Motions for Annual HE Sector Conference 2005

Contractual issues

Conference recognises the importance of campaigning around the issue of increasing workloads and its relationship to work related stress.

It instructs the HEC to undertake a high profile campaign, on these matters, as a way of increasing grassroots awareness of the employers' negligence and exploitation.

Conference instructs the HEC to actively support branches should any employer seek to impose changes which threaten existing workload agreements.

Further conference calls on the HEC to give active support to branches to enable them to put pressure on employers to undertake risk assessment using the recognised HSE questionnaire.
 

Conference is concerned that many university academics are compelled to spend too much time doing routine administrative and secretarial work, reducing time for research and scholarship

Conference requests the HEC to obtain information on levels of administrative support across the whole university sector, with a view to identifying issues which need to be addressed in the funding of the new university sector and the working conditions of lecturers within it.
 

This conference notes the growing bureaucratisation of the sector and a resulting decline in the trust accorded to academics in carrying out our jobs. This in turn has led to management bullying becoming much more prevalent.

Conference calls for a joint campaign with the AUT to oppose this trend and to defend academic freedom.
 

Conference is concerned that many local employers are not engaging in good faith negotiations in partnership with local unions. There are gross disparities in both the pace and nature of implementation at local level.

Conference instructs the national negotiators to give a firm signal to institutional managements that each and every one of them must negotiate in good faith in partnership at local level.
 

Amendment 4.1

Add at end:

'Conference calls on NATFHE to organise further training events to support members in local negotiations over the framework.'
 

Amendment 4.2

Add new paragraph at end:

'Conference further resolves that failure to agree implementation and provision of appropriate back pay across the sector by August 2005 will trigger a ballot for industrial action.'
 

Conference deplores the erosion of academics' pay in real terms as a result of a series of below average pay rises in recent years. This has occurred alongside a concurrent increase in workloads.

Conference therefore calls on the NEC to demand a substantial increase in pay along with a reduction in workloads.
 

Amendment 5.1

Add at end:

'Conference calls on the NEC to investigate the breakdown of university funding allocation, particularly how much is actually spent on staff pay and the education of students. Conference calls on the NEC to expose misuse of funds, such as expensive management training courses, re-branding exercises and excessive corporate hospitality.'
 

Conference calls on the HEC to deal with workload concerns (especially RAE type research) before the merger with the AUT.
 

This Sector Conference notes with concern the steady drift away from national to local bargaining over pay and conditions, intensified by the Framework Agreement.

Conference recognises the increased support given to Branches but believes that this drift has gone too far and benefits employers while exposing local activists to enormous pressure.

Conference instructs NEC to review the balance between national and local negotiation, with a view to reversing the trend towards local agreements, drawing on the full strength of the union to reach binding national accord to protect and improve members' pay and conditions.
 

Funding

8 FEES

Sector Conference believes that the developing market in fees and bursaries in HE will be incoherent, destabilising, difficult for students to understand, will militate against fair access and reduce rather than widen participation. Conference calls for NATFHE to work with other sector stakeholders to monitor the impact of fees and bursaries, in particular the relative impact on students from low income groups, part-time and mature students, post-92 HEIs and on the provision of HE in FE.
 

9 HE BILL

Conference does not believe claims that the effect of the new HE Bill on variable fees will either be to encourage students from low-income families or protect HEIs which currently provide most opportunity for widening access.

Conference deplores the turmoil which will inevitably ensue in the sector and is outraged by government hypocrisy evident in its effective sponsorship of increased elitism in HE.

Conference calls upon NATFHE to develop a strategy to mitigate the impact of the HE Bill and prevent the emergence of bargain basement degree places catering for working class and non-traditional students.
 

10 MARKET FORCES AND ELITISM - EFFECTS ON HE SECTOR

Conference condemns the recent round of higher education redundancies and departmental closures. The increased marketisation of HE, the pressures of the Research Assessment Exercise and the perceived need by so-called "research" universities to compete internationally are all leading to a situation where money talks, where a small group of elite universities and departments commands the lion's share of resources and where staff are simply regarded as dispensable.

Conference instructs the NEC to campaign for a non-elitist approach to HE funding, in which social priorities are to the fore and in which the contribution made by all staff is properly recognised.
 

Amendment 10.1

Insert middle paragraph as follows:

'Conference further condemns the loss of key subject areas, such as languages, sciences and engineering, as a result of precipitate departmental closures.

'Universities should serve their local and regional communities by offering a wide range of academic subjects, especially for students who need to study locally.'
 

11 COMMODIFICATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

This conference notes the use of the market mechanism to rapidly increase the Commodification of HE, resulting in:

1) The establishment of a new binary divide

2) Market based course provision with attendant deterioration of academic standards and working conditions as well as threats to academic freedom

We will continue to campaign for increased state funding for HE, the restoration of student grants and the abolition of all fees.

Furthermore, we will oppose the excessive fees and charges imposed on overseas students, the new visa charge being another example of this problem.
 

Amendment 11.1

Delete 'the excessive' from final paragraph.
 

12 HE FUNDING

Sector Conference deplores the introduction of variable fees in 2006.

Conference believes that this measure is designed to produce a multi-tiered HE provision with lavish funding for 'Ivy League' research universities for the rich alongside 'factory' conditions in cash-starved teaching-only institutions for the underprivileged, mainly working-class students.

Conference instructs NEC to campaign for the reintroduction of maintenance grants and a capped, standard fee for all HEIs, and for the provision of quality research funding across the sector.
 

Organisation

13 UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE

Conference applauds efforts by NATFHE and others to improve democracy in university governance. It resolves to campaign for: More elected places on university boards of governors and university committees; University committees, including academic boards, to be increased, where necessary, to sufficient size to ensure diversity of representation.
 

Amendment 13.1

Second paragraph, after 'elected', insert 'staff representatives'.
 

Amendment 13.2

Add under second paragraph:

'The restoration or establishment of fully democratic academic councils in all HEIs, of which all academic staff shall be members'.

Add at end:

'All members, especially elected members, of boards and committees to have the same rights of membership of sub-committees and of raising issues on all boards and committees'.
 

Amendment 13.3

Insert new paragraph after paragraph 2:

'The right for staff governors to be included on all sub-committees;'.
 

Research

14 RESEARCH

Conference notes that government funding policy for HE has consistently denied the post-92 sector a reasonable share of research funding, to the advantage of the already advantaged and to the detriment of staff and students in institutions which have done most for widening access.

Therefore, Conference instructs HEC to campaign for:

1) The scrapping of the RAE

2) The reduction of workloads which are the principals obstacles to research and scholarly activity;

3) Equitable funding to support research in all HEIs includes a substantial core element.
 

Amendment 14.1

Delete 's' from the word 'principals' in the second bullet point.
 

15 RESEARCH ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

Conference condemns the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) for distorting academic life and scholarship. In particular it condemns the RAE, for creating a division between 'research' and what are increasingly 'teaching only' Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

Conference Calls for an end to the RAE and its replacement by a fair and equitable distribution of funding that will ensure that all HEIs can undertake significant research.

To pursue this objective Conference instructs the National Executive Committee to launch, if possible in conjunction with the AUT, a total boycott of the 2008 RAE.
 

Amendment 15.1

Last paragraph, delete all after 'AUT,' & replace by: 'a campaign to replace the RAE by a fair system of funding research.'.
 

Amendment 15.2

Delete in final paragraph from 'launch' to final full stop.

Replace with: 'work with other unions in the sector to develop an alternative, credible, model which commands the support of the sector.'
 

Equality

16 EQUAL PAY AND EQUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Conference deplores the lack of commitment on the part of government and employers to delivering equality and equal pay in the workplace and calls on the government to introduce legislation that:

1) Compels employers to conduct regular mandatory equal pay reviews

2) Provides employees with an effective remedy for breaches of the Race Relations Amendment Act

3) Establishes the absolute right of a part time worker to use a full time comparator in Equal Pay and Part Time Work claims regardless of any differences in the form of contract held by the part time worker.
 

Amendment 16.1

Insert final paragraph after third bullet point:

'Until such legislative change, Branches are encouraged to press employers to conduct equal pay reviews.'