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The UCU bureaucracy’s feigned outrage over anti-democratic legislation the trade unions have never challenged as a cover shutting down strikes it opposed from the very start.
The winding down of the strikes follows the end of the national marking and assessment boycott on September 6.
The only Higher Education Committee faction to explicitly support an early strike ballot was the UCU Left, led by the Socialist Workers Party. But anyone looking to them for leadership will be cruelly disappointed.
Workers must draw an important conclusion from the past few decades’ experience: that the unions respond to “pressure” by intensifying efforts to impose sellout deals on their members.
The UCU’s delaying tactics, limited action and constant appeals for university management to “see sense” are dispelling any illusions its members still have about the readiness of the union to fight.