Elections to UCU’s National Executive Committee (NEC), for General Secretary and for Vice President (who automatically becomes President in two years) are now underway.
The voting period is from 25th January to 1st March 2024.
Our NEC and it’s subcommittees, Higher Education committee (HEC) and Further Education Committee (FEC), are responsible for the execution of policy and the conduct of general business for our Union between meetings of Congress. These committees take critical decisions about our Union’s priorities, direction and strategy, including industrial action strategy.
The decisions of NEC, HEC and FEC can make or break our Union and our action.
It is critical that we elect the right candidates to represent us. Voting in NEC elections is every bit as important as voting in industrial action ballots, yet only a tiny fraction of the membership votes – turnout was less than 11% in last year’s NEC elections.
We urge you to use your vote, to vote for the candidates below and encourage your colleagues to do the same. Help us build a better union!
UCU Commons Candidates
UCU Commons is standing the following six candidates. All of our candidates subscribe to our UCU Commons values. You can find their election statements below:
- Laura Chuhan Campbell (she/her), Durham University
(Representative of women members) - Robin Clarke (he/him), University of the Arts London
(London and the East HE / UK elected member HE) - Jo Edge (she/her), University of Edinburgh
(Representative of women members) - Christopher O’Donnell (he/him), University of the West of Scotland
(UK elected member HE) - Alex Prichard (he/him), University of Exeter
(UK elected member HE) - Sophia Woodman (she/her), University of Edinburgh
(UK elected member HE)
Election statements
Laura Chuhan Campbell (she/her), Durham University
(Representative of women members)
Post-16 education has reached a crucial turning point. As this government pins its dying hopes on culture wars and anti-intellectual agendas, higher and further education are increasingly beset by crises of precarious employment, inadequate funding, extreme workloads, low and unequal pay, and the lowest level of morale I have ever seen in my career. As a UCU caseworker, member of the Women’s Committee, and departmental rep in HE, I have seen exploitation and inequality worsen in recent years, while employers’ intransigence has only hardened.
The higher education MAB represented one final pushback against employers, and it failed because universities simply decided that giving out marked degrees was unnecessary. And that was what really stung: if they don’t care when we strike from teaching, research, and admin, and they don’t care whether or not we graduate students, then what are we even here for? That’s why now is the moment for UCU to fight back—but we have to have a plan. I am standing for re-election for NEC because I believe that the USS victory in HE has shown that our action can and does work, but we must recognise that, by de-valuing our labour, the employers have moved the goalposts. We must reassess and create a long-term strategy. We must identify weak points in our density, and build towards stronger and more hard-hitting action. We must learn from our mistakes, forge new ways forward, and we must win.
We must empower and support branches to address Four Fights issues on a local as well as national level. As a casualised worker for 8 years, I led the campaign to scrap 9 month contracts at Durham University (where I am now employed as an Associate Professor in Modern Languages). The ensuing local agreement on casualisation raised the bar for other universities. Supporting local agreements within the context of a collective dispute challenges the sector-wide race to the bottom, gives branches autonomy to address the issues that matter most to them, and allows us to build a sector-wide consensus on what a fair workplace looks like.
I have voted to call upon the General Secretary to put in place a 5 year strategy involving extensive branch consultation, because I believe that this will put us in the strongest possible position to reclaim post-16 education. This strategy must involve engaging members by de-mystifying UCU’s governing structures, capitalising on our successes to further recruitment, researching university finances and the effects of student distribution, and identifying opportunities for targeted local campaigns. I am supporting Jo Grady for re-election as General Secretary and David Hunter as Vice-President. I am a member of UCU Commons: www.ucucommons.org/NEC24.
Robin Clarke (he/him), University of the Arts London
(London and the East HE / UK elected member HE)
Our Union desperately needs new voices and a new vision. I would like your support to become a new voice on our NEC arguing for a Union that is strategic, determined and effective, that is fuelled by respect, solidarity, care and compassion.
About me
I have worked in HE for 10+ years in academic and ARPS roles at pre- and post-92 institutions: University of Leicester, DMU, and now as an Open Learning Designer at UAL. I have been actively involved in branches, serving as ARPS representative and departmental rep at Leicester for several years. Before 2012, I worked for a museum on a decade-long string of precarious contracts. I have, therefore, broad experience of the issues that face staff in different roles, at different institutions and those facing precarity.
Central to everything I do is my passion for equality and human rights. We must keep this central to our work and make it easier for people from marginalised communities to engage with our Union.
I proudly stand with all those experiencing inequality and discrimination. In particular, non-binary and trans siblings are facing an onslaught of hate – I stand in solidarity with them as they have always stood with us at the forefront of our LGBTQ+ liberation movement.
About our Union
Our union needs greater vision. Our NEC must work collaboratively and productively with the General Secretary and UCU staff to develop a long-term strategy that maximises our power to win disputes and effect change.
UCU’s decision making structures must become more transparent. Members should see more of how decisions are made and by whom. We must overhaul our processes to deliver accountability to members.
We must listen to our members and understand what they want from their Union. Members are often overworked and stressed, often making engaging with union structures difficult and burdensome on top of existing commitments. We need to offer members different ways to engage and ensure we hear the voices of as many members as possible. This engagement should include, but must move beyond, traditional branch-level structures.
Our NEC needs to be strategic, creative and proactive, but pragmatic and mindful of the impact of industrial action on our members and students. We should not shy away from challenging our employers, but must consider carefully when how to deploy our industrial muscle, and take steps to recruit more members, increase our workplace density and chance of effecting change.
I am proud to stand as a member of UCU Commons – see www.ucucommons.org/NEC24
I’m supporting Jo Grady for re-election as General Secretary and David Hunter as UCU Vice-President. If elected, I’ll work with them for a stronger, more forward-looking union. To see who else is committed to this, visit grady4gs.com.
Jo Edge (she/her), University of Edinburgh
(Representative of women members)
When I submitted my election address for this role four years ago, I was a precarious worker. Nothing has changed. Currently a research fellow in History at the University of Edinburgh, my contract will expire in about a year, after which I’ll be thrown into uncertainty again. Over the past two years, I have had to spend all my spare time writing my first book, which is essential for getting my next job. It’s miserable, and I’m exhausted – but very far from alone. Precarity is rife across all our sectors, especially for women. But unless we organise and mobilise with a long-term, robust industrial plan, there’s little chance of improvement.
Nothing has better demonstrated the need for a well-thought out plan which maximises resources and energy than this summer’s failed marking and assessment boycott. With 56% of members voting to reject UCEA’s offer on pay and conditions in March, I believed that we didn’t have a strong enough mandate. So, I voted for a motion at the SHESC in April which said we shouldn’t action a MAB without a 2/3 majority. Relatedly, I voted to send out UCEA’s offer on pay and conditions to members without any recommendation in March. I have consistently voted against indefinite strike action because for such action to work we need a strong plan in place first.
At a recent HEC I backed a motion to put a five-year plan in place around our industrial strategy. We need to find ways to consult members beyond BDMs or e-consultations. We need all members to feel empowered to shape our strategy. This is even more important for our FE, Prison and Adult Education members whose voices we need to hear more of in our union.
If re-elected, I will bring a rule change to Congress to open out the nomination process to our Equality Standing Committees, removing branch approval as the sole mechanism. Changing this process will enable more casualised and marginalised members to get involved in our equality work.
Despite my precarious status (and physical distance from my workplace) I have been branch Treasurer for the last 18 months, alongside UK-level roles as chair of the Women Members’ Standing Committee (Sept 2022-present) and the Equality Committee (2022-3). As a member of UCU Commons (ucucommons.org/NEC24) I am an unequivocal supporter of trans rights.
We can change things for the better by working together and being critical allies to one another. This is why I am supporting Jo Grady for re-election as General Secretary and David Hunter as UCU Vice-President. If elected, I will work with them for a stronger and more forward-looking union. To see who else is committed to this, visit grady4gs.com.
Christopher O’Donnell (he/him), University of the West of Scotland
(UK elected member HE)
I am an academic with 20+ years of experience in HE, and I am now a Department Head. I’ve always been a union activist. I’ve worked as a caseworker, branch secretary, president, and member of HEC and NEC, and I’m currently a UK-wide pay negotiator. Please vote for me and those who stand up for us, call out bad actors in our union and face up to our employers.
As a conviction activist, I stay true to the following beliefs:
- University staff are a University. Valued, respected and protected staff are the University experience.
- As a collective, we are stronger; FE, Pre and Post 92 HE are protected & enhanced by each other; within that fortress, we will make change.
- We are brave and honest. We strive to improve our working conditions through collective action. If they come for one, they come for us all.
- We have the solutions: to our working, health, and equality challenges. We know the answers are complex and will take time; 20 years of erosion have brought us here.
- When the time comes to stand up and tell the truth, I’ll be there. Our union is under attack from within, those who carry out and endorse bullying, harassment and misogyny. In addition, those who stand with the attackers, claiming that they are “changing culture” whilst refusing to do that, call out or stand up to those who attack, and vote with them for personal gain.
We need complex solutions to our sector’s problems, and a set of representatives who make those needs paramount.
- We need a new direction on pay, a multi-year deal, with a reformed pay spine, thus improving our collective rewards.
- We need national frameworks on workloads that allow local agreements and practises to be meaningful.
- We need security on the TPS pensions in FE & Post 92 institutions.
- We need national controls on the recruitment and distribution of student numbers with an end to the “stack them high” approaches of some VCs.
- We need ‘fair pay for fair days’ work’, ending gender and race pay gaps, precarious work and zero-hours contracts.
- Reducing the regulatory burden; we know that the TEF, REF and NSS achieve little except making us sick.
To be clear, we can achieve these outcomes and improve our Universities. Please vote for those who want to do the hard work. That is why I am supporting Jo Grady for re-election to General Secretary and David Hunter as UCU Vice President; if elected, I will work with them for a stronger, more forward-looking union. To see who else is committed to the same cause, visit here Grady4GS.com
Alex Prichard (he/him), University of Exeter
(UK elected member HE)
I am a dedicated and active member of UCU and determined to protect education as a public good. But while HE has been transformed over the last ten years, UCU strategy and structures have stayed broadly the same. For us to win, we need to change too. UCU needs to better reflect the fact that only c.40% of UCU members have USS pensions, which is roughly a fifth of total staff in HE (April 2023 USS strike ballot return/HESA data 2021). UCU membership has not kept up with growth in total staff numbers over the last ten years, especially in professional services, and our branches are insufficiently trained and empowered to deliver for head office, for their members, and grow.
More voting is not enough to make the UCU a more democratic, member-led union. Giving voice to the membership also means encouraging comradely debate about the plural internal and external structures of power we face. Increasing density would change the terms of that debate again. But having that debate will help clarify who and what the UCU is for.
Aligning our different visions is a necessary part of building a successful union. If I’m elected, alongside holding the General Secretary to account, supporting our paid staff and the work of the national executive and Higher Education Committee, I would lobby for a review of UCU’s democratic and constitutional processes. I have relevant experience to support this. I’ve spent the last seven years co-producing democratic and constitutional theory and practice with activist groups. From 2016-2020 I worked with the Industrial Workers of the World (a revolutionary syndicalist union), and Radical Routes (a federation of anarchist worker and housing co-ops), to support their constitutional processes, and have published on this topic.
I’ve been a UCU member since 2008, rep and caseworker since 2018, and was branch President between 2022-2023. Exeter’s casualisation problem, gender paygap, and equalities issues, are well documented. While continuing the ongoing work of the branch in these areas, we met legal voting thresholds, negotiated a Joint Statement with the University executive that reset industrial relations for the better, and began local negotiations, alongside Unite and Unison, to restructure our local payspine. We maintained committee cohesion despite strong views on all sides, increased participation in branch meetings, and maintained casework support for our members. Local membership increased by c.20%. These struggles are ongoing, but we now have a better collective understanding of the structural problems facing the sector, the UCU, and our university.
I have been a member of UCU Commons since May 2023.
I endorse Jo Grady for re-election as General Secretary and David Hunter for Vice President
Sophia Woodman (she/her), University of Edinburgh
(UK elected member HE)
I’ve come into union work through organizing around conditions for work and study in the neoliberal marketized university. During the 2018 USS dispute, a six-week student occupation supporting the strikes at the University of Edinburgh was the catalyst for a collective diagnosis of how this model of the university exploits staff and students in different, yet intersecting ways. This analysis has continued as a practice in our local organizing, and contributed to the amazing solidarity our students demonstrated last summer during the MAB.
Until this year, much of my union work has been within the School of Social and Political Science where I am a senior lecturer. I’ve worked with my hourly-paid casualized colleagues to push for them to be paid for all their work. I’ve also been a strong advocate for international students, who are often treated as cash cows and subjected to casual racism. I’ve been involved in campaigns against Prevent and the hostile environment. Following the Covid-19 outbreak, I was involved in our branch’s struggle to be consulted on academic matters when working conditions radically changed. I joined the branch committee in April 2023, and became co-president in June. While it did not succeed in moving UCEA, the strong impact of Edinburgh’s MAB was due to granular organizing and support networks; grassroots deliberation on effective strategy; the long-standing cooperation with students noted above; and, drawing on these, effective fundraising.
This experience of building coalitions and understanding across difference, and working cooperatively, has shaped my approach to trade union work. We have a diverse membership, with varied status and experiences, as well as differing political perspectives. If elected, I will advocate for more support for local organizing, as without strong, organized branches that provide channels for member input and engagement, we cannot build membership or make progress on addressing the crisis in HE, as well as in FE and education more broadly. If campus unions could work together, we could better address declining pay and working conditions. I advocate working towards an agreement on joint membership for unions representing HE workers.
A long-term focus of my research and activism is how the dual forces of securitization and marketization are threatening academic freedom in the UK and beyond. Academic freedom also means self-governance and the right to criticize the institution in which one works. If elected, I will use my role to push for UCU to campaign on this broad vision of academic freedom. I also work on gender equality and human rights, and am an unequivocal supporter of trans inclusion.
I am supporting Jo Grady for re-election as General Secretary and David Hunter as UCU Vice-President. I am a member of UCU Commons ucucommons.org/NEC24.
UCU Commons a 