University and College Union (UCU) activists are pushing to reignite plans to instigate a trade dispute with the secretary of state for education, despite legal advice warning against it. 

Amid a wave of job cuts at universities across the UK, union members mooted the idea of taking the fight to the education minister more than two years ago, at UCU’s annual conference. The union has previously only called national action against employer body the Universities and College Employers Association on issues such as pay and pensions.

But the motion gained little momentum amid delays and debates over its legal viability. Members have argued that because the education secretary, currently Lucy Powell, establishes the funding model for higher education in England, she is a legitimate subject for a dispute.

A similar motion pushing for a dispute was again passed at UCU’s congress in May but it failed to take off after legal advice obtained by the union outlined the legal risks posed by such action.

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But following , a special meeting of the HE sector conference was convened for 14 October to discuss pushing through the dispute.

Times Higher Education understands that branch delegates voted in favour of a motion pursuing action against the education secretary.

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The motion said the crisis facing higher education requires a “national industrial response” and noted that over the past two years there have been two consecutive Congress motions committing UCU to open a dispute with the education secretary over funding but the action has not been progressed.

It argued that it is “necessary to defend jobs, pay, conditions, and the future of public higher education”.

The motion resolved to “immediately open the dispute with SoS [secretary of state] over funding” and “run a consultative ballot, for a reasonable period, of all members about their appetite for national industrial action in a dispute with the SoS over funding” but said any substantive decision taken by UCU’s higher education committee must be “in consultation” with members. 

The union’s higher education committee working group on the matter recommended over the summer that any action on the dispute be “paused” following legal advice obtained by the union. 

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The legal advice outlined that a dispute with the education secretary to address the redundancies crisis is “not possible under the current law”.

The advice did not totally rule out a dispute on improved HE funding to give members a pay rise “but this would not address the redundancy crisis”.

It added that UCU would need to adopt a “strictly controlled communications policy” for the duration of any dispute, refraining from generalised criticism of how higher education is funded to avoid the dispute being characterised as political rather than industrial” because this would go beyond the remit of trade union law. 

The proposals have sparked debate among UCU activists across the country, with some arguing that it is the best option the union has for pursuing national action in a rapidly deteriorating sector, while others have argued it is too legally risky.

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Writing on his  ahead of the vote, Michael Abberton, Cambridge UCU vice-president and member of UCU’s higher education committee, said that there is an “important distinction between establishing that a legal argument can be made” and “having sufficient confidence in that argument to ask tens of thousands of members to act upon it”.

Highlighting the need to not “expose our members and union itself to danger”, he added: “I would welcome credible new evidence which changes the position, and I would be delighted if a legally sound and effective route could be established. But until that happens, I believe we have to take seriously the conclusions of the work already undertaken, rather than returning repeatedly to arguments which have already been examined in detail.”

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juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com