NEC elections
Vote Deepa Govindarajan Driver for representative of women members in HE

Also standing for UK-elected HE.

I’m a Lecturer in Governance, Financial Regulation and Risk, University of Reading and the Branch President or Reading UCU. I am an alternate negotiator and former chair of negotiators on the USS pension scheme. I am standing again for the NEC having served on it for several years.

I am a former chair of the UCU Legal Panel. Before working in HE, I was a financial regulator and banker.

As a disabled, Black, first-generation immigrant, formerly casualised, woman, I bring lived experience of the inter-sectional challenges our members face. As an experienced branch officer with significant national experience, I have opposed sham ‘redundancies’ and rampant casualisation (and the discrimination against women therein); challenged poor governance; defended academic freedom; and negotiated workplace policies. 

I understand the cumulative, detrimental effects of pay and pensions gaps. Research from the TUC in 2025 shows that on average retired women have £7,600 a year less than men. I am proud to have chaired UCU’s USS negotiating team when we secured the momentous unwinding of employers’ circa 40% cuts to pensions (and ensured members received restitution). 

But it is not enough for UCU to preside over a managed decline. We must actively seek improvements on pay, pensions and equalities. Such wins ensure that all members are fairly paid, have secure work and safe conditions, and have dignity and security in work and retirement. These wins don’t materialise from thin air. Having learned a lot from the excellent work of the anti-casualisation committee, for example, I know that UCU’s equalities standing committees play a key role in our grassroots organising.

If elected to the NEC, you can be sure that I –

• will vote for the timely deployment of union resources to defend members;
• will uphold democratic decisions;
• am able to stand firm when things get rocky; 
• support vibrant, pluralistic debate;
• care deeply about fairness and social justice;
• oppose war, conflict and weapons-spending in our international positions;
• will vote for a safe and inclusive workplace for members and UCU staff.

Outside UCU, I am vice-chair of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, and have served as legal observer on landmark cases relating to national security, Palestine solidarity, freedom of information, academic freedom/ employment law, whistleblowing and justice for survivors of war and torture. As as a former financial regulator and as vice-chair of the Board of Brussels-based NGO Finance Watch, I am also accustomed to scrutinising finances. I hope you will allow me to use these skills and my lived experience to serve members. 

Post-16 education can foster critical thinking, disseminate knowledge, liberate and inspire. As labour organisers, together we can build a progressive, just and humane society with public education at its core.

Please vote for me and for Sean Wallis as Vice President (HE), Regine Pilling as Vice President (FE), and UCU Left candidates to realise a credible, democratic, just and effective UCU.