Our underpaid academics need stronger unions

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jul/01/underpaid-academics-need-stronger-unions

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Higher education has never had it so good. But before I am buried under a heap of protests, let me explain. I am thinking about money, not morale. Universities may be well on the way to selling their souls but at least their bank balances (in most cases) are healthy.

I am also thinking about overall income, not its source. Yes, high fees are unfair to students. And the coalition's "reforms" have dangerously diluted the public purposes of higher education. But universities, by and large, are comparatively well off. This is partly because New Labour was generous with public funding and the coalition is generous with state-provided loans for (standard-model full-time) students. It's also partly because most universities are efficiently run.

But the main reason is that they underpay their staff. For the best part of a decade now, salaries have failed to keep pace with inflation. As universities spend most of their money on employees, this underpayment has helped them avoid financial crises and even indulge in the odd "landmark" building.

Higher education is not alone here. Squeezing wages to boost corporate profits is the neo-liberal economic model. It goes back to the sharp readjustment of the balance of power between capital and labour under Margaret Thatcher. The deregulation of labour markets was then compounded by the deregulation of financial markets (with disastrous consequences) and the erosion of the tax base (equally disastrous).

Trade unions have become too weak – for their members', and the public, good. Every year or so the same charade repeats itself. The University and College Union breathes fire and threatens one-day strikes and exam boycotts. Vice-chancellors talk tough, although they know there is absolutely no threat. Then it all fizzles out.

Meanwhile the other phenomenon of neo-liberal labour markets advances unchecked. The salaries of senior managers, and especially vice-chancellors, rise to new heights. This provokes some Pontius Pilate-style muttering, which this year even made it into the funding letter to the Higher Education Funding Council for England. But no serious action is taken.

The overall shape of the academic profession is evolving in an ugly way – to the extent that "workforce" now seems a better label than "profession". Career academics have seen their living standards eroded. There is a growing "reserve army" of part-time and contract staff. Other university employees find their jobs have been outsourced.

The winners are senior managers, buttressed by escalating numbers of new quasi-managers with job titles that barely existed a few years ago, and a minority of senior academics who are adept at playing the ratings/rankings/ Research Excellence Framework game and have capitalised on their supposed scarcity to command higher rewards.

The outcomes can be bizarre. The "student experience"– meaning National Student Survey scores and league table rankings – is now aggressively managed, by the new breed of quasi-managers, of course. But the status and morale of rank-and-file academics is hammered despite the fact that they are so central to the real-world, day-to-day experiences of students.

In research we claim we are building a sustainable research culture but concentrate instead on investing in "stars" – in a manner worryingly reminiscent of English football at the moment with its world-class Premier League clubs and mediocre national team. Today we can still hope to win the "World Cup" in research. But in the future we could experience Brazil 2014 all over again.

In the short run universities have been able to avoid NHS-style financial crises by underpaying staff. But this has been at the cost of an increasingly dysfunctional academic profession – status and living standards eroded for the majority, combined with fat-cat salaries for the (lucky) minority and even lower pay and lack of security for another (unlucky) minority.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we need stronger trade unions. At times UCU, in particular, makes itself difficult to love. Shrill calls for radical action, which everyone knows cannot be delivered, combined with fringe politicking, equally ineffective, are not an appetising mix – even when it is battling against neo-liberal ranting from practically the whole of the political establishment and the media.

The real reason for what its critics regard as UCU's antics is its impotence and irrelevance. It has nothing much else to do. If it had more power and influence, it would adopt more sensible and centrist positions. We need stronger trade unions, but it's difficult to give unconditional support to UCU because at times it is silly. I give it two cheers, but not three.

Peter Scott is professor of higher education studies, Institute of Education