UCU: Privatisation in FE and HE

Motion

Motion text: Congress expresses its complete opposition to the privatisation of university language centres and the threat of agency assessors being used to undercut negotiated lecturer pay and conditions in FE. Such privatisation will lower standards and endanger staff rights.
Congress expresses its disappointment that it took several months before a high profile campaign was launched, not least because many of the staff employed in such centres are female and the privatisation will therefore adversely affect women staff.

Congress believes that as part of a campaign to protect pay, jobs and conditions we should 'show total opposition to the government's policy of privatisation. We should garner the damning evidence of the destruction to the NHS and other public services that PFI has caused, and use this in a national campaign to win all branches to the demand 'our education is not for sale'. We condemn the government's anti-democratic tactics of 'creeping privatisation' and instruct our national officers to lead a convincing battle of ideas against them to safeguard the quality of educational provision and Lecturers' conditions in FE and HE.

Congress pledges to make equality central to its campaign against this and other possible privatisation threats across both sectors.