THREAD:
As we await news from @NewcastleUniUCU about the results of today’s negotiations, let's reflect on the broader picture of industrial relations. It would be easy to forget some of the highlights of 2020.
TL;DR: Stay angry. Get angrier. Increase the pressure.
1/15

Some of these are national & some local, but on the national ones, I’ve heard nothing to indicate that local leadership disagrees with the hardline stance of their masters in @UniversitiesUK and #USS.
2/15

After striking in the autumn, more strike because:
1) Employers think a real wages cut of nearly 20% over a decade is fine
2) On workload, management here refused to bring our contracts in line with the national standard of 35 hrs per week. We do 40 hrs per week
3/15

3) Failure to agree time-specific agreements on specific actions to close the gender and ethnic pay gap (good news: at the rate we’re going, it will be gone by about 2040 or so anyway)
4) To be fair, we have made limited progress on casualisation ( @NuAntiCas can say more)
4/15

5) Employers failed to insist that #USS implement the recommendations of JEP1 and JEP2 and now our pensions are at risk. Again.
5/15

We all remember the mantra from March as we saw the pandemic taking hold across Europe: business as usual. Who can forget the fear of the weekend of 14-15 March & being told we were overreacting & being irrational. Major loss of trust there.
6/15

Oh, and then with the overnight lurch to remote learning it was “all pull together”, & we did. In response, on 25 March, we were told, “We appreciate the goodwill and commitment from colleagues in both helping to mitigate the impact of the industrial action on our students
7/15

and in rapidly moving to a new way of working. With this in mind I can confirm that the payroll deductions for the March strike days will not be deducted for the foreseeable future.”
8/15

It turned out that the “foreseeable future” lasted just under three months. As soon as the marks for the spring semester were finalised in the middle of June, we were told the deductions would be taken after all.
9/15

In mid-April, we were told that based on catastrophic (but evidence-free) predictions about enrolments for 2020/2021 that no one who was promoted would actually get paid for the new role & that there would be no promotions round in 2020/2021.
10/15

Of course, we now have more students than we expected we would, but we’re still waiting to hear when that decision will be reversed (and for some to take responsibility for the error).
11/15

And, on a national level, a flat refusal to engage in the usual JNCHES process of negotiation over pay & related conditions.
12/15

Back to the pandemic, treating us with contempt as we tried to raise concerns that bringing students to campus for f2f teaching would be a catastrophe.
13/15

And, lest we forget, there is yet another #USS consultation going on right now & based on the past few years, we should assume that employers will say there’s nothing they can do to stop our pensions from being wrecked once and for all.
14/15

So: bear all this in mind when we hear whatever was proposed in today’s negotiation. Whatever is conceded, with bad grace, it is not the end. We’re just getting started. As Richard Dale recalled John Paul Jones saying in 1779, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
15/15