Firstly thank you for inviting me to speak today.


There is a great deal I want to cover:






But first I want to introduce AUT and myself to those of you who will not be familiar with who we are and what we do.


AUT is the largest union in higher education, representing some 48,000 academic staff and senior administrators.


The vast majority of our members work in what are still called the old universities.


Like the ACM we organise managers at the highest levels, both those who head departments and those who are responsible for implementing often-difficult decisions within the governance of institutions.


The philosophy that underpins AUT is that of the academic team – namely that while research and teaching are what universities do,






are also vital to the functioning of a successful university.


Different roles, all directed at the same aims.


When I was first elected as AUT General Secretary four years ago, I was convinced that AUT needed to rethink how we sought to achieve these aims on behalf of members.





Does that ring any bells with you?


Well, my view is that we need to be honest with each other about how effective we have been.


Too often in education, unions have been excellent at identifying the problems; and less successful at either identifying solutions or achieving success on behalf of members.


In the face of this inability to change things for members, we have sometimes fallen back on rhetoric as a smokescreen.


I decided to leave the rhetoric to others. My approach has been to seek to:





And most of all to strike a bargain with members, namely that



Four years on, the going has been tough.


We fought top-up fees tooth and nail.


Our members told us fees would lock in privilege and push many potential students away from higher education for fear of lifelong debt.


We lost the big vote in Parliament by 5 votes, and while some still talk about that defeat as if “nearly winning” is the same as victory…


I see it as just that – a defeat that staff and students will have to live with for the foreseeable future.


More positively, AUT was prepared to go it alone in 2004 against proposals from our employers, which would have destroyed career progression and reduced career earnings and split managers and academics’ pay.


That battle we won, and I am proud that my union is now negotiating starting salaries for our lecturers that at around £30,000 have increased by nearly 25% and are beginning to make the profession attractive again.


Finally, we have achieved what eluded many previous negotiators in both AUT and our sister union NATFHE – a merger to create the largest post-16 union in the world.


Has this process been easy? By no means. Differences in culture abound, but the prize for members is worth it.


So what does it all mean for further education?


Well, it is important isn’t it to look at what unites us rather than divides us.




What they want are practical answers from their unions.


And how do we address these problems when members too often think we are going through the motions, and reheating arguments that have been lost long ago?


The Foster Review, informed no doubt by Treasury thinking, has argued that FE must be skills focussed and that there is little room for anything else.


In HE this debate is mirrored in the government’s widening participation agenda, and an increasing impatience with degrees that are not considered to be practical or have direct application at work.


No one has an issue of course with the fact that FE and HE should contribute to the creation of a high skills economy and both sectors can be proud of their contribution thus far.


Especially against a background of ever increasing student/staff ratios and ever reducing resources per student.


But in this debate, my view is that something is being lost in both sectors as we battle against a government agenda that sees learning only as a means to an end.


I was struck in the consultations that Foster did, by how widespread support was for the college as a learning environment above all else.


More than one-in-five of the public saw colleges as providing local people with the opportunity to learn a new skill for their personal development.


And, there was never a more passionate response from providers than to Foster’s question about the social role of colleges.


More than 2/3rds placed the college at the heart of the community.


Because it is the only gateway back into learning for many.


You can’t measure that with bits of paper.


The same is true in higher education.


What students get from being in an environment where they are challenged about their beliefs…


And,


…given time to discuss and debate cannot be measured simply through their degree certificate.


So yes of course turning out young people fit for work is important, but it isn’t all you do and nor should it be.


You will gather that I am an unapologetic advocate of learning as a good thing in itself.


It is a similar story in terms of fair funding for FE and HE.


The battle being fought in FE for parity with schools and six form colleges is mirrored in HE where a small number of universities now receive the lion’s share of the funding.


In both sectors, we must argue for diversity yes, but fairness in funding too.


The paths of FE and HE are converging.


FE now provides more than one-third of those attending university.


While, more than one in ten degrees are now awarded in FE, and the quality of those courses is an issue of vital interest to all of us.




In HE those universities who reach out to the community are under severe threat.


Continuing education departments who provide opportunities for those who are either immobile or not from traditional “university” backgrounds are the first to face the axe when budget cuts are required.


So what do we share?





All of which brings me to you and I.


What is the role of trade unionists and the organisations to which they belong in seeking to turn the tide?


I would like to close by setting out my vision not just for the role of the new Universities and Colleges Union in this, but also how we work with ACM and others.


In both sectors, staff have often suffered from a lack of coherent leadership with different unions saying different things while the employers have had the field to themselves.


The UCU provides an opportunity for us all to reposition ourselves, and focus around an agenda that benefits all our members.


Professional unity, whether formal or simply collaborative is a key condition for our voice being heard, and I welcome the opportunity to create a new agenda between ACM, UCU and others.


Too often in our response to government demands, we end up talking to each other rather than those who benefit most from what we do.

That is the best way to be ignored.


I will argue for a properly funded campaign among students and local communities to stress the benefits of FE and HE


– and build a new coalition that believes in education as a public good to society as well as to the economy.


But if we campaign on this overarching theme, we must think about the effectiveness of everything else we do.


If we are ever to challenge government and employers on the issue of low pay, we must first take our members with us.


Successive defeats based on the same old tactics simply reinforce members’ belief that nothing can be done.


I believe in campaigns that deliver rather than just make us feel better.


Which brings me to the need for a new professional agenda in both FE and HE. Schoolteachers’ pay and conditions have been driven up by a relentless campaign to boost their status.


How galling for our members in further and higher education to see this, and feel – yet again – like their contribution is “forgotten”.


But, we have to do the same. The transforming quality of what we do – whether in our role as teachers, lecturers, administrators or managers should be a source of pride.


And to make the collective point about the importance of what we do, we have to focus on the difference our members make to individuals – to put a face to a name.


Can we change the world overnight? No.


It is much, much harder to be outward facing than to fall back on old certainties. Of course it is.


But, will the usual rhetoric shift the balance. In my view, almost certainly not.


Confidence does not come overnight. It takes even longer for that confidence to translate into material benefits for members.


But, I have already talked about how I feel that AUT is now in better shape than it was a few years ago.


I hope that UCU continues this work, and that we can rely on your support as we seek to recast how the public and government see us, and our role.


This country needs a thriving post-16 sector.


The sector itself needs strong, confident unions.


And most of all our members need strong leadership.


___________________________________________


I look forward to working with you as we build that future.


Thank you for listening.