[Time constraints at TUC 2023 meant that it was not possible for the chair to take speeches from several unions, for Composite Motion 5. The full text of the motion is here, and I am pleased to report it carried! Below is the text of the speech I would have given in the three minutes usually allocated.]

Vicky Blake, speaking on behalf of UCU.

Our world is burning. Since 2010, austerity, authoritarianism, xenophobia, culture war, losses of workers’ rights have intensified alongside bitterness and a pulling up of drawbridges – around islands and industries. The solutions and wins our movement must achieve cannot be separated from the climate and ecological emergency. 

UCU members are acutely aware of educational institutions physically lost to climate disaster. Heatwaves, wildfires, preventable deaths from heat, exposure, and social breakdown, are here globally and the UK will not escape.

As educators our job is to equip people to deal with challenges and existential threats of climate breakdown. To win a Just Transition to a Green New Deal which leaves no one behind, we must use the full might of our movement. There are no jobs or decent conditions on a burning planet. We must get bargaining and organising for all our futures.

The emergency is real and its scale and urgency feel overwhelming. What can we do? We remember the power we hold as workers that multiplies as we organise to force change from employers and governments. 

As workers, as unions, we must take proactive, immediate steps to collectively bargain for our future: to prevent and mitigate what damage we can, and ensure a future structured to create equality, job security, employment rights, pensions – for all. We cannot afford further delays.

UCU’s climate bargaining work developed from our long term commitments to environmental policy and workplace health and safety, international solidarity, decolonisation and against destructive resource extraction. Led by our members, we’ve developed a bargaining and organising approach to winning a GND in Education, with dedicated resources and training for reps and branches. Our democratically elected Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee now supports the NEC and officials in climate bargaining.

Our policy is to embed climate demands in collective bargaining and to support local level claims across post-16 education. We understand the fight for a just transition must include every sector, worker, and community. 

Our Further Education members across England are balloting now over pay and conditions. The five heads of claim include a comprehensive demand for a national Green New Deal agreement on a Just Transition. This comes directly from our membership and has the buy-in of all unions who bargain together for FE in England (UCU, GMB, NEU, Unison, Unite). The employer body agreed to scoping talks on this demand which began last week.

To escape the cycle of resistance to managed decline we must develop proposals for employers and as we fight for a change in government, for our government to act.

A bargaining and organising framework, with national and local claims, makes us proactive, not reactive. This is core to our movement. We must lead. 

Some relevant info and links:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/environment
https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/13643/FE-England-pay-claim-2023-24/pdf/FE_England_pay_claim_23_24Final.pdf
https://www.ucu.org.uk/RespectFE
https://www.ucu.org.uk/green-new-deal
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12616/The-climate-crisis-an-education-crisis—new-film-launched
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/11656/Implementing-climate-learning-as-a-central-pillar-of-education