Andrea Egan made her first speech as UNISON’s new general secretary at the union’s Higher Education (HE) conference in Brighton today (Thursday) focussing on pay and the funding crisis that is threatening the sector.
Acknowledging that HE members had been at the forefront of the union’s pay campaigning over recent years – “for a small service group, you’ve punched above your weight” – but arguing there was still much to do: “we must make the argument for a pay increase which meets the rising cost of living.
“Universities are well known for paying senior managers a small fortune, whilst some of our members are so poorly paid,” she said. “Some universities still refuse to become real living wage employers. Some outsource their lowest-paid to try to absolve themselves of any responsibility.
“We have to be clear: if the vice-chancellors and principals can afford to reward their professors, their consultants and themselves so handsomely with public money, they can do the same for our members.
“Our cleaners, security officers, hospitality workers, porters and caretakers keep universities functioning and we’ll fight together for justice for all. Our library workers, administrators, student support officers have joined a union to campaign collectively, and we have to do justice to them by following through with the best tactics we can find to use.”
“While senior executive pay gets more obscene by the day, our lowest paid staff struggle to get to the end of the month and this is not acceptable.”
Andrea noted that the sector had some active branches that had won significant victories.
“In some of our branches,” she said, “we now have a culture of striking, not because we want to be on strike every year, but because we know that with the sector in such a financial crisis, the only way we’ll win justice for members is to use our collective strength to win.”
And she announced that the successes of the Organising to Win campaign would be rolled out to all service groups as the Branch Vision Project – with new tools, guidance, and training to ensure any branch can become an Organising to Win branch.
But she admitted that organising in UNISON isn’t about asking existing activists to do more: “we urgently need more member participation and activism in our union.
“Time and again, research and experience shows that low-paid and low-paid women members often want to be more involved but struggle against barriers of time and confidence.
“For those members we’ve launched the new role of ‘active member’ – and through the Branch Vision project we hope branches will recruit, support and coordinate networks of active members, who will take their first step towards UNISON activism with small organising tasks in the workplace – helping build a stronger branch, whilst developing their union skills, knowledge and confidence.”
Recommitting the union to fighting for migrant workers and defending LGBT+ rights, the general secretary also stressed that the union needs “to use our industrial strength and political power to lobby for decent funding for higher and further education and all our public services”.
She said: “We have to say that small increases to tuition fees in England and Wales are not a solution. A reliance on international student numbers does not provide a viable long-term solution to the problems of underfunding which threatens jobs and livelihoods.
Universities have to be funded by public money, not by creating another generation of young people with unmanageable debt around their necks.
“My role as your new general secretary is to make these arguments. UNISON has a long-standing policy of supporting publicly funded education at all levels and we’re opposed to all tuition fees.
“Together we will continue to campaign for the idea that education is valued and should be available to all, for all ages and at all levels.”
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