The main discussion was around the finances of the union. Having a packed agenda and a long discussion on the finances meant that some agenda items such as proposed changes to branch and regional standing orders and rules were not reached and will be picked up at the next NEC meeting on 3rd May.
Finance
UCU has been advised by its bankers to put a 3 year recovery plan in place to mitigate a growing financial deficit caused by loss of members over the past year or so. The membership loss is around 7,000 from the peak of about 123,000. Around 1100 new members have joined since the recruitment campaign launched before Xmas.
It is proposed that there is likely to be a £2m shortfall in revenue by 2015 and that this gap needs to be bridged by savings or other means within 2 years. NEC members were shown a letter from Unity Trust Bank suggesting that UCU’s staffing costs were high compared to other unions. We have not discussed what is meant by this (actually it can be argued that this is not a bad thing as it indicates that a large proportion of members subs are spent on staff providing member support) plus there still remains disagreement about these cuts being too deep and too fast and undermining member representation and union democracy. If all the savings were to be applied to staffing costs this would entail a reduction of up to 27%.
A number of specific proposals for cuts/savings/and an indicative budget were put before the NEC that included issues which had been raised at the Special NEC meeting in January. These included:
- Cutting staffing costs
- Reducing annual congress down to 2 days (savings of £150-185k) (a temporary measure)
- Reducing the size and workings of the NEC and its sub committees by 25% (savings of £70k)
- Cutting affiliations to other bodies
- Raising subscriptions in line with inflation by 3.2%
- Explore options on renting out one or two floors at Carlow Street
It is hard to reach a decision on many of these until a full discussion at Congress, following suggestions/motions from branches, the Democracy Commission and other groups, but a series of points were put in front of the NEC to vote on.
It seems, following the extraordinary meeting in January, where a majority agreed to focus on staff costs and other savings, that staffing cost reductions would go ahead and NEC members were told that a VS scheme will be negotiated with the staff union. The GS informed NEC that a VS scheme would not be implemented until after Congress.
NEC did not discuss any details of this scheme or the costs involved, but were informed that up to 40 wte staff could be affected. We were also told that for every £50,000 of savings made from other sources, this would equate to 1 wte post. As the recovery plan timeframe was over a 3 three year period and we do not know until Congress exactly how much savings we could make – it seemed premature to many NEC members to announce a VS scheme. There are many alternatives still to explore in detail before any cuts are made and any decisions made at Congress. At the January meeting a motion had been proposed to consider a recruitment strategy, reduce some spending and increase subscriptions without the need to cut democratic functions and staffing levels, but this was not carried.
We had a long discussion on raising subscription rates. It was put to the NEC that any rise to members above inflation would lose us members, but no hard evidence to support that assertion was put. Jane Hardy gave a very convincing argument that a modest rise for all and a slighter higher rise for the highest earners would be sufficient to raise enough subs revenue to offset the need for cuts.
UCU property was discussed. Any sale from property, however, would go into the union’s assets and would not be counted as savings. It was agreed to look at cheaper leases in the future for accommodation and the possibility of renting out part of Carlow Street and selling or renting the union’s presidential flat in London.
The NEC then voted on the recommendations put forward by the unions Strategy and Finance Committee. These were voted on separately:
• Increase subscriptions by 3.2% in line with inflation.
• Maintain Congress as an annual conference but reduce to two days.
• Reduce the cost of the NEC, sub-committees, standing order committees and working groups.
• Suspend four affiliations and renegotiate five affiliations.
• Explore options for renting out a floor at Carlow St.
All of the above were agreed by the NEC. Many on the NEC (including myself) supported the first and last recommendations and voted against or abstained on the rest.
A motion was also passed that all the potential reductions in committees would be only on a temporary basis.
Given that the majority of the NEC in January refused to support a motion ruling out compulsory redundancies of the union’s staff, another motion was proposed at this meeting. ‘This NEC resolves that there will be no compulsory redundancies of UCU staff’ was narrowly carried by 24 votes to 22 with a number of abstentions. I, along with many others voted for the motion. (NEC had also received some motions from regions supporting no compulsory redundancies, along with UCU Wales.)
Another motion was passed which sought to commit the NEC to a strategy which would not undermine the union’s ability to campaign in defence of members or undermine the equality agenda or union democracy.
While not denying the seriousness of the situation many NEC members felt that not enough time has been spent looking at how to mitigate any cuts and that the whole thing is being unnecessarily rushed. Many NEC members felt that the refusal of the national officers and SMT to consider any targeted subs increases beyond inflation is also mistaken. Even if the whole of the £2 million shortfall in two years’ time were to be covered by a subs increase this would amount to less than £20 per year, less on average than the cost of a cup of coffee per member per month.
Reports from Commission on Union Democracy and NEC sub-committee on the NEC
An interim report from the Commission on Union Democracy (elected from Congress 2012 delegates) and a second report from the NEC sub-committee on union structure and democracy (a mainly appointed body of national officers and Chairs of national committees) were received by the NEC. These reports are available on the UCU website.
There was no detailed discussion of the seven NEC exemplars presented in these reports but a proposal from the President, Kathy Taylor, about how to handle the debate at Congress 2013 was discussed. This proposed that all the exemplars in the reports should be debated in a Congress session and then a ballot of delegates carried out to determine a ‘favourite’ model. Since implementation of any decision to change the composition or size of NEC would require a Rule change, this would then be brought to Congress 2014.
Changes to Model Local Rules and Regional Committee Standing Orders.
Due to lack of time this will be carried over to the next NEC.
Volume of Congress Business
A motion was submitted calling for a reduction of time spent on motions to congress by not just compositing but prioritising motions. Some NEC members spoke against this arguing that it will curtail democracy and that there were other ways of more efficiently using the time available at Congress time, such as cutting down on visitors’ speeches etc. The motion was passed, however.
Congress behaviour guidance
A paper was passed outlining expected behaviour. There was no inclusion in this paper of the detailed discussion that took place in the Equality Committee, where concerns were expressed about possible over-reaction.
Affiliations
Members were asked to agree suspension of 2 years to affiliations that have not directly engaged with UCU over the past year. Despite protests from members in respect of two of the disaffiliations – to the Stop the War Coalition, and Health Emergency - this was approved by the NEC majority. Also, where affiliations were seen to be high, such as Education International, renegotiation of the fee will be attempted.
Previous Minutes.
I asked what has happened following the passage of the motion to remind members that the TPS dispute is still ongoing and progress on remittance of affiliation to the ’68 is too late’ campaign. Apparently information has gone to branches on the TPS (no progress) and discussions are still ongoing with the TU’s signed up to the ’68 is too late’ to reach an agreed position.
TUC delegation
Future delegations will be smaller but will have better representation of women and a guaranteed place for 1 black member.
Other motions
Unite Against Fascism
(a)There was a motion from the Equality Committee supporting the Unite Against Fascism campaign to get rid of fascists Andrew Brons and Nick Griffin as Euro MPs in 2014 which asked for a donation of £1000 to be put to Congress. This element was deleted from the motion by majority vote.
(b) It was agreed to support the ‘Convention for Higher Education’ at Brighton University in May. See link: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/cappe/conferences/conferences/convention-for-higher-education
(c) A motion critical of a recent speech by Yvette Cooper on immigration policy was not reached through lack of time.
Please get in touch with me for more details from the NEC meeting, or any other NEC business.
Veronica Killen email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: 0191 2156130
March 2013
