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UCU Commons

UCU Congress 2024 - a member's report

Several hundred delegates from branches across the four nations and from higher, further, prison and adult and community education, met in Bournemouth 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, representing branches, regional committees

Facing an existential crisis… we attack our own??

Blog post by Sophia Woodman. Perhaps I am hopelessly naïve, but I imagined that the conclusion of the election for the position of the UCU General Secretary would clear the air, and create conditions for our union to come together to fight what many agree is an existential crisis for

Union Elections 2024: UCU Commons Endorsements

UCU Commons is an organised group and stands a set of candidates in NEC and other union elections. Everyone who stands for election on our slate shares our values. Accordingly, we strongly endorse our candidates as first preferences when voting, and we only endorse other candidates in seats where no

UCU Elections 2024: Candidates Answer Our Questions

UCU Commons asked candidates standing in the forthcoming national elections a short series of questions about their plans and positions. We contacted all candidates standing for General Secretary, all candidates standing for Vice-President, and the three independent NEC candidates. Below are the responses we received, verbatim, ordered by surname. Ballots

"Malignant shit funnels" and the sinister surveillance of university staff

Blog post by David Harvie In May 2021 a tweet I had published eight months earlier resurfaced. On 11 September 2020, as the number of new coronavirus cases in the UK started spiking in what became the second wave, prompting a second national lockdown, I was party to a brief

Why we don’t want an immediate reballot: a view from the grassroots at the University of Edinburgh

Blog post by Sophia Woodman and Sophia Lycouris[*] After several months of strikes and marking boycott, we are approaching the end of UCU’s current mandate for industrial action on 30 September without having resolved the Four Fights dispute. There are a number of views among members about how to

HEC and the Summer Ballot

by: several UCU Commons members of HEC who are not currently on holiday On 1 August 2023, UCU members received an email from the General Secretary (GS), Jo Grady, informing them that the Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) had not moved employers enough on our ongoing pay and conditions (‘Four

Moving On: the 17 March HEC Decision and Next Steps

In this blog, as members of UCU Commons on the Higher Education Committee (HEC), our priorities are to outline our position on the questions that were before HEC on 17 March and to suggest some ways forward. But we also understand that there is significant demand for a clear and

The Offer, And The Details In

On 15 March 2023 UCU officials wrote to all members in the union outlining a composite offer finalised and made by two employer associations: UUK and UCEA. This offer was communicated to members in a range of ways, but first through a "podcast" format, and then through a

Strategic Action Gets the Goods!

We are lthe union. We can all help the union to win. We can make a difference.