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Ben Pope

Annual Meeting of Staff on Casualised Contracts: A Report

By Ben Pope Highly visible consequences of the structural funding crises in UK tertiary education are omnipresent at the moment, and the damage done to individuals and communities by this unfolding disaster will be with us for much longer. On Saturday 22 February, one of the regular, scheduled responses to

Lessons from Our Higher Education Disputes in 2022/23

by Ben Pope This blog starts from the premise that a healthy, effective trade union is a diverse one, in which there is always space for multiple points of view. There’s certainly no shortage of perspectives on the events of the past year in UCU’s higher education disputes,

Anti-Casualisation at Congress 2023

By Ben Pope, NEC representative of casually employed members in HE until the close of Congress 2023 (with thanks to David Harvie, serving honorary treasurer since Congress closed) UCU Congress 2023 took place in Glasgow on 27–29 May, and over 90 pages of motions were discussed over those three

The Consultation: HEC Recommends, Members Decide

At its meeting on 30 March, HEC passed motions tabled by UCU Commons members (those numbered 2 and 3 in this blog) and began a process of consulting UCU members as a whole on the proposed interim resolutions in both the pay and conditions dispute with UCEA and the USS

UCU Commons Blogs: 2021

summarized by Ben Pope It’s been just over a year since we published our first post, which marked the transition of our community from an informal discussion group to a fully fledged organising effort to bring about the change that we want to see within UCU and in post-16