Higher Education Workers Dispute

It is a pleasure to speak to this motion on the higher education workers dispute, and I thank all the members who gave the motion cross-party support.

As the motion notes, several universities have already had strike action in recent months, and many more staff across the country are currently being balloted. The most recent Unison strike took place on 4 October, when Unison members—mainly cleaners, administrators and library, catering, security and other support staff—took part in action. Further action is due to take place on dates later this month at Edinburgh Napier University, Glasgow Caledonian University and Robert Gordon University.

Those workers will be joined by members of the Educational Institute of Scotland-University Lecturers Association and of the University and College Union, who all have strike dates in November. The UCU action will be at every single one of the 17 Scottish institutions, on three dates later this month, and will involve up to 8,000 members.

Further ballots are on-going at many other institutions, including the University of the West of Scotland, in the region that I represent. Unite the union, too, is balloting its 2,000 members across 11 institutions. We therefore face disruption at universities across Scotland, with staff—many of whom are on low pay—taking action despite the loss of income that that will involve for them. In addition, of course, students are being impacted.

University of Glasgow members were also on strike but, earlier this month, they accepted a breakthrough pay deal, which will involve overall pay rises of between 6 and 12.9 per cent this year, and a pay increase of £2,332 for the lowest paid.

However, the Universities and Colleges Employers Association says that it has made its final offer to staff, of a below-inflation pay award of 3 per cent for most higher education workers, and a 3 to 9 per cent award for some of the lowest paid. Given the rate of inflation, those are pay decreases in real terms.

The strikes are about pay, but they are also about other terms and conditions. The UCU held two ballots: one for strikes on pay and conditions; and the other for strikes on pensions. In the pay and conditions ballot, 81.1 per cent voted yes, on a 57.8 per cent turnout. In the pensions ballot, the yes vote was higher, at 84 per cent, on a 60.2 per cent turnout.

The UCU says that, on average, the cuts to pensions are in the region of 35 per cent, and that those are going ahead despite being based on an outdated valuation of the pension fund. The UCU also estimates that, in the jobs in which it organises in the sector, pay has been cut by about 25 per cent in real terms since 2009. Unison estimates that, for its members, the cut has been about 20 per cent during the same time period.

About one third of university staff in Scotland and across the United Kingdom are on precarious, fixed-term contracts. Some of those workers have been on those contracts for upwards of 30 years.

The average working week in education is now more than 50 hours, and UCU Scotland says that, in a survey that it conducted in June 2021, 76 per cent of respondents reported an increase in workload during the pandemic. A further, more recent UCU survey, from March this year, found that two thirds were considering leaving the sector due to poor pay and conditions.

In response to debates of this nature, Scottish ministers normally say that the institutions are independent and that the terms and conditions of the staff are not the responsibility of the Scottish Government. However, the Scottish Government provided more than £1 billion in funding to Scottish universities last year. Those institutions are substantially funded by the Government.

In addition, the sector generates income. The UK university sector generated income of £14.1 billion last year.

It is estimated that vice-chancellors took pay packets of an estimated £45 million. For example, the principal of the University of Edinburgh is reported to have a salary of an estimated £363,000 a year, and the principal of the University of Glasgow is reported to have an estimated salary of £368,000 a year.

Education is fully devolved and the Scottish Government is responsible for the model in our higher education system in Scotland, which is one of endemic low pay, poor conditions, excessive executive remuneration, casualised contracts and the marketisation of the sector.

I urge the Scottish Government, as a major funder of the sector in Scotland, to get directly involved in these disputes; to urge universities and the University and Colleges Employers Association to take meaningful steps to negotiate a fair resolution to the disputes; to ensure that the fair work convention is the minimum standard for accessing funding from the Scottish Funding Council; and to look at how that convention can be strengthened and, as a priority, investigate and report to this Parliament on employment conditions in the education sector, particularly in higher education.

We have a system in which students are treated as consumers and in which many workers are on temporary contracts and paid a pittance while vice-chancellors award themselves record pay packets. It is unsurprising that workers across the country are demanding improved pay and conditions. The Scottish Government cannot claim to be a bystander in the disputes. The Government funds Scottish universities by more than £1 billion each year. It has a responsibility to ensure that staff are paid well and have proper conditions of employment and that the universities, which are provided with funds, act as good employers.

I declare an interest as a member of the Universities Superannuation Scheme from my 15 years working in the Scottish higher education sector.

I thank Katy Clark for bringing the motion to the chamber for debate today. As she knows, I am happy to give the full backing of Scottish Labour’s education policy, particularly for the sound recommendation that funding that is delivered from the Scottish taxpayer through the Scottish Funding Council should be guaranteed on the baseline of the fair work convention. The universities should adhere to that. It is a sound suggestion and the minister should address it in his remarks.

It is absolutely right to say that employers should get back round the table on all the disputes that Katy Clark highlighted, and also on the dispute that Mr Graeme Dey highlighted. However, we know that pay disputes across the public sector are being driven by a global economic climate that has, to be frank, only been worsened by the grotesque incompetence of the Conservative Government, which is in Parliament today asking citizens across the UK to pay the cost of its right-wing ideological economic fantasies.

The staff in our universities, whose situation we are debating, are victims of that incompetence, too. The impact of inflation is now compounded by the tax hikes and service cuts that the chancellor has announced in the past hour. We have to ask our universities to recognise that climate and they must strain every sinew to find the resources to strike the right pay deal for our lecturers and support staff across Scotland. Their work is crucial not just today, for the students that they work with, but to the future of our country.

As members have highlighted, industrial relations are strained. As a Dundonian and as a former long-term employee of the University of Dundee, it has become a matter of great concern and, to be frank, a shameful sight to see that industrial relations there have deteriorated to the level that they have. The pension cuts for the lowest paid part of the workforce, who are predominantly female, are completely unacceptable. The management must get round the table with all the campus unions immediately.

We must also recognise in this debate what the Scottish Government has done to increase the budget pressures on our universities. The resource spending review slashed funds for tertiary education in the years to come by 8 per cent with, as yet, no indication of the balance of the cuts between colleges and universities. That means that the universities do not yet know the real scale of the cuts that they will face, which makes planning for their future workforces, projects and investments impossible. The minister should provide clarity on that as soon as possible.

This is not just a short-term issue that has arisen in recent months. The Scottish Government has provided no increase to the funding of Scottish student education for 13 years and, as a result, it is fair to say that the balance sheets of most Scottish universities are deeply worrying. That is reflected in the comparative performance of our universities, as I have covered in the chamber on numerous occasions. The recent research excellence framework results show the universities in Scotland not improving at the pace of universities across the UK.

In the Times Higher Education world university rankings that were published just yesterday, there are three outstanding Scottish universities in the world’s top 200. A decade ago, there were five. That is a reflection of the direction of travel in Scotland, which is a very worrying one for the future of our country.

The people who make the universities’ success possible are the very employees whose working conditions we are discussing today. Scottish Labour calls for new negotiations and a deal for all those workers that protects their futures and the future success of Scotland.

I refer members to my entry in the register of interests, and I thank my comrade Katy Clark for securing this important debate.

As a former rep for the University and College Union—the UCU—I know all too well what struggles the staff in higher education are facing. For years, those workers have been undervalued as the UK and Scottish Governments have allowed low pay, casualisation and poor working conditions to become rife across the sector. Therefore, I stand with those workers as they take industrial action and join them in their calls for a real pay rise after years of below-inflation wage rises; for an end to precarious contracts, which lead to poor working conditions and dangerously high workloads; and for pensions that allow them to have dignity in retirement, rather than pensions that have been cut to the bone.

As I mentioned, prior to my election, I was a UCU rep. A particular issue that members faced then, which they still face now, was the increasing casualisation of work in higher education. I would like to share some testimony from a UCU member at the University of Dundee that highlights the human impact of casualisation. I will read out their words:

“I have been teaching at universities in the UK for 5 years, teaching English and academic skills to students who want to come and study in the UK.

In that time, I have been on more than 10 temporary contracts—all of them either part-time or fractional.

Most of my students will pay more for their Masters course than I will make in a year. It is just not possible to plan a life under these conditions.

It’s nearly impossible to get a mortgage because temporary contracts are seen as too risky by the bank.

You cannot afford to pay for further training and qualifications because your pay is so low.

Starting a family seems impossible when you don’t know if you will have a contract this semester, or if you might need to move to another city for work.

When I got my first job at a university I was excited because I thought I had ‘made it’.

Now, I would not recommend the HE sector to anyone who wants to start a family or build a stable life of any kind.

I plan to retrain and leave the sector at the next opportunity, and I know I’m not alone.”

The UCU member whose testimony I have shared is not alone. The issues that they face reflect the systemic challenges that university staff face. As we have heard, at the University of Dundee senior management are pushing through pension cuts without holding meaningful negotiations with the affected workers or their trade union representatives in Unite, Unison and the UCU. The Scottish Government has refused to engage, despite the fact that it has often emphasised the importance of fair work. The First Minister, the education ministers and even their officials all failed to meet a delegation of workers and their Unite representatives in Parliament just two weeks ago.

I thank the minister for that intervention and for his commitment to meet the workers. I will pass that on. The invitation was extended to every MSP in Parliament and I raised it at First Minister’s question time. I even gave the time and place. I can only apologise if the minister was not paying attention that day.

Where is the fairness in low pay, in casualised contracts and in the pension cuts that university staff in Dundee and across Scotland now face? How can it be right that universities that receive so much public funding are able to defy the Scottish Government’s fair work principles without being held to account?

The growing marketisation of higher education has involved universities prioritising profit over people. We must think bolder and transform our education system in the way that we transformed public health with the creation of the national health service. That means aspiring to have a national education service that is universally available from cradle to grave, that provides well-paid, secure and unionised jobs for its staff, and that makes lifelong learning a reality for all.

I refer members to my entry in the register of interests, and I thank Katy Clark for bringing this important question back before Parliament.

Once again, we are debating higher education at the very point when our trade unions are on the brink of industrial action. Once again, we are debating higher education as we witness a fierce political attack on the democratic freedoms of workers and their organisations. Make no mistake: it is an attack that is so extreme that simply witnessing it is not enough. This is no time for neutrality; this is a time to step up and actively defend those workers, those trade unions and those fundamental human rights and freedoms.

Nor can we be neutral on the fate of our universities. Just last week, I visited the new advanced research centre at the University of Glasgow. I listened: I listened to university teachers, who told me about the rise in precarious employment. I listened: I listened to students, who told me about the difference that access to higher education was making to their lives, but how hard their struggle was. New capital investment in our university buildings is important, but we also need equally bold new human investment in our university staff and students.

That reminds me that, as we contemplate the aftermath of this afternoon’s budget and as the SNP-Green Government contemplates yet more cuts to college and university funding, we should never forget that there are those who will use financial cuts not as a side effect but as an intended consequence to limit the choice that is open to working-class students.

As people always say about budgets, the devil will be in the detail. We shall see over the next few days what that really means on the ground.

In the accompanying notes for today’s budget, the OBR has reflected the fact that household income in the UK is expected to fall by 7 per cent this year and 7 per cent next year. Is that not the situation that workers in universities face as a result of the UK Government’s economic policies?

Yes, I agree with Michael Marra entirely. As I was saying, that is also the challenge that faces students from working-class backgrounds, who are much less likely to get the opportunity.

In the time that I have left, let me turn to look at the UCU’s demands, which are, in my view, very modest. All that it is looking for is a meaningful pay rise and action to address pay inequality; an agreed framework to eliminate precarious employment practices and to tackle dangerously high workloads; an entirely affordable reversal of the 35 per cent cut to university workers’ pensions; a reinstatement of the universities pension scheme; and a recognition that those are deferred earnings.

We say to the outstanding leaders of the UCU—Jo Grady and Mary Senior—and to other higher education trade unions in dispute that they and their members have our 100 per cent support. We say to the Scottish Government that of course we understand the importance of the autonomous status of our universities, but they are not private businesses—they are public institutions that are subject to public legislation, influence and regulation, and they are funded with public money. I ask the Minister for Higher Education and Further Education, Youth Employment and Training: what is it going to take, and when is he going to act?

Finally, in our democracy, trade unions are a line of defence for working people, but I hope that the day will come soon when they will be not just a line of defence but an alternative line of advance. I hope that they will be a vehicle through which people can participate in the running of our universities, our colleges and all our public services and, yes, in the running of our industries as well, so that the people who know what works—those who create the wealth, including the wealth of knowledge in our education system—are no longer all the time defending but have their status transformed. That would herald a new era of mutual aid and mutual respect, a new era of social and economic responsibility, and a new era of progress for working people in this country.

We all sympathise about the current financial situation, and I addressed some of that in my speech. The minister has to recognise that the amount of money that the Scottish Government has provided for Scottish students has not increased for 13 years. Is that not part of the root cause of the issue of terms and conditions for Scottish workers in universities, which is what we are talking about?

Will the minister give way?

Does the minister accept that the model for the higher education sector in Scotland is, as I outlined, one of endemic low pay, poor conditions, excessive executive remuneration, casualised contracts and marketisation? Does he accept that it is the Scottish Government’s responsibility to ensure that the model is acceptable to the people of Scotland? Will he look at fair work and at how employment practices can be improved in the sector?

Will the minister give way?