Tag: NEC

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November NEC: UCU Left Report

UCU’s National Executive Committee (NEC) met on Friday for the first time since the general election, in the midst of turmoil in UK and international politics and crises in post-16 education. This was the first time the union’s elected leadership has had an opportunity to focus upon strategies to defend post 16 education.

NEC was also meeting in the aftermath of the visible rise of the far right in the UK, from the explosion of racist violence over the summer and the general electoral success of Farage and Reform UK, through successful mobilisations of antiracists in pushing back the fascist right led by Tommy (Yaxley Lennon) Robinson, to recent Reform UK elections wins.

Internationally, the horror of genocide in Gaza and the global solidarity movement with Palestine continues while Trump’s success in the United States Presidential Election sends shivers down everyone’s spine.

A wave of redundancies has begun across Higher Education as the Hostile Environment racist immigration policies of recent Tory governments has led to a fall in international student applications, and falling student fee income is hitting University finances hard. At the same time, the Labour government has announced a £300m boost to FE funding, but failed to address falling pay in the sector.

Political campaigning

The General Secretary’s Report highlighted that the union has responded to international and political questions at home.

The Campus Voices for Palestine speaking tour, organised by University and College Workers for Palestine and BRICUP was supported by UCU, saw over 700 attend the meetings with Sundos Hammad from the Right to Education. The week of action “United Against Scholasticide” for Palestinian education from 23rd November culminating with the TUC backed Day of Action on the 28th is now a focus for activists.

The union has also moved to recognise the threat of the far right and to build anti-racist initiatives withing our membership, universities, colleges and prisons. A motion brought by UCU Left on opposing the far right was passed, which calls on the union to publicise protests against the far right and encourage branches to organise meetings and invite speakers from Stand Up To Racism, Black Members’ Standing Committee and local refugee and migrant speakers in. (The full wording of thiso motion is at the end of this report).

Where is the national fightback? 

It was clear from the GS report that she and her team have no appetite for national strike action. They provided a pessimistic outlook when it came to acting on the threats facing members in post-16 education, indeed despairing and bemoaning the lack of opportunity to influence the Starmer inner circle.

This pessimism is rooted in the strategy followed by the union in focusing upon local action as opposed to organising for co-ordinated UK-wide action. At a time when the Labour government is vulnerable to strikes and is looking to avoid confrontations with the unions, UCU has pulled back from mobilising members on a national level.  Our power is a collective power in which politicians, and our employers, have to act to answer our demands when our pressure becomes impossible to ignore any longer. It does not come from officials having access to political leaders for fireside chats.

The majority of the NEC recognise this, and repeatedly asked for an answer as to why the UK-wide demonstration in defence of post-16 education, voted for at Congress, has not been enacted?Indeed any mention of it was erased from the priorities set out for NEC. The motion called for a demonstration in the Autumn, yet 5 months later, it is unclear if any actions have happened to make this a reality.

A paper was brought to the NEC outlining the union’s priorities over 2024/25. The failure to provide a guarantee that the UK-wide demo would be a priority meant that this paper was not carried. Moreover, the priorities paper didn’t link these “priorities” to motions carried at Congress and sector conferences, which raised serious questions as to how these priorities had been created (and what was missing).

The lack of urgency by officials in HE is also evident by the lack of information available to NEC on the scale of redundancies. In the middle of a major crisis in HE funding, the union is not even able to produce a list of branches facing redundancies or identify the 40% of universities which reportedly have just one month’s cashflow to continue to pay wages!

Within FE, despite the £300m additional funding the Labour Government has committed for 2025/26 the union has no plan for a co-ordinated national plan of industrial action to get any of this funding ringfenced for pay. Neither does it have a plan on how to ensure that FE members get the 5.5% that was awarded to teachers for this year’s pay rise (2024/25).

FE members will be rightly confused and angered when NEU members in Sixth Form Colleges take strike action from the 28th November over securing a 5.5% pay increase for themselves but UCU is still sitting on its hands.

Flawed, undemocratic plans for a hybrid Congress

Unfortunately, due to the length of the GS Report, little time was spent discussing these crucial issues that confront our members.

Instead, NEC was presented with a long debate over how a hybrid Congress in 2025 could be organised. 

UCU Congress has never voted for a hybrid Congress, but it has been the goal of some on the NEC. Congress delegates have been far more cautious. There was a vote at Congress 2024 to create standing orders which allowed for a hybrid Congress. (These rely on electronic voting being used, rather than a show of hands or cards.) Following Congress, the NEC in June agreed in principle to move this work forward with a study of the mechanisms to facilitate this.

NEC members were presented with a set of proposals, many of which could have been circulated well in advance. This included a proposal that is not compatible with UCU rules – opening up Congress attendance to all union members as observers (currently a small number of observers are elected, like delegates). It appeared not to have crossed the minds of the authors of this proposal that this would mean that managers could join the union and attend online simply to spy on reps!

There was an almost unanimous rejection of this proposal.

The wider set of proposals that were put forward failed to get a majority. (They would have been voted down if it were not for an NEC member being ejected from the meeting, before the vote took place, resulting in a tied vote.) This means that the paper did not pass, and the ‘status-quo ante’ was the outcome. 

This should mean that right now these particular proposals are not agreed, and therefore we have no agreed mechanism for running a hybrid Congress in 2025. During the debate, this was stated by the secretariat when they were asked what would happen if NEC voted down the paper. Unfortunately, this interpretation was changed once the vote was taken, whereupon it was stated that a Congress 2025 would be hybrid!

Problems with a hybrid Congress still stand.

A ‘hybrid’ Congress is suggested to be more inclusive over a wholly in-person event. However, it has become clear that the practical problems of running a Congress meeting are more complex than was first thought. The proposals for a hybrid Congress put to the NEC do not deal with many of the concerns that were raised at Congress, and that NEC members have.

One of the major concerns is that remote participation would actually reduce access.

Many actions to supposedly increase access for some risks the exclusion of others. For example, many carers may find themselves both retaining their carer responsibilities while trying to participate in a three-day Congress online meeting, as they had when Congress was online-only. NEC members had called for proposals to actively engage members with caring responsibilities, to be part of the planning: this was minuted in the June NEC, yet this was absent from current plans.

As anyone who has tried this will know, attempting to participate in an intensive online meeting for three days is far from simple! NEC has been meeting in a hybrid form for over a year. It has seen many times that even a one-day meeting leads to frustration and anger being expressed by delegates on a scale greater than with in-person meetings.

There had been consultation with the Disabled Members’ Standing Committee, but not the other equality standing committees. NEC members raised concerns about how accessible the plans were to disabled and neurodivergent members particularly around how voting would work and the ability to follow debates.

UCU democracy would also be undermined by plans to change a core trade union principle of public voting to private secret anonymous voting. This was something that the elected UCU Democracy Commission spent 1.5 years examining closely. It found that voting anonymously disenfranchises members and branches’ ability to mandate delegates and hold them accountable. By contrast, voting by show of hands in a mass meeting is fundamentally a public shared act, where those who vote own the outcome. They know which way they voted, and which way others in the room voted. It can also mean that people are swayed by debate on the floor of Congress. At this year’s Congress there were debates where members changed their mind because of the way that voting was visibly going in the room. 

The paper stated that voting records would not be published. There was nothing in the proposals to deal with how private anonymous voting would allow delegates to ensure that their branch/region motions, which their members had voted for, were being voted on by their elected delegates. 

Failure to resolve this issue risks reducing Congress to a collection of individuals making policies rather than members elected by branches (supplemented by elected delegates from regions and committees of the union) making policy.

Similarly, permanent recording of electronic votes cannot be guaranteed to be secure, opening up delegates to potential victimisation at work.

We believe that working to address inclusivity for in-person events would be a far better focus for our union than believing technology is the way to resolve inclusivity.

Review of Racism

UCU is undertaking a review of anti-Black racism in the union in response to concerns by Black staff and members.  The paper indicated that the people carrying out the review had been appointed, but that further progress was dependent on the dispute between UCU staff and management being resolved.  There was no information about when this would happen.  The stalling of the race review is yet another reason to be concerned about how long it is taking to resolve the dispute.

Where do we go from here?

This was a frustrating NEC meeting. An important motion on defending free speech on campus was lost off the agenda due to the length of time debating the GS report and Congress preparations. 

Increasingly NEC members are finding  a lack of transparency and urgency in our national union’s actions to take on the issues facing the post-16 education sectors. We think reps will have to step up organising at branch and region/nation level and not waiting for HQ. 

 In FE and HE, UCU Left members are organising meetings to help connect branches and build momentum to ensure that we rise to the challenges facing us all.

Motion: Organising against the Far Right (CARRIED)

NEC deplores:

  1. Reform UK’s attempt to bring racist ideas into the mainstream.
  2. The racist riots following UK fascist Tommy Robinson’s summer demonstration.

NEC applauds the successful mobilisations against recent Far Right demonstrations – central London and Glasgow.

NEC affirms the importance of UCU being actively involved in the fightback against the Far Right.

NEC agrees to:

  1. Encourage branches to set up Anti-racist/anti-facist groups which work together with students, other trade unions, SUTR and local organisations supporting/of refugees and migrants.
  2. Circulate educational materials on dangers of Far Right to all members.
  3. Publicise mobilisations against the Far Right and encourage members and branches to attend with banners, as well as to attend organising meetings and other anti-Far Right events.
  4. Encourage branches to invite speakers from SUTR, Black Members’ Standing Committee and local organisations of/supporting refugees and migrants to speak at branch meetings.
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UCU Left report on Friday’s NEC

UNITE dispute means NEC is paralysed by its inability to instruct the General Secretary to settle the dispute and fails to look outwards. 

Unlike the first meeting of the HEC which dealt with all business, the first meeting of the NEC has been paralysed by its inability to hold the General Secretary to account. Unfortunately it was a very inward looking meeting and failed to orientate the union in a way that can meet the huge challenges facing the post-16 education sectors. 

The NEC by rule (28.2 and 29.2) has responsibility to instruct the General Secretary in relation to staff issues. The UNITE staff union’s dispute over racism, bullying and the breaking of the procedure agreement led to the abandonment of the second day of UCU Annual Congress and has now led to the halting of NEC members ability to instruct the GS to resolve the dispute.

A union that fails to have influence in the wider social and industrial environment it operates within, building confidence within its branches and the rank and file, inevitably begins to focus on control over internal structures. It is therefore no surprise  that the series of complaints that should have been resolved swiftly, robustly and internally in order to avoid a dispute, has now spread into the functioning and representation of the wider union.

Moreover, UCU’s retreat from UK coordinated industrial action over pay, jobs and conditions to a focus on local branch-level action will weaken rather than strengthen the national union. In doing so it leads to the General Secretary suggesting that an incoming Labour Government, under Starmer’s leadership, will repeal anti-union legislation in its first 100 days including the 50% threshold for ballots. It was optimistically suggested that this will open the door to a new era of industrial strength. We hope it does, but it only will if trade unions continue to fight for members – improved pay and conditions will not simply be granted from above.  

It was welcome to hear that the Labour Party has approached UCU to hear our solutions to the crises. We need to take any opportunities that we can to shape educational policy under the incoming government. In order to do this we need to build pressure on them to act, we cannot trust them to carry through on their words and platitudes. It was disappointing that the Congress decision to call a national demonstration in the Autumn term was not part of the GS report, and that that section was timed out before NEC members could ask about this. 

The right wing of our union places the paralysis of our union within a narrative of a dysfunctional NEC impeding the completion of ‘important’ union business. However, by ‘important’ they mean managing bureaucracy and avoiding urgent political questions, such as responding to racism in the forthcoming UK elections or motions from branches.

Very few decisions were taken on how UCU will take forward its important work. A motion was unanimously passed on organising against the CASS report by working with trans-led organisations and to pressure the government to improve trans healthcare. The second motion that was passed originally called to support the work of Stand Up To Racism in opposing the rise of the far-right in the UK. UCU is affiliated to Stand Up To Racism, the organisation that is at the heart of building opposition to the far right in the UK. However, the right in the union wants to over turn this affiliation through amending motions rather than taking the decision to Congress, and so the motion was amended which removed naming SUTR. Nevertheless, NEC did support that UCU members should campaign against the Reform Party and, importantly, to support, mobilise and publicise the counter demonstration against the nazi Tommy Robinson on 27th July. We hope this happens and that we see many UCU members with their banners alongside the rest of the trade union movement to oppose the far right. 

Many other motions fell due to time constraints – these covered issues such as defending the student protests. This was an important motion as we have seen hostile management actions and horrendous police aggression against student encampments, particularly at Oxford and Newcastle. 

There was very little discussion on Palestine, despite the overwhelming support at Congress for UCU to take action to provide solidarity and build the movement to oppose the war. 

Another decision that was taken was to move, in principle, to a hybrid Congress in 2025. At Congress 2024 a change in the standing orders was passed that enabled NEC to consider moving to hybrid Congress. We must ensure our democratic structures and conferences are open to all members, and for some, being able to join online will improve their ability to engage. However, the paper that was brought to NEC had very little detail on how a hybrid Congress would work. This is deeply concerning for issues of democracy and equality. 

Being part of a trade union is about feeling the sense of collectivity and solidarity. Attending in person meetings can enable members to meet others from across all our sectors and nations. For many, particularly women with caring responsibilities, it is very hard to take part in an online conference. If members are not encouraged to attend in person, it may seem an easy option to join online so they can continue with their day-to-day duties. However, this can lead to feeling isolated and disconnected. Moreover, disabled members at Congress and NEC spoke of the need to make Congress more accessible. We need to be finding ways to ensure people feel welcome and that Congress has an accessible and family friendly atmosphere, rather than feeling that Congress is not a space for them and that they need to join online. 

What is clear from Friday’s NEC is that the national leadership and the right in the union are unable to meet the challenges that we face. We must build a stronger rank and file movement within the union that can create the conditions to push back against this bureaucratic inertia.

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UCU elections: A Pyrrhic victory for Jo Grady as left gains majority of seats

The fourth UCU GS election is over, and Jo Grady is the victor.

Grady argues that she now has a mandate to carry out the policies she campaigned over. The reality, though, is rather different. The GS presides over a more divided union compared to the one before the election started and an NEC which is even further from her views. Left NEC candidates received around 60% of the vote, which provides a real opportunity to build a serious grassroots movement in the union.

Despite being the incumbent candidate, Jo Grady’s support collapsed from her dominant win five years ago to scraping in with a narrow margin on the final round. After all preferences were counted, she beat the next closest candidate, Ewan McGaughey, by fewer than 200 votes. And, despite Grady campaigning for members to support her slate, UCU left supporters now have more seats on the NEC than any other grouping. The wider left have a comfortable majority on all three committees: the NEC, FEC and HEC.

Grady’s preferred VP candidate, David Hunter, also won. But again, his group is in a minority on the FEC.

UCU Left put up candidates for both the GS and VP positions. Although they did not win, these campaigns were successful in ensuring the voice of the rank and file was heard, and provided an important pole of attraction for everyone who wanted to see a more militant and democratic union. In a crowded field, one in six members gave their first preferences to Saira Weiner for GS. Peter Evans, our VP candidate, got the highest total vote of any UCU left VP candidate since the union was formed.

There is a clear appetite for change within the union.

Our candidates made sure that Palestine was part of the election debates. Their unwavering support for Gaza increased the pressure on the union to stand up for Palestinian solidarity actions. It meant that calls were put out by the GS’s office to members to support the Days of Action, the most recent of which saw 66 colleges and universities take part.

The election result also reflects the frustration and anger of members, especially in HE, where members have engaged in a bruising battles with the employers, and are angry with the way the GS and much of the leadership conducted these campaigns. This is the main reason why Grady’s vote collapsed from the last GS election where she received over 50% of the first preference vote.

Many members felt that Ewan McGaughey’s campaign, that focused on legal means to achieve results that members so desperately desire, was the way forward. Unfortunately, whereas legal challenges are important and UCU is far too conservative in pursuing legal paths, the law cannot be a substitute for mass action, as our USS victory proved. It was members’ strike action that secured victory over the employers.

We now need to ensure that the wider left unites, not just on the NEC, over the fights ahead. We will need to commit to building maximum solidarity for everyone fighting job losses and education cuts in both sectors. We need to support every branch resisting attacks on contractual rights and nationally-agreed pay levels.

For example, in Further Education we will need to unite against the newly-elected GS and VP’s attempt to undermine FE members’ democratic decision to hold an aggregated ballot over binding national, pay and workload agreements. Already Mr Hunter has questioned the FEC’s democratic mandate to implement the ‘levelling up campaign’ despite it being passed not once but twice at Further Education Sector Conferences!

We will also need to continue to maximise our efforts to stop the genocide in Palestine as Israeli tanks prepare to roll into Rafah and oppose racism at home.

It is these issues and more that UCU Left hopes will enable the left to put our differences aside and unite to build a powerful movement that can challenge the corrosive marketisation of post-16 education.

Let us move forward in unity to defend education, jobs, our employment rights and working conditions, to fight for equality in our sector, and build a stronger union for all.

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UCU Elections 2024

Election runs from 25 January to 1 MarchWhy you should vote for UCU Left candidates

UCU Left is a large group of leading rank-and-file activists, officers and reps who are committed to making UCU both more effective and more democratic.

The sectors we work in are under attack. Further Education has lost a million course places over the last decade. The employers do not implement national agreements. But UCU’s strategy has been to take action branch by branch, employer by employer, with the vast majority of members left out in the cold.

Higher Education vice chancellors are lobbying to increase tuition fees for home students to £12,000 a year. They say that international student recruitment has been subsidizing teaching, and this is projected to fall thanks to the war in Palestine and the ‘hostile environment’. The market system that encouraged universities to splurge over £10bn on campuses after 2014 is now moving from boom to bust in the face of high inflation. The employers took the end of the Marking and Assessment Boycott as a cue to begin a massive offensive on jobs and conditions — and they are lining up for more next year.

Election leaflet (PDF)We need a union leadership that faces up to that offensive. This means organising now at the grass roots, in our branches, building solidarity between branches under attack. But it also means electing leaders who will implement the democratic decisions of Congress and Sector Conference, and not pick and choose the ones they like.

We believe in member-led democracy. Unlike the factions supporting the current General Secretary, UCU Left members see conference decisions as ‘sovereign’ and believe our obligation as elected representatives is to carry them out.

Indeed, we believe that democracy in our union should be even more thoroughgoing, to ensure that when members take part in a strike or decide to boycott marking, they have real control over the future of that strike or MAB, through a directly-elected strike committee elected and recallable by members themselves. This is what happens in the best-organised branches in local strikes, and we should be scaling up this type of direct democracy in all our national disputes.

Meet our candidates

Select a candidate photo below for more information about them.

Saira Weiner Peter Evans Mike Barton

Naina Kent Dharminder Chauhan Saleem Rashid Peta Bulmer Alan Barker Donna Brown Elaine White Matt Perry Josh Moos Richard McEwan Regine Pilling Sean Wallis Richard Wild Roddy Slorach Christina Paine Philip Allsopp Safia Flissi Julie Hearn Lesley Kane

General Secretary – Saira Weiner Vote #1

Saira WeinerSaira says:

I am standing for five principles:

  1. Democracy – to defend the democratic structures of UCU
  2. Control from below – so members have a real say
  3. Strengthen the grassroots – empowering branches to defend members
  4. Transparency and accountability – everyone in office is accountable
  5. Trusting members – I will implement the decisions members make

My website • My manifesto • My election leaflet (PDF)

Vice President (from FE) – Peter Evans Vote #1

Peter EvansPeter says:

If elected, my objectives include:

  1. Democracy – support rank and file organising and implement conference decisions
  2. Equality for our 4 nations – bring UCU closer to the nations and level up
  3. Workers’ rights – defend pay, conditions and pensions and the right to strike
  4. Education – resist mergers and course closures, and defend academic freedom
  5. Equality – fight oppression and ensure equality is the heart of our bargaining
  6. Health – Covid is not over, work with our NHS colleagues to defend health
  7. Internationalism – defend LGBTQ+ people around the world, welcome refugees and stand with Palestine

My website • My election leaflet (PDF)

UCU Trustee

1Mike Barton
Mike Barton

Ordinary members of the NEC

UK-elected FE

1Naina Kent
Naina Kent		 2Dharminder Chauhan
Dharminder Chauhan
3Saleem Rashid
Saleem Rashid		  

UK-elected HE

1Peta Bulmer
Peta Bulmer		 2Saira Weiner
Saira Weiner
3Alan Barker
Alan Barker		 4Donna Brown
Donna Brown

North East FE

1Elaine White
Elaine White

North East HE

1Matt Perry
Matt Perry		 2Josh Moos
Josh Moos

London and the East FE

1Richard McEwan
Richard McEwan		 2Regine Pilling
Regine Pilling

London and the East HE

1Sean Wallis
Sean Wallis		 2Richard Wild
Richard Wild
3Roddy Slorach
Roddy Slorach		 4Christina Paine
Christina Paine

Wales HE

1Philip Allsopp
Philip Allsopp

Representatives of Women Members FE

1Regine Pilling
Regine Pilling		 2Safia Flissi
Safia Flissi

Representatives of Women Members HE

1Julie Hearn
Julie Hearn		 2Lesley Kane
Lesley Kane
3Saira Weiner
Saira Weiner		 4Christina Paine
Christina Paine

Other candidates

If you have unused preferences after voting for UCU Left candidates, we recommend using them for the following other candidates:

General Secretary: Vicky Blake

HE London and East HE: Dr Rhian Elinor Keyse, Nico Rosetti, Cecilia Wee

UK-elected HE: Grant Buttars, Marian Mayer, Dr Rhian Elinor Keyse, Sam Morecroft, Cecilia Wee

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UCU Elections: time to transform UCU

large demonstration outside King's Cross railway station with UCU banners
Saira Weiner is standing for UCU General Secretary - click to view her campaign website
Our candidate for General Secretary: Saira Weiner
Peter Evans is standing for Vice President (from FE) - click to view his campaign website
Our candidate for Vice President: Peter Evans

Post-16 education is in crisis. Successive Conservative governments have slashed funding and ramped up a process of marketisation and privatisation across the sectors. That’s why UCU members have been at the forefront of resistance and on the picket lines across Higher and Further Education.

Election leaflet (PDF)Even with a likely Labour victory at the next general election, we believe that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won’t reverse this trend and rebuild education without massive pressure. This means we urgently need to develop a political and industrial strategy that can defend post-16 education and make real gains for all our members.

As an education union, we must deal with industrial matters but also we are the champions of education. We must deal with the wider political issues that face our members, students and wider society. We have just seen tens of thousands of HE members go through a bruising dispute for the ‘Four Fights’ (pay, workload, equalities and casualisation) including extensive strike action and a Marking & Assessment Boycott.

But despite the bravery and commitment of our members in the face of intransigent employers and punitive pay deductions, the stop-start strategy and outright opposition to democratically made decisions by our present General Secretary meant we failed to breakthrough.

The fantastic victory achieved on USS pensions was achieved off the back of extensive strike action, in the face of the General Secretary’s argument that it wasn’t the right time to fight.

In FE despite historic votes for action the chance to build a serious fight over both pay and national bargaining was squandered yet again by the GS’s supporters who remain convinced that national action is impossible and at best local deals can be achieved.

We’ve seen a wave of redundancies in the wake of the HE dispute. At Brighton University, UCU members engaged in the longest ever strike in UK HE history (129 days) in defence of jobs. This was a dispute of national significance but the branch received inadequate support from the national union machinery. This can’t continue – UCU must implement a serious national strategy to win UK-wide disputes and must support every branch.

But at present UCU’s national initiatives lack a clear strategy or clear leadership. This is why we believe it is important to stand candidates who offer a real alternative, not just more of the same.

UCU Left supporters are standing in the National Executive (NEC), Vice President – FE (VP) and General Secretary elections to ensure there is a root and branch change to how UCU operates. Our candidates are dedicated members with proven track records in their branches. Many have played a leading role in building national resistance and have led local disputes in defence of jobs and conditions.

We need a union where rank and file members have a voice and lead their own disputes through democratically elected strike committees, Branch Delegate Meetings (BDM’s) and the decisions of Congress.

We have been through a transformative experience over the last year – we need to transform UCU.

Saira says

“I’m a member of a post 92 University and standing for General Secretary. The victory over USS Pensions shows that a serious industrial strategy can win for all sectors, including post 92 Universities, FE, Prisons and Adult Education. Our members have repeatedly called for UK wide action to defend and extend our terms & conditions, and to fight for the future of education. We need to be bold. We need to transform UCU so that grassroots member’s control our union and disputes – our democracy must be strengthened. I will ensure this happens. ”

Peter says

“I’m currently the NEC rep for LGBT+ members (FE) and Chair of the LGBT+ national standing committee. I’m a lecturer in Business at West London College where I am UCU Vice Chair. I’m in the Labour Party, and an activist within the Labour left. If elected I plan to bring UCU back to local membership with rank-and-file organising, building elected strike committees and implementing Congress decisions. We need more democracy in order to address the challenges we face. ”

All NEC contested candidates 2024

Vote #1 Saira Weiner for UCU General Secretary

I am an experienced activist at branch, regional and national levels. UCU needs to be transformed by democracy and solidarity in action, so I will focus on delivering:

Democracy for a real member led union

We urgently need a democratic transformation in UCU, where members taking collective action are in control of their disputes. To ensure this, strike committees should be used to ensure members’ views are heard, and actions are coordinated. Union democracy requires well-organised branches meeting regularly, debating questions and motions before voting on them. Collective debates are essential because we need collective solutions. Moreover, when decisions are made through our democratic structures, it is the role of union officials to carry them out.

A strategy to build solidarity

Our union’s strength hinges on our ability to defend members. Therefore, we need a strategy based on militancy to build membership solidarity and action. While negotiations play a vital role, we must be prepared to take action when necessary. We won’t win unless we fight, and we need to mobilise members fully with the backing of the whole union to win.

In HE, post-92s are under attack due to hikes in TPS employer contributions. We need to restart our national dispute and put pressure on the government to Pay Up For Post-92. In FE unmanageable workloads and the lack of national binding bargaining is breaking the sector and leaving branches to fight alone – we need a national strategy to win back national collective bargaining. In ACE we need a serious campaign that reverses the government’s funding cuts and ensures a national lifelong learning strategy. And in Prisons we must ensure Health & Safety is taken seriously and ensure smaller class sizes. Across all our sectors we need to fight against casualisation that erodes members’ conditions.

Liberation for all

I will campaign to ensure every member is able to play their part and flourish in our union and in our workplaces.

We face an incredibly right wing government that systematically scapegoats vulnerable groups for their own failures. Their racist policies towards migrants and refugees have targeted our students and staff. I will defend the rights of our colleagues and their family members to stay in the UK by opposing racist immigration controls and demanding practical financial support for visa fees.

We are witnessing a horrendous war in Palestine. Our members are facing harassment for speaking out against the atrocities – we have to stand up for free speech and oppose any witch hunting of our staff and students. We must stand firm against all forms of racism, including antisemitism, and show support and solidarity with the most downtrodden in society – racism within the wider working class is a recipe for ruin.

UCU must continue its work to oppose homophobia and transphobia. We must protect the concepts of freedom of speech from those who seek to distort it.

Our workforce is structurally segregated – women; members racialised as black and our disabled members are concentrated in precarious roles or in positions with little opportunity for advancement.

We need to turbo charge the Gender, Race and Disability Pay Gaps ‘Four Fights’ campaign and we need an anti-casualisation campaign in FE and ACE that campaigns to ‘level up’ and liberate everyone treated as second-class citizens in our institutions.

Climate injustice and inaction threatens our lives, livelihoods and our working conditions. In UCU we joined the student climate strikes, XR protests and campaigns against new oil and gas. We need more of this and should support and build a climate movement that mobilises the huge demonstrations we need alongside the direct action to prevent new carbon intensive projects.

Solidarity as a central tenet of our union

No one changes the world by themselves, but when tens of thousands of us join together we can begin to make a difference. As UCU members, we show solidarity with students and other workers – we are not just fighting for ourselves but the future of education and research.

We gain confidence from each other. FE members were inspired by HE members, and lifted by the teachers’ strikes. I will encourage a culture of solidarity throughout our union. When members face redundancies in one department or college, we need to rally around to ensure they win.

I will fight back against the anti-strike laws that are under the guise of so-called “Minimum Service Levels”. We should back our members if they break these unjust laws. As GS I will work with other unions to campaign against these attacks on trade union rights and to deliver hard-hitting coordinated strikes to push back the Government’s offensive.

Getting results for our members

We are an incredibly strong group of workers, and we need to inject some confidence into our union organising.

Our love of education and determination to help individuals, keeps our students in our courses. We need to channel the same passion in our industrial and equalities strategies to ensure we gain results.

We need to strengthen branches, officers, committees and reps, and develop regions to help coordinate between them, share ideas and take initiatives.

We need the National Executive of our union to play its part in acting as a tribune of branches, holding the General Secretary to account and ensuring policy is enacted.

If elected, I commit to take home the average UCU members wage – not the £110k+ that is offered.

Testimonials for Saira Weiner

“My vote for General Secretary will go to Saira Weiner. Saira is not only a fierce defender of a true member-lead union, but also a leader able to achieve synthesis, successfully manage challenging circumstances, balance different views and work effectively with lay reps and staff, as she has demonstrated as the Chair of ROCC, Chair/Vice Chair of North West Region and previously Chair of the Women’s Standing Committee.

With extensive branch leadership experience, Saira knows first hand the challenges activists and members face. Working at a post- 92 institution, she has experienced the results of the marketisation of education and barriers they create for academic and academic related post-16 education staff. She has been working closely with members across the HE, FE, ACE and Prison education, both through regional work as well as through NEC, to support strategies and tactics which will allow for pay and conditions to improve. Saira will conduct her role with fairness and inclusivity, and will be committed to accountability, democracy and militancy.

It is an honour to call Saira a friend, and to be able to vote for her in these elections.

Do use your vote, do support UCU Left candidates! ”

Maria Chondrogianni
UCU Vice President (University of Westminster, HE)

“I support Saira Weiner for UCU General Secretary as she is someone who stands up for what she believes in and wants to improve education for all.

In FE, we need a GS who will think about a strategy that can win for all of our members rather than an atomised campaign with branches left fighting to improve conditions by themselves. This approach sows the idea that it’s not possible to fight back nationally – it is, and Saira is clear that the national union can provide support and confidence for all members. ”

Carly Grundle
UCU Branch Treasurer, Westminster Kingsway College (FE)

“I’m backing Saira Weiner for UCU GS. We need a GS who understands that the scale of the crisis facing HE means that unless our union mounts a strong united fight, we will not only continuously suffer pay erosion, but we’ll see the fracturing of national bargaining and the destruction of our terms and conditions.

We need a GS who respects the decisions of the unions democratic bodies and implements them swiftly and fully, rather than imposing her own ideas instead. We need a GS who understands that a strong ballot result is just the first step and that winning a dispute requires empowering members to take the level of industrial action necessary to shift intransigent management.

Saira Weiner will do this. She believes that a union is its members and that a GS must be answerable to them. ”

Mark Abel
UCU Branch Chair, University of Brighton

See also

Posted on

NEC Report 16 June 2023

The newly-constituted UCU National Executive Committee (NEC) met for the first time post Congress. The principal business of the first NEC meeting is usually fairly routine: to agree timetables for the year, and protocols in the absence of officers in the summer. 

But 2023 is not a normal year: we are in a catastrophic cost of living crisis, with a growing fightback in further education and unprecedented industrial action in higher education. These are the business of the FE and HE committees respectively, although the General Secretary reported to the NEC on both.

The General Secretary’s report was wide ranging and there were a number of questions.  However, it is worrying that the Section on Congress in Glasgow did not mention the censure motion passed at Congress and what she was going to do in response to it.

We also face a year with an upcoming election for the union’s General Secretary – the top official employed by the union, and the only one elected by members. NEC agreed the terms for this election process.

Motions from members

An emergency motion in solidarity with the over 500 refugees who died in the Mediterranean the day before was passed unanimously. See below.

Among other things the motion calls for a minute’s silence in memory of all those lost on Monday 19 June to mark the start of Refugee Week. 

‘PGRs as staff’ campaign

There was a lengthy debate about a motion on the ‘PGRs as staff’ campaign, that had been ruled out of order by the chair. The campaign has been a two-year anti-casualisation initiative within UCU that is campaigning for postgraduate research students to be recognised as staff, as happens in some other European countries. Sector Conference passed a number of motions supporting this campaign. But the campaign is currently being shut down after 22 months because it was only seen as a fixed term project, with the result that two staff are facing losing their jobs. 

It is not normal for the NEC to discuss staffing questions, the motion did not do so. However this debate, including speeches from national officials, took nearly half an hour, and in the end despite NEC voting that the motion should be heard, the meeting ran out of time to actually hear the motion.

UCU staff are known to be under pressure to deliver work required to support our disputes so the need to retain staff rather than make them redundant seems an obvious solution to ending casualisation.

The inability to have motions brought to NEC, HEC and FEC is a continuing area of discontent among elected reps who raise important motions affecting members. Invariably motions are lost due to excess time being taken due to obstructive decisions made in constructing the order of business. Motions relating to business should be heard at the appropriate time and elected members should not have to challenge the chair’s rulings to have them put back onto the agenda nor to have them moved to the main part of the agenda.

Ukraine solidarity and motions

NEC heard from a guest speaker from the Ukrainian trade union for academic and scientific staff, and sent its profound solidarity greetings to our colleagues in Ukraine. 

A motion on the consequences of the bombing of the Kakhovka Dam on 6 June and the extensive flooding and ecological disaster that had ensued was supported without opposition. As well as repeating our solidarity messages, the motion (see below) pledges a donation to the relief effort and to circulate calls for humanitarian assistance to members. This is the second major piece of civilian infrastructure, after the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, now targeted in the war with major ecological impact.

There had been some online speculation before Friday that the NEC might attempt to reinterpret two motions on Ukraine that had been passed at Congress. In particular, some of those opposed to Motion 5, which called for a cessation of UK arms sales to Ukraine, argued that it was incompatible with Motion 6’s statements of solidarity and support for Ukrainian self-determination.

However, wherever one stands on the question of UK arms sales, it is not for NEC to select between resolutions of Congress.

The reason concerns a key constitutional issue of the democratic rules of the union – the supremacy of Congress over the NEC – which parallels the supremacy of union general meetings over executive committees. Rule 18.1 says that the NEC’s role is to abide by the decisions of Congress provided that they are compatible with the rules.

The principle is that the collective body of members make policy decisions and elected representatives carry them out. 

The proposal from members of the ‘UCU Commons’ faction was that the NEC should decide that there was an incompatibility between two Congress motions, and then choose one over the other. However this is not the NEC’s choice to make. 

Congress has its own mechanism for dealing with potential issues of incompatibility between motions (termed ‘consequentials’) via challenges to Congress Business Committee reports.

The NEC’s role was simply to allocate motions to its sub-committees, in this case: to the International Working Group of the Strategy and Finance Committee (SFC). Both Congress motions were passed to the Committee for implementation unamended.

All is not well for staff in UCU.

UCU senior management team appear to be in conflict with staff union UNITE, as a result of recognising a second trade union for some staff grades. While members of staff are entitled to join any union they wish, removing sole bargaining rights from UNITE potentially weakens the voice of staff members working for UCU. No explanation for these actions were provided to the NEC.

Motions Passed

EMERGENCY MOTION

The UCU expresses its deepest condolences to those who have lost their lives in the terrible tragedy off the coast of Greece.

We believe these deaths are the direct result of the fortress Europe and hostile environment for refugees and migrants being implemented by European governments – including the British government.

We demand that passage – safe and legal routes – are opened to all refugees fleeing war, catastrophe and climate chaos.

The Sunak governments ‘Stop the Boats’ rhetoric, the Illegal Migration Bill and Rwanda Plan will only mean more deaths in the channel more likely – as well as those in the Mediterranean.

We support all upcoming protests to mark the deaths in Greece and to oppose the government’s anti-refugee legislation.

To call for a minute’s silence to mark the deaths in Greece on all university and college campuses on Monday 19 June, the start of refugee week 2023.

The breach of the Kakhovka dam and its consequences

UCU NEC notes the breach of the dam at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in Ukraine on 6th June. The subsequent flooding has caused a very significant humanitarian and ecological disaster, including:

1) Risk to life, loss of homes, evacuation of people from flooded areas

2) Risk to life from dislocated landmines

3) Economic and environmental damage, including risk to world food supplies.

UCU NEC resolves to:

1) Send a message of solidarity to our sibling unions in Ukraine

2) Send a donation to an appropriate relief organisation

3) Communicate information on appeals for humanitarian assistance to our members

Posted on

Report of May 1 UCU Emergency NEC online meeting

UCU’s national executive committee (NEC) met online on May Day, 1 May. This was an emergency meeting called only after more than half of the committee had demanded it.

Society is in a permanent emergency, but Higher Education is at the edge of a financial precipice as the tuition fee market is expected to crash leaving universities bankrupt. Our members in FE are confronting job loses and management attempting force to implement a ‘business as usual’ approach.

The question is whether UCU will lead a UK-wide to fight to defend the sectors.

The meeting held on Teams was 2.5 hours in length — half the time of a normal physical NEC meeting.

The paper submitted by Sean Vernell and Sean Wallis proposing a way of framing the a UK-wide response of the union in a coherent way was ruled out of order on the basis that it was two days late. Despite the movers of the paper pointing out that much of we are doing currently is outside of rule, including the online NEC meeting itself (and its shortened form), sought leniency. The outgoing President resisted all attempts to include it, prevented any discussion of it and refused to accept a challenge to his ruling.

NEC heard a lengthy presentation by General Secretary Jo Grady on the steps the central union was taking. She defended her actions in writing to Government ministers, and commissioning and publishing reports from London Economics, without reference to the Higher Education Committee which had not met.

UCU’s intervention had stopped the UUK’s proposal from being adopted by Government. This is positive step. However, without a rapid bailout, employers are likely to now announce redundancies.

We cannot case-work our way out of a crisis. Nor can we fight branch by branch.

It was not until 3:50 that the meeting was permitted to debate the only motion tabled on Education and post-Covid recovery. That motion (attached below) was passed, amended to add reference to specific defence of casualised members. This motion called for a UK-wide response to the crisis. We will now need to make sure that this motion is enacted upon so that UCU is in a position to mobilise our members in defence of post-16 education.

The ‘Democratic Continuity’ paper — which was not debated by NEC — delegated powers to the General Secretary on the same basis as if the Covid-19 lockdown was the annual summer vacation.

Equality areas need urgent attention, especially given the national meeting of equality reps that was postponed from 3 April. When will this be reconvened?

In the meantime, NEC passed five other motions: on UCU’s equality organising, supporting the call from Diane Abbott and Stand Up to Racism for a genuinely independent public inquiry into BAME deaths from Covid-19, defending trans members and students, opposing the Hostile Environment and providing immigration advice.

Resolution 6. Education and post-Covid Recovery (as amended)

NEC notes:

  1. The crucial role of post-16 education in prosperity, individual development and post-Covid recovery
  2. The likely negative impact of Covid on college and university finances
  3. The risks of job losses and increases in casualisation
  4. The importance of education for (young people) who do not have employment

NEC agrees to launch a UK-wide campaign, call for support from trade unions and community organisations and ask GS to write to PM for:

  1. Removing college and university fees.
  2. Additional fully funded places at less prosperous and struggling institutions so all young people can have a college or university place.
  3. Significant increase in government funding to make up any shortfalls, that all casualised workers jobs will be guaranteed equally in the next two years, alongside those of permanent colleagues, and no permanent worker should be disadvantaged for refusing to cover the work of a casualised colleague in the event of job losses.
  4. Full support for health service, disability support needs and economic recovery that, given the scandalous injustices of precarious work highlighted by the covid crisis, that full occupational sick pay now be extended to ALL casualised workers in all universities and colleges and prison departments
  5. Cancellation of Trident.
  6. Progressive ring-fenced increase in taxation to cover the costs e.g. 2% over £30,000, 4% over £50,000, 6% over £100,000.

Passed overwhelmingly.

Posted on

NEC report: The General Secretary Must Be Accountable To Members

UCU Congress 2018 Voting

Emergency National Executive Report 1 March 2019

The General Secretary Must Be Accountable To Members

UCU National Executive Committee (NEC) met on Friday 1 March as an extra-ordinary meeting due to the resignation of the General Secretary, Sally Hunt, on health grounds. NEC unanimously thanked Sally for her leadership in both the formation of the union and its development over the past thirteen years. NEC also wished her well with her illness and hoped she would be able to manage her health to ensure she retained a high quality of life. It is very fortunate that we live in a society which benefits from a fantastic National Health Service.

UCU Left wishes to see a united single left candidate stand for election. We welcome discussions with all members interesting in standing for the GS position with a genuine desire to ensure the agreed left candidate has a maximum chance of winning this most important seat in the union.

Winning the seat for the left is a key part of creating a transparent, accessible, accountable leadership which will bring about the member led, campaigning union we all want.

We have an opportunity to transform our UCU. We have to rise to the challenge.

Timetable

NEC was presented with a set of proposals on the process and timetable for the election of a new GS. Rules of UCU permit any UCU member or employed staff member of UCU to nominate themselves for election. These will be the same rules used for the previous three elections in UCU.

More problematic, however, is the timetable for the election. The timetable presented was to ensure a new candidate is elected prior to Congress in May 2019. However, the most significant argument over the accountability of officials and officers the union has ever had has been ongoing since the walkout of staff and the IBL majority on the NEC at Congress 2018. Since then, the Democracy Commission (created by Congress in response to the crisis) has included discussions of how we can formulate mechanisms for the recall of the General Secretary to ensure member-led democracy is strengthened within the union.

The timetable proposed at NEC circumvents and frustrates these discussions. A decision by a lay member to give up their job for five years is not one many can make on a whim. Yet the timetable ensures little time for any lesser mortal who has not known about this announcement weeks in advance to contemplate such a decision.

As a result, two sets of proposals were put forward to amend the regulations for the General Secretary elections. The first was to delay the election, and importantly the appointment, of the new General Secretary until a mechanism for recall had been passed at Congress. This matters because it has been previously argued by officials that any changes to the rules governing the accountability of the GS cannot apply to a sitting GS and will only apply to a future GS.

If this interpretation now was applied again to the future GS, protecting this person from recall, this would be an outrageous undermining of the Democracy Commission!

The Chair employed a classic, undemocratic manoeuvre by using her position as Chair to order business in a way which ensured that her supporters, i.e. the IBL, would not be seen to be voting against recall. This was done by taking the vote on the paper put forward by the bureaucracy first and then ruling that, if passed, the motions attempting to amend that paper would fall.

As a result both amending motions in this section fell without even being voted on.

The new GS’s contract and recall

The second set of proposals required that the GS’s contract of employment be modified to ensure that, if Congress agreed a rule for recall of the GS, it would apply to this new contract. Since the Democracy Commission is examining the potential for such a rule, which would go to Congress after the new GS had been elected, resolving this potential problem now was very important.

Without such a clause in the contract, the risk is that the new incumbent could potentially argue that the dismissal was unfair. Since candidates would sign up to this contract as part of the process of standing for election, it made sense for the NEC to ensure that all candidates agreed to the recall principle – even if there was no mechanism yet in the union’s rules.

The lead official advising the NEC reported legal advice stating that it was in fact possible to implement a recall mechanism using the existing contract.

Here again, the Chair refused to allow a vote on the proposals by suggesting that the passing of the unamended contract of employment meant the amendments fell. Again the vote to accept the unamended employment was 26 for and 21 against.

Let us be clear. This does not mean that the new UCU General Secretary will be protected from recall, but it does create ambiguity where none was needed.

Any ordinary member who was a fly on the wall in the meeting would have wondered why on earth did the Right of the NEC vote not to accept this motion as it cost nothing and would have simply confirmed the legal advice and protected the legal position of the union!

And it also means that all candidates for GS now need to be asked the following questions:

Do you accept that you should be accountable to members through a proper recall procedure in the union’s rules if Congress decides one is needed? Will you accept a change of terms of employment in your contract if this is said to be necessary, allowing for a recall mechanism to apply to you?

For all the claims that the IBL are not a faction they do indeed vote en-bloc remarkably consistently when directed by the chair!

Election conduct

It is to be expected that paid officials of the union and lay members of the union will stand. It is essential therefore that no candidate is given preferential treatment during the election.

In UNISON a major argument has broken out due to senior officials instructing employees of the union to campaign on their behalf.

Proposals to prevent this bullying of staff were also put forward by UCU Left members. Here the IBL voted with the UCU Left leading to a unanimous vote to prevent staff being disciplined if they refuse to act in a partisan way in the elections.

Similarly, candidates who are staff members or officers of the union will also be prevented from presenting UCU’s publicity in their name, with immediate effect.

Looking to the future

The next General Secretary will be crucially important to the future development of the union at a time when marketisation is fast progressing, when the membership of UCU has simultaneously grown and, crucially, at a time when a substantial minority of members indicates that a militant mood exists for action against marketisation.

The left in the union has a responsibility to ensure we have a candidate who can create a member-led union over the next five years. They need to be a candidate who can stand up to both the right wing of our union lay leadership and the trade union bureaucracy.

Motions text

On delaying the GS election

NEC thanks Sally Hunt for her service and sends best wishes.

NEC notes:

  1. The Democracy Commission was tasked by our sovereign body Congress (2018) with introducing recall mechanism and greater accountability of officials including the General Secretary
  2. The Commission is currently drawing up relevant recommendations and will be putting these to Congress 2019. The Commission was informed that the staff union UNITE would likely dispute changes to the current incumbent’s contract, and it was agreed therefore that a recall mechanism would come into effect at a change of contract.
  3. Holding an election on the current proposal would create a delay of five years in the introduction of recall.

NEC believes such a delay undermines the wishes of Congress 2018 and thus undermines our democracy which may create discord.

NEC resolves not to implement any election process that would undermine and render ineffective the introduction of recall mechanisms if voted for by Congress 2019.

On Democracy Commission and GS election

Noting:

  1. Democracy Commission’ specific, time-limited purview, mandated by Congress 2018 to make recommendations for branch delegates to decide at Congress 2019 and Special Congress (November 2019).
  2. DC is mandated to recommend changes including aspects of the GS role, such as an inter-election recall mechanism.
  3. DC may recommend shorter terms of office.
  4. Changes agreed by Congress/Special Congress must only effect subsequent GS contracts.
  5. Pursuing a GS election before Congress delays any agreed changes by 5 years.
  6. GS election rules Schedule B provide up to 12 months calling notice.

NEC agrees:

  1. Pre-empting outcomes of democratic debate at Congress would endanger confidence in UCU’s commitment to upholding sovereign Congress decisions.
  2. UCU should elect its GS after Congress 2019 votes upon DC recommendations regarding the role, terms and conditions.
  3. NEC should meet following Congress to agree finalised changes to the GS role.

Both motions fell by 26 to 21 with 1 abstention, following passage of section of report

Motion ensuring recall mechanism applies to incoming GS

NEC agrees to amend the new contract of the GS in NEC1215 to explicitly ensure that, should Congress agree a rule change that establishes a formal recall mechanism, this mechanism would trigger the issuing of notice by the President on behalf of the NEC, under clause (i) of the Termination of Employment section of the contract.

NEC further resolves that, should the above solution be not deemed workable, to add a new clause (iii) to the Termination of Employment section of the contract. This would clarify that, provided that a rule for the recall of GS were triggered under UCU rules, the GS would be suspended from office and given six months’ notice to allow the election to be conducted.

Motion fell 26 to 21, following passage of section of report

Amendments to GENERAL SECRETARY ELECTION 2019: GUIDANCE NOTES NEC1215.

Add new bullet points:

  1. UCU staff members involved in the administration of the General Secretary election will act in a non-partisan way to all candidates and must not be asked for preferential treatment by any candidate or their supporters. Any member of staff found to be electioneering or showing favour to one particular candidate in the course of their normal employment will face formal disciplinary action. Any staff member refusing to act in a partisan way will be protected from any disciplinary action.
  2. During the period of the election, starting with NEC 1st March 2019, UCU will ensure equal access to media and public pronouncements for all candidates. Any statement released by UCU in the name of any staff member standing as a candidate will count as one of their allocated emails.

Motion passed unanimously