Sally Hunt

Policy briefing

Together, a fresh start in FE

I helped create UCU, our new union, because I believe we can do better together. I share your passion for your work, and your commitment to the principles of further education and a better deal for staff and learners.

Let us make a fresh start in FE – focusing on what matters to you, on providing a professional service and on building a strong, credible union together.

In FE, I believe we can do better by:

• putting members priorities like improving pay and conditions and reducing workloads above everything else, including political causes

• Agreeing a new pay strategy for FE that reflects the reality of local bargaining in many colleges and counters the “myriad” of different conditions members work under

• Standing up for FE and the staff who work in it in positive, public campaigns that “speak for the sector”

• Expanding our professional support for individual members with a problem at work

• Reaching out to those FE teachers not yet in the union and re-engaging with disillusioned existing members

• Offering every member the chance to contribute to a new UCU manifesto for further education to form the basis for more effective lobbying for funding

Standing up for FE

NATFHE worked hard for members but the new union can do better.

Our sector is now incredibly diverse. Our members are now:

• playing a key role in the challenging 14-16 year old learning environment – despite the massive disincentive of being paid substantially less than their peers in schools

• delivering high quality A-level tuition for 16-19 year olds despite receiving 13% less funding than six form colleges and, again, lower pay than colleagues

• supporting one in seven of the undergraduates studying in the UK today, again often with budgets and resources which are tiny compared to those available to university staff

• providing vital opportunities for adults to have a second chance at learning across a range of disciplines and skills levels with enormous social and economic benefits to the local community

• working with local employers on vocational training which is vital to our country’s economic future

Many commentators talk about FE as an ageing and disaffected workforce, but I know first hand that is a workforce with a high degree of commitment to its learners and to the sector’s mission.

Yet when I talk to ministers, I am often surprised by their ignorance of what happens in FE, partly because they do not have direct experience of it – and in particular its ability to change lives.

That is why the new union has to intervene more effectively in the wider debate about how FE is funded. As members you tell me that funding is complex and often short term, and that many of the buildings you teach in are falling down, that in 14-16 and 16-19 provision FE colleges are treated unfairly compared to schools and six form colleges.

The best way to address these issues is to campaign positively - to stand up for FE as something worthwhile and to persuade the public that what we do is important.

I will increase our lobbying presence at Westminster and will work with you to create a positive long term national campaign that highlights the work you do and the funding required do it even better.

Pay and conditions

The new union is also a good time to address the reality of what the Foster Review described as the “myriad” of different staff terms and conditions in FE.

Members tell me that the trend in many institutions is towards increased teaching hours and higher, often unpaid, administrative burdens.

Meanwhile, national strikes on pay have become an annual event – albeit with a decline in participation from members year by year. Partly this is because of the low pay offers made, and partly because of the unwillingness of many colleges to implement agreements that are reached nationally. At time of writing we are still waiting for more than 100 colleges in England to implement the 2003 pay deal.

We need to be honest with ourselves that current national bargaining arrangements are not working and that up to this point we have been unable to secure enough of the extra public funding of FE for pay to make up ground against teachers or colleagues in HE and think of new strategies.

Can we do better? In Northern Ireland, UCU members are currently on strike to get the employers to honour a pay agreement that moves lecturers towards parity with school teachers. They are campaigning imaginatively and seeking support from the wider community. In Wales, thanks to hard bargaining, we now have a funded national agreement that provides some measure of pay parity with teachers.

Both examples show what can be done, and the same is true of six form colleges who gained “independence” from LEA control in 1993 at the same time as FE colleges. They have enjoyed effective national bargaining arrangements since. Their pay and conditions are nationally determined through a constructive relationship between the employers and the three teachers’ unions. The result is that six form colleges have salaries which are substantially ahead of FE and in many cases better than those for their colleagues in schools.

We need a new strategy to address FE pay that moves beyond the annual ritual of the national strike and learns from our experiences in Wales, Northern Ireland and those of our colleagues in six-form colleges. As a key principle, UCU should call strike action only when it is widely supported and part of an overall campaigning strategy. To do better on pay, we must also reach out to the estimated 60,000 FE teachers who are not yet in UCU and persuade them to join us.

Your manifesto for FE

Survey after survey shows that learner satisfaction in FE is high which is an incredible achievement given both the funding constraints and the range of provision.

Our contribution entitles us to our say in how the sector should be run. But, I also believe that UCU has to do more to celebrate these achievements. My friends who work in FE often tell me that they feel like poor relations compared to school teachers and university lecturers.

Yet our members in FE are real life changers and we have to campaign positively to ensure that the public understand the importance of what we do so that the image and profile of further education improves.

So, I as general secretary, I will build a major campaign around celebrating your contribution not in economic terms but in terms of the transformation of peoples life chances that your work produces.

 

Two UCU London members have recently produced a manifesto for FE. I do not agree with all of it, but it makes important points on the future of the sector about pay, local governance, the skills agenda and the needs of learners as opposed to employers.

This initiative is a sign that despite the difficulties UCU members are full of ideas and enthusiasm that should be fed into our future strategy. With our entire sector now under review (post Foster and Leitch) the national union should build on this work and ask members themselves to help us create new policy on the future of FE.

I will invite every FE member to contribute to a new manifesto for further education that will make the positive case for what we do and its importance.

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About me

I am the joint general secretary of the UCU, having been general secretary of the Association of University Teachers since 2002. I have spent the majority of my working life supporting education professionals, and was instrumental in negotiating the merger between AUT and NATFHE to form UCU. If you want to know more about my experience go to my biography.

Join the debate

Nobody has all the answers. I believe that if we are to move forward together we have to listen to each other to establish common ground. If you have any comments about this paper or want to suggest ways of improving our union go to http://sallyhuntucu.blogspot.com/ and join the debate.

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