Election statement

As UCU we can be proud of so much of what we do in local branches, to represent members and to stand up for education. 

But we are fighting against government neglect, burnout, and management regimes that undermine our professionalism and expertise. Overwork, precarity and demoralisation are endemic in higher and further education, prisons and adult and community education.

These are compounded by different sectoral issues, such as excessively low pay and inspection pressures in FE or massive job cuts and attacks on academic freedom in HE.

As UCU, we must drive the change we desperately need. I want to bring my 25+ years of working, trade union and activist experience to help do that as your Vice President.

As a committee member for the last eight years at the University of Sheffield, where I’m Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies, I helped our branch overturn pandemic plans to fire and rehire all staff and fought multiple attempted rounds of job cuts. We have prioritised department-level organising and developed the organising skills of members. In my department, we doubled membership density. Our branch is strong, with hundreds of members attending branch meetings and active in their workplaces.

I will push for a greater focus on grassroots organising like this to help strengthen our union.

I have also:

• Helped create representative structures for migrant members like me, a trade union first
• Represented members and won through casework
• Negotiated with employers locally and UK-wide on pay, conditions and pensions
• Prioritised equalities as LGBT+ rep in UCU and through driving change in professional associations, like the Royal Historical Society
• Been active in many wider social movements, supporting refugees and asylum seekers, defending our trans siblings, and standing up against the far right

My track record is shaped by my commitment to fighting injustice and sustaining community. In UCU, that means sticking together and looking out for each other, across sectors and individual differences. 

But to be effective as a union, we also need to face our own limitations. We too often repeat the same tactics, without consideration of what is or isn’t working. We can too often seem fractious, when we should be unified. We too rarely think about how best to campaign for what we deserve, by working with existing allies and building new coalitions.

If elected, I will work tirelessly to bring our union together to confront the many challenges we face. We can and will make post-16 education better by harnessing the commitment and compassion so many of you bring to your jobs and your union work.

Please also vote for Suzi Toole for Vice-President from Further Education and the excellent candidates at https://ucucommons.org/election26/. Learn more about me at https://ucucommons.org/mark4vp/