up for its members' right to publish, criticise, and engage freely with civil society. Self-directed research should be a right for all academics. Without time to follow their own research paths, academics do not have complete academic freedom, and genuine innovation cannot flourish. It is bad for us and bad for our society.

Quality in higher education also requires job security for those delivering it. Casual contracts breed instability and personal anxiety. Ministers are fond of telling me about the need to compete with China and India. Yet the Chinese are now investing massively to improve researchers' salaries and conditions. In the UK, 95% of postdoctoral researchers are on insecure contracts and many cannot get a mortgage because their employment is so insecure. Add to that the thousands of hourly-paid teaching staff who prop up our creaking system and the contrast is clearly evident.

We cannot maintain a world-class research base through the exploitation of the next generation. Public funding bodies and the research councils must be persuaded to make state funding conditional on providing decent staff conditions and job security. We must focus on promoting our values against those of the untrammelled market. We must make sure our voice is heard.

A union for tomorrow not yesterday

Hello everyone,

I have just returned from hustings meetings in Scotland, and - weather permitting - am hopefully off to Birmingham tomorrow. Thank you to those of you who shared your experiences of juggling busy jobs with childcare or even in some cases care of elderly parents after I posted "something has to give" on Monday.

Last year I commissioned a survey which showed that nearly half of our members had at some point been made ill by their work. All you "jugglers" have my undying admiration, but together let's deal with the issue by making sure the new union prioritises the achievement of proper work/life balance. We can start by arguing for two things that every member wants - more manageable workloads and more control over what or how we teach and research.

On a related note, the THES asked me to write an article about what I would do for HE members if I was general secretary of UCU. Much of what I said about workload, government interference and the need to confront funding bodies on casual contracts applies to FE as well as to HE. The article was published today and this is what I said:

"There are lots of political parties and no doubt UCU members who participate in pretty much all of them. However there is only one UCU and we should concentrate on being the "voice of the profession" and not seek to mimic parties or position ourselves on the political fringes.

"The new union must increase our lobbying presence in support of this core mission. As AUT/UCU general secretary, I learnt that to influence policy makers our message must be focused and that we do best when we are united.

"Good example? Fighting with one voice the attacks on academic freedom within the 2005 Terrorism Bill. Bad example? Hopeless division over an academic boycott of Israel.

"Our employment concerns are well rehearsed - low pay and status, lack of time to do research, increasing administration and insecure employment. But these must be framed in a wider professional context of encroachments on academic freedom, reductions in practitioner control over the curriculum and of governance that champions corporate not collegiate values.

"Here are four ways that I will bring workplace and professional issues together in HE.First, by linking excessive workload to quality and the defence of academic values. UCU should recommend maximum student/staff ratios (SSRs) across subject areas and make the case that higher SSRs can reduce the quality of students' education as well as increasing members' workload.

"Second we should campaign for every academic to have the right to at least some self-directed research time; this combined with limits on administrative and teaching workload would enhance quality and restore academics' autonomy.

"Third, UCU should put direct pressure on funding bodies to make research grants conditional on providing decent pay, conditions and job security. This would provide a major impetus to the erosion of fixed term contracts, and again enhance quality.

"Fourth, UCU should stand up for academic freedom; the right to publish freely, to criticise, to engage with civil society. Governments are careless of these freedoms. UCU must not be and as the largest tertiary education union in the world our role is to defend academic freedom wherever it is under attack.

"Underpinning my approach is the need for a restatement of the relationships between universities on the one hand and the state and the free market on the other. Government pays proportionately less now to support universities yet is directing us more; intervening on curricula; quality; inspection; governance; and academic freedom. At the same time universities are increasingly aping private corporations. UCU must resist privatisation, "for profit" universities and attempts to beat down academic values through "so called corporate" governance.

"I am proud of being UCU general secretary, prouder still of my six year old daughter. As both general secretary and parent one always looks to the future. What will it mean to study and work in a university by the time she is old enough to go? Will academic values and freedoms flourish? Will it still be knowledge rather than wealth generation that drives our institutions?

"UCU and its members must use our new strength effectively to stand up for the profession and for our future. How? My vision is clear - an independent union focused on tomorrow, not yesterday."

If you want to know more about how my policies for you and our new union, you will find the policy papers on the issues facing our union that I published in December here.

Best to all

Sally

ps. I am collecting questions for a virtual hustings. Please keep sending in your questions and letting me know if you are happy for them to be blogged (anonymously of course).

Something has to give - doing the day job and election hustings...

Hello all,

In my last post I set out the election hustings that I am able to attend. The list is reprinted below and, including SOAS where the campaign started, will take me to 15 different branches around the country.

As I have said before, in addition to the election, I am still the joint general secretary and my diary is as busy as ever with meetings with politicians or employers to lobby on behalf of UCU members, internal committees to help set policy and other engagements on behalf of the whole union. In addition I need to make sure I have enough time to make decisions, talk to staff and ensure the administration is running smoothly.

I also have a six year old daughter and she needs to spend some time with her mum!

Many of you who combine demanding jobs with being parents will understand that there are only so many hours in a day; unfortunately there is no room left in my diary for any more hustings events without cancelling other important meetings.

I do want to meet and talk to as many members as I can. So if you cannot make it to a hustings near you, please do contact me through this blog.

Sally

Glasgow University, 12 January (lunchtime)
Leicester University, 16 January (lunchtime)
De Montfort, 16 January (3pm)
Nottingham Trent University, 16 January (5pm)
Stirling University, 17 January (lunchtime)
St Andrews, 17 January (4.30pm)
Birmingham University, 19 January (lunctime)
Manchester University, 25 January (lunchtime)
Liverpool University, 25 January (tba)
Sheffield Hallam University, 30 January (5.30pm)
Westminster University, 7 February (lunchtime)
UCL/Birkbeck, 15 February (lunchtime)
Goldsmiths, 15 February (5pm)
Hertfordshire, 22 February (5pm)

Election hustings dates

As requested here are the election hustings that I am attending. I hope to meet many of you there. Those who cannot make it please ask me a question direct via the blog.


Glasgow University, 12 January (lunchtime)
Leicester University, 16 January (lunchtime)
De Montfort, 16 January (3pm)
Nottingham Trent University, 16 January (5pm)
Stirling University, 17 January (lunchtime)
St Andrews, 17 January (4.30pm)
Birmingham University, 19 January (lunctime)
Manchester University, 25 January (lunchtime)
Liverpool University, 25 January (tba)
Sheffield Hallam University, 30 January (5.30pm)
Westminster University, 7 February (lunchtime)
UCL/Birkbeck, 15 February (lunchtime)
Goldsmiths, 15 February (5pm)
Hertfordshire, 22 February (5pm)