Switch focus to national solutions on pay, UCU told

The University and College Union could vote to stop campaigning for annual pay rises and prioritise national bargaining instead.

At its annual congress next week, members will consider motions to decide strategy for its flagship ‘new deal for FE’ campaign, as well as setting national policy on Ofsted, adult education funding and “ending the corporate model” of college leadership.

Teachers at Luminate Education Group will call for the UCU to prioritise “national level expectations” on workload, teaching hours, national pay bargaining and pay parity with school teachers.

The Leeds City College branch, part of Luminate, will argue that since annual pay uplifts are decided by individual colleges, the UCU’s national campaign should focus on national wins, such as binding national bargaining and workload agreements.

Representatives will argue that pay should not form part of any national dispute this year.

The UCU has demanded a 10 per cent or £3,000 pay rise from FE colleges for several years, on top of demands to cut workload and secure pay parity.

The pay rises recommended by the Association of Colleges were 2.5 per cent in 2024 and 4 per cent in 2025, but came with warnings that such increases were unaffordable for many colleges.

Since then, colleges have been slapped with a real-terms cut to the 16-to-19 funding rate for the academic year 2026-27.

Bolton College, which is chaired by the union’s vice president of FE Suzi Toole, will also call for a special FE sector conference next year to define the grounds for the next dispute and ballot arrangements.

‘Politically motivated’ ESOL cuts

Elsewhere at congress, teachers at South & City College Birmingham will attack Greater Lincolnshire mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns’ defunding of ESOL courses as a “politically motivated and vindictive attack” on migrant communities, and will call on the union to lobby funding bodies for “protected status for ESOL”.

And the UCU’s Black members standing committee will demand research into the recruitment and progression of senior leaders in FE from ethnic minority backgrounds.

The motion will insist pressure is placed on the Association of Colleges to develop “equitable career development opportunities”.

Currently, just over one in 10 managers in FE are from a minority or mixed ethnic group background according to 2024-25 workforce data, a slight improvement from 8.6 per cent four years ago.

Membership fee fight

Congress is also expected to debate UCU membership fees, with the union’s leadership at odds with some of its members.

The UCU national executive’s report to congress shows a small increase in members working in further education at 27,047 as of April 30, up 389 on the year.

But it has shed over 2,600 members from higher education in the last year, bringing its overall membership down from 121,335 to 119,008.

UCU’s proposed budget for 2026-27 proposes a “limited increase” in membership fees, described elsewhere in documents as a “progressive movement”.

Membership currently costs teachers up to £31.54 per month, with lower fees for lower earners.

The proposals, seen by FE Week, would see an incremental increase to subscription rates the more a member earns. Those on salaries of £60,000 or more would pay 3 per cent more to their monthly subscription, while members earning under £30,000 would see a reduction of up to 3 per cent to their dues.

But UCU Cymru will demand a standard annual membership fee reduction of at least 15 per cent to make the union more “competitively priced”.

Internal strike

The annual congress takes place against the backdrop of an unresolved industrial dispute between UCU and its own staff.

Unite members who work at the teachers’ union staged an 11-day walkout in February over allegations of trade union victimisation, which UCU claimed were “categorically untrue”.

There has been no significant development in the dispute since.

Goldsmiths University submitted a motion expressing solidarity with Unite UCU members, calling on the union to donate £20,000 to their strike fund.

However, the motion has been removed from the order of business. According to a note in congress papers, discussing staffing issues would be a breach of congress rules, which cited risks to the union’s liabilities as an employer.

Procedural disputes are common at congress and delegates can argue for amendments to the agenda on the first day.