Another year, another set of strikes announced by the University and Colleges Union (UCU). For the past five years, Cambridge lecturers have walked out over cuts to their pensions. In the words of Yogi Berra, “it’s like déjà vu all over again”.

That lecturers are striking is not itself at all disagreeable. The right to industrial action is a key part of any civilised democracy and has worryingly come under increasing assault by the Tories. Lecturers are well justified in having their grievances too. Guaranteed retirement income has been cut by up to 35% and pay has only risen by a meagre 3%, lagging significantly behind the rate of inflation. So it is a crying shame that at this critical time university staff are represented by an organisation as supine and rotten as the UCU. 

If there is anything which speaks volumes about the UCU, it is their own record of success. Or rather the total lack thereof. The last time the UCU even tasted something approaching a victory was back in 2018, where they managed to negotiate the introduction of a “Joint Expert Panel” to help assess changes to their pension scheme. A truly effective measure which has resulted in… precisely no change to the scheme, with the people who actually manage the pension fund simply ignoring the recommendations of the panel and maintaining business as usual.

You don’t need to be an economist (in fact it’s probably better if you’re not) to see that the UCU’s demands, while certainly just, will not be accepted by universities. Due to systemic underfunding of tertiary education many universities are already calling for increases to tuition fees just to keep things as they currently are, let alone pay staff more. The UCU might argue that, given its significant wealth, Cambridge can afford the proposed changes to both pensions and wages. And while this may be true, it obtusely neglects how both pensions and wage rises are actually negotiated. Pensions and wage rises are negotiated centrally by a coalition of universities of which Cambridge is only one. So even if Cambridge acquiesced to the demands of the strikers, nothing would change as other financially bereft universities would simply veto the terms. 

I can only pray that the UCU will learn to use strikes appropriately

Since 2018, the UCU has only intensified this exercise in futility, with strikes becoming more frequent and less popular among the student body year on year. It appears the UCU have adopted the notably successful strategy of “we’ll just keep trying it until it works” pioneered by World War One generals. Just as wave after wave of soldiers were sent fruitlessly charging into No Man’s Land, the UCU strikes with the same fruitless demands again and again to no avail without even contemplating changing their own tactics.

And the parallels with General Melchett don’t end there. The UCU’s high command is dangerously out of touch with the very people they are meant to be representing. Just take the UCU’s position on the University’s free speech statement two years ago. Cambridge UCU explicitly opposed an amendment to the University’s statement calling for a change in wording, instead demanding “respect” rather than “tolerance” for speech. The amendment supporting “tolerance” swept to victory, claiming 87% of the vote, with only 13% backing the UCU’s position. Abject embarrassment aside, this episode reveals why the UCU is such a decrepit institution. Despite having “democratically” voted at a UCU meeting on their opposition to the amendment, their position did not remotely line up with that of the academics they are meant to represent. Instead of being at least moderately democratically representative, as Unions should be, the UCU is run by a clique of bourgeois radicals who disastrously dictate the union’s direction. 

Despite overtures of solidarity with students, this camarilla is nakedly concerned in serving its own self-interest. Their smug disdain for us was clear when they kept backing online-only teaching throughout the pandemic, despite the clearly tragic impact it was having on student mental health. It was clear when they wholeheartedly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory about this very newspaper, concocted by one of their chief commondants. And it is clear again and again when they repeat the barefaced myth that their impotent strikes are with student interest in mind or that students somehow have an equal duty to join in with the futile display.

While the UCU circus and the clowns who run it may be moderately farcical to watch from afar, their harlequinade has real impacts, especially on the most vulnerable. Demanding that students not cross picket lines will disadvantage those who cannot afford to buy material they’d otherwise be able to access freely from libraries or university repositories. It will have the most impact on those who struggle to fund the very tuition they are being deprived of. And so what? A group of academics can have their moment in the sun? Because if the UCU continues their course as they have promised, their strikes will continue to achieve absolutely nothing.

So no, I won’t be donning a pink hat and joining the picket line with the UCU schmucks next strike. I will be laughing in despair at the entire charade. I can only pray that the UCU will learn to use strikes appropriately to target the structural issues which blight higher education, rather than continuing to charge headfirst into barbed wire. It is so truly fascinating that the union supposedly representing the most highly educated group of people in this country, is quite probably the most strategically inept of all.