Tag: ucunecelections

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Welcome! (NEC Elections 2025)

NEC Elections 2025

“Only a nationwide strike can stem the carnage in UK higher education“
Read the article by UCU Left’s Vice Presidential candidate, Rhiannon Lockley, in the THE

Vice Presidential, Treasurer, Trustee & NEC Elections 2025 – Turn the tide on despair: Vote for hope – Vote for resistance

Our candidates 

Post Candidate
Vice President1Rhiannon Lockley
Honorary Treasurer1Deepa Driver
Trustee1
2		John Parrington
Mike Barton
President UCU Scotland1Grant Buttars
Honorary Secretary UCU Scotland1Carlo Morelli
UK Elected FE1
2		Sean Vernell
Saleem Rashid
UK Elected HE1
2
3		Richard Wild
Rob Macmaster
Michael Carley
North West FE1Nina Doran
North West HE1
2		Peta Bulmer
Bee Hughes
South FE1John Fones
South HE1
2
3
4
5		Aris Katzourakis
Ryan Burns
Ellen Owens
David Chivall
Michael Carley
Midlands FE1Dharminder Chuhan
Disabled HE1Roddy Slorach
LGBT+ Members1Bee Hughes
Migrant Members1Patricia Prieto Blanco
Black Members1Nitin Rajyaguru
Casually Employed1Cecily Blyther
Click on a candidate name to see their full election statement

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VP and NEC election results

UCU Left congratulates all the successful candidates in the UCU elections. We would like to thank all those members who voted for UCU Left candidates and helped us achieve some excellent results.

Our candidates did extremely well in general, winning about half the seats up for election. These results should mean that the left is in a majority on both the FEC and HEC.

Unfortunately, despite running an impressive campaign, our candidate for Vice President, Juliana Ojinnaka, was unsuccessful. The result was very tight and was influenced by another candidate who split the left vote.

However the results mean that, especially when it comes to HEC, the left should be able to win on some of the issues it has narrowly lost this year and ensure that the wishes of members expressed at conferences and branch delegate meetings are more likely to be respected. 

HE disputes

A further bout of strike days for the USS and Four Fights disputes was announced on Friday. Half the branches with a mandate will take five days of action in the week beginning 21 March, and half will strike during the following week.

Splitting the union’s forces in this way was not what branch delegates were in favour of. Nor do five-day strikes represent the escalation that many branches have been pressing for. In addition, it is concerning that branches weren’t consulted on the dates, and that some members are being asked to strike and sacrifice their pay during vacation or reading weeks.

Nevertheless, the action that has been called reunites the disputes and avoids the de-escalation and demobilisation of the regional one-day rolling strikes endorsed – contrary to the wishes of members – at January’s HEC.

UCU Left urges activists to redouble their efforts to build these strikes and make them as successful as possible. Hitting our institutions for a week at a time can put pressure on our employers to shift from their intransigent position. And it is through strong, vibrant action that we will create the climate to give us the best chance of extending our mandates in reballots for strikes and marking boycotts in the summer term.

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UCU Left statement on NEC election results

The results of elections to the NEC were announced on Monday 8th March. They show impressive gains for UCU Left in the composition of the new NEC.

Of the 30 seats filled at this election, UCU Left supporters won half of them. This is despite the groupings within UCU shifting to add a third campaigning group to the existing landscape of the union.

UCU Left would like to thank all those who voted for us and who encouraged others to do so. 

UCU Left stood on a clear platform for fighting back against the escalating attacks by employers in both HE and FE. Our candidates have a track record of organising resistance to redundancies and unsafe workplaces in their own institutions, and have also been at the forefront of delivering solidarity for the various struggles that have taken place this academic year. We are committed to pushing the UCU beyond local disputes towards UK-wide action over the key issues that affect our members across post-16 education.

The fact that so many of us were successful is a sign that members recognise that the scale of the attacks we face demands more than local disputes, important though they are. The 86% rejection of the HE employers’ 0% pay ‘offer’ confirms that members believe our union needs to put its weight behind UK-wide action.

Our new NEC members join a number who are only half-way through their terms of office. For us, holding NEC seats is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Our goal is to use our influence on the leading body of the union to help mobilise members to fight for the pay and conditions we deserve, and in defence of the education that we provide.

In Further Education, this means finding ways in the short term to resist employers putting staff at risk of Covid in the return to colleges. It also means a serious campaign for proper funding for the sector, for decent pay rises for staff and for an end to casualisation and downgrading.

In Higher Education, it will mean another serious battle to defend the USS pension scheme from being destroyed by marketisation, plus a revival of the Four Fights over pay, casualisation, equality and workloads, all of which have become more urgent as a result of the pandemic.

We encourage members to get involved in fighting for another education that we all know is possible. Get in touch and join UCU Left, and link with grassroots activists around the UK through UCU Solidarity Movement.

We thank you again for your support, and look forward to fighting alongside you in the struggles ahead.