Elections for two important national UCU positions open this week. The first is for Vice President of the union, with the winner ultimately becoming President.
The UCU Left-supported candidate is Marian Mayer.
Marian has an excellent record as a rank and file activist, having turned her own branch at Bournemouth University into a fighting stronghold of the union. She played a huge role in the Four Fights dispute in HE, first by ensuring hers was one of the post-92 branches to get over the ballot threshold and take strike action, but also as a formidable national negotiator during that dispute.
As many in union positions, including some of the other candidates, now try to distance themselves from the strikes of the last academic year, Marian stands out as an unrepentant supporter of the Four Fights and of a fighting union.
The other election is for LGBT+ rep on the National Executive Committee. UCU Left is supporting Peter Evans, who works at South Thames College and is Chair of the Further Education Sector Committee for London Region of UCU. Peter has an impressive record fighting inequality as a trade union activist and will be an important addition to the NEC’s Further Education Committee if elected.
These elections take place over the summer, and during a pandemic. That means it will require an effort to get members to vote. Apart from people being on holiday, many ballot papers will be sent to workplace addresses where members won’t be able to access them.
Please ask your branch committees to circulate the election statements for our candidates (attached). It is the position of the union that all candidates’ election materials received by branches should be circulated to the membership to maximise the turnout and inform members.
At the same time, members should be reminded that if they cannot access their ballot paper because it has been sent to work, they can request a replacement here www.ucu.org.uk/elections to be sent to their home address.
Please also do what you can on social media to boost Marian’s and Peter’s profiles by ‘liking’ their Facebook pages, retweeting their tweets etc.
Resources and links
- Website Marian Mayer for Vice President
- Twitter @MarianMayer20
- Facebook Marian Mayer
- Facebook Peter Evans