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UCU Commons

‘We shouldn’t mourn those who are not dead’: A reply to Lorna Finlayson’s ‘Irreversible’

By Matilda Fitzmaurice There is no arguing with many of the facts stated up front in Lorna Finlayson’s ‘Irreversible’, published in the New Left Review’s ‘Sidecar’ on 29th May. Climate change is irreversible. There is a great deal that is now baked in. Warnings about the impending crisis,

UCU Commons newsletter #19, 3 June 2026

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:

UCU Congress 2026 Report

By Lisa Rull Several hundred delegates from branches across the four nations and from higher, further, prison and adult and community education, met in Harrogate last week for UCU’s annual Congress – the peak policy-making body of our union. UCU Commons members were also active over the last week,

Comparing the UCU Congress with the Quakers' Britain Yearly Meeting

By Michael Bartlett UCU and the Quakers are in some ways similar institutions. Both have thousands of members across the UK, both are arranged in an inverted pyramid of local branches supported by regional staff and a national organisation, and both have a few hundred sometimes under-appreciated employees who

UCU Commons newsletter #18, 26 May 2026

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: UCU congress

Report from HEC, 17 April 2026

UCU’s HEC met for the final time in its current incarnation on 17 April 2026, and you can read the draft minutes here. Highlights * For the first time in living memory (for UCU Commoners at least), HEC both got through all business and finished early * Another record: all six

NEC Report, 13th March 2026

This meeting was dominated by highly technical discussions of rule changes and we have not written all these up in detail. Only rule changes that attracted some degree of disagreement, or where the committee was in any way divided, have been included in this report. The NEC meeting began in

UCU Commons newsletter #16, 6 May 2026

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:

NEC Motion: Donation to the Good Law Project (GLP)

Since last April's Supreme Court ruling, the Good Law Project (GLP) has been fighting a legal campaign in defence of trans people's human rights in the UK. They have had several important victories so far: its legal challenge has forced the Equality and Human Rights Commission