UCU Commons newsletter #4, 19 November 2025
Dear subscriber
Welcome to the UCU Commons newsletter, a curated set of links and information about what’s happening in UCU Commons, our union, and our sectors more generally. As always, we welcome any feedback you may have on this or any other matter.
In today’s issue:
What UCU Commons have been doing
The first calendared meeting of NEC of the 2025–26 year UCU’s HEC took place on 7 November 2025. It was our member Matt Barnard’s first time sitting on this committee since he was elected to a casual vacancy (UK-wide) in September. Read our report here. Key takeaways:
- Congress 2026 will be hybrid
- NEC have moved to support the restoration of Trade Union Education
- NEC have voted for a campaign in support of Laura Murphy and Academic Freedom
Several of our members attended the annual Women Members’ and LGBTQ+ Members’ Conferences on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th November respectively. Jo Edge and Gillian Jack led a breakout workshop at the Womens’ conference entitled ‘Standing up for equality and inclusion in the workplace – the impact of the Supreme Court ruling on trans people’, and Lisa Rüll was re-elected to the Women Members’ Standing Committee for a term of 2 years. Tilly Fitzmaurice chaired the LGBTQ+ conference, which heard from a variety of speakers including David Murphy from Lancaster University, Lexi Breen from the University of Lincoln, Justine Balya from the Human Rights Advocacy and Promotion Forum (Uganda) and Marisa Johnson and Kit King from the Quakers in Britain. Several co-option spaces are available for each committee, and we encourage as many people as possible to stand for these, and look forward to the upcoming Disabled Members’ and Black Members’ conferences this week!
News from UCU
The ballot of Further Education members in England came to an end this week on Monday 17 November. Of 54 institutions taking part in the disaggregated ballot, 32 now have a mandate for industrial action, with 17 voting to settle with pay awards of up to 8.7%. These branches are now in a position to strike for pay parity with school teachers, workloads and a national bargaining system. An inspiring campaign and brilliant win!
More misery for staff at Northumbria University, where the UCU branch have made moves towards a strike ballot over plans by the university to force staff from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). Management have told staff that anyone refusing to move schemes will have their pay frozen, effectively punishing those who wish to remain in TPS.
A petition has been set up calling for a vote of no confidence in the Vice Chancellor of Coventry University, over a raft of issues, including unsafe workspaces, unsustainable expansion, and a lack of transparency and accountability. Commoner Bijan Parsia says, “Coventry leadership certain seems to be aiming to be sector leading in bad practices and horrible conditions with the predictable result that they are crashing down the league tables. University quality comes from its staff and from treating them well...as valued, expert partners in the university endeavor. If you overwork your staff, you will have similar results”.
In our sectors
We are happy to see that Newnham, Cambridge’s only remaining all-women college, will continue to admit trans women in the wake of the supreme court ruling of April 2025 and in the face of constant opposition from anti-trans activists. Tilly Fitzmaurice, Chair of UCU Equality Committee and the NEC LGBTQ+ rep from the HE sector, says: “The April 2025 Supreme Court ruling, the significance of which has been exaggerated and overstated, does not compel organisations to ban trans women from female-only provision. It is very encouraging to see Newnham College, Cambridge stand up for its trans women students, both current and prospective, by keeping its Gender Policy inclusive. I hope other Higher Education institutions follow its lead”.
Christopher Newfield of the Independent Social Research Foundation has produced an analysis of the recent government white paper on post-16 education, entitled Labour’s White Paper Fails Higher Education. While highly critical (as you might gather from the title), it nevertheless ends on a somewhat positive note, ‘The silver lining is that [academic staff] can now focus on demanding the bottom-up, education-led research and teaching changes that are the only reliable source of university health and of socially-useful creativity’.
We hope you have enjoyed this round up. Want to get involved? You can join UCU Commons and work with us towards a more effective union for post-16 education here.
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