Introducing...Sophia Woodman

Today’s elections mailout is from Sophia Woodman (she/her) from the University of Edinburgh, who is running for a UK-elected NEC seat. In this mailout, Sophia sets out some of her frustrations with the constant infighting that does our members a disservice, and talks about the need to work together to achieve shared aims.

You’ll find more information about all UCU Commons candidates on our website. We have also written an explainer of the role of NEC and the elected officers, how the voting system works, and why it is vitally important to vote in these elections. Please keep reading and sharing it!

The UCU national officer hustings were held on Wednesday 5th February, and the recording is now available online. We strongly recommend giving it a watch.

We are fast approaching the end of the voting period, so if you haven’t voted yet, don’t delay. The last day to order a replacement ballot is Monday 24th February. The last safe posting day (without adding a First Class stamp) is Tuesday 25th February. Ballots can still be posted until Thursday 27th February, but if you wait until then, make sure you attach a First Class stamp. The ballot closes at 5pm on Monday 3rd March.

Please keep voting, and keep telling your friends and colleagues to vote!

In solidarity,

UCU Commons

***

If you didn’t already post your ballot for the elections to UCU’s NEC, now is the time. It is a critical moment for our sector, and the future of our union. That’s why I am standing for election to NEC, and urging you to vote for the slate of candidates proposed by UCU Commons, the group I organize with.

We desperately need a joined-up strategy to address the destruction in higher education wreaked by marketisation, under-funding and the culture wars that are, among other things, aimed at challenging the legitimacy of the knowledge produced in universities, and the critical perspective they bring to the poly-crisis we face.

Given that UCU is a union for workers in academic and academic-related roles, I find it baffling that a significant group of activists in our union (UCU Left and adjacent groups) advocate strategies that do not rely on the abundant evidence of what kind of industrial action works in what contexts. I have yet to hear any reasoned explanation of how, at the current conjuncture, a UK-wide strike over pay would have the required impact on employers and governments that would resolve the crisis of funding and redundancies. The fact that, in HE, UCU typically has membership density of 25–30% (as compared, say, to teachers, where density is often 80% and above) raises further questions about this ‘strategy’.

There is so much we could be doing now. We know from the dispute over our USS pensions that the win was not just due to strike action, but also due to mobilizing our members’ expertise and challenging the arguments of employers again and again. Dogged persistence also played a part, as well as effective lobbying and relations with key journalists.

If over the past few years, we had spent less time arguing with each other, bashing our General Secretary, blocking proposals for research on matters such as how to return to more equitable distribution of student numbers across universities (one of the reasons I joined UCU Commons), we could be doing so much more right now. As a specific example, we could have had proposals ready to present to the Scottish government on a fairer system of student distribution in Scotland if a motion proposed by UCU Edinburgh and passed at UCU Scotland Congress in 2024 had not been shelved by the current officers (it was deemed unnecessary to do Scotland-specific research as UCU UK was already working on student distribution).

Reclaiming higher education as a common good is a hard struggle, one that has to be waged on multiple fronts, and in diverse ways. There’s a lot to fight against—why do we have to fight each other? I’m running for NEC because I want a union that works with the majority of members, in which we can properly debate strategy and develop policy that is based on evidence, rather than magical thinking. I will work with anyone who shares these basic aims, which seem to me fundamental to the work of a trade union.

Please vote!

Thanks for reading UCU Commons Updates! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.