TL;DR: (Dis)Aggregation in UCU Balloting
This TL;DR explains some of the issues around aggregated vs. disaggregated UCU balloting.
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Commons Mail: Industrial Ballot Edition
#OneOfUsAllOfUS
Massaging the Figures on USS: How It's Done
Are you a vice chancellor concerned for your employees’ quality of life in retirement? Worried that your performance doesn’t match your pay packet? No, we thought not. But you may be anxious about the UCU ballots for industrial action, including the dispute over the proposed cuts to USS pensions.
UCU Commons Statement on the Labour Party, Transphobia, and LGBTQ+ Solidarity
Content warning: some transphobic language is quoted in this statement.
UCU Commons writes today to stand in solidarity with all our trans, non-binary and gender diverse colleagues, comrades and students. We vehemently oppose all forms of transphobia and queerphobia, and we recognise that biphobia, homophobia, queerphobia and transphobia all
Why STEM Practitioners Need to Stand Up for Arts, Humanities and the Social Sciences
by Nicholas Chancellor
A recent narrative which has proved popular with Tory politicians and their supporters (see for example: this announcement) is that students are being duped by 'low value' degrees in arts, humanities and social sciences. The idea is that these degree programs lead to hapless students
Gender Studies in the ‘Starbucks’ University
By: Ruth Holliday
Author Note: Ruth Holliday is Professor of Gender and Culture at Leeds University, a Cultural Sociologist, and a UCU NEC representative for the North-East region.
Despite the manufactured panic about ‘woke’ subjects like Critical Race Theory and ‘Critical Marxism’ as imagined threats to the free speech
Creating Cracks for Collective Care in the Ruins of the University
Fostering collective care involves working together to create opportunities for rediscovering joy in what we do, as a priority need - without this joy, where do we find the necessary reserves to push for better higher education?
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read): Student Number Controls
The following post is a short summary of the debate over 'Student Number Controls' in Higher Education. Readers can find a longer appendix of articles linked at the bottom of the piece. It is the first in a series of 'TL;DR' short explainers that UCU
Commons Mail #4: “Solidarity and Prayers”
Dear Subscriber, welcome back to Commons Mail. Things were quiet over the Easter period and in the wake of UCU’s recent election results, but as we approach Congress at the end of May, both union activists and employers are on the move again. Many of you will doubtless be
#ebooksos: Fighting the Enclosure of the Knowledge Commons
by Ben Purvis
The oligopoly of academic publishers is widely recognised as a growing barrier to an open access knowledge commons in the digital age. The discourse typically focuses on academic journals, whose lucrative business model relies on the free labour of editors, reviewers, and authors, with the resultant product