Today we had the pleasure of receiving the visit of Karen Evans from Liverpool University. Karen is part of the National Disputes Committee (representing NW region), which is about democratising UCU in times of conflict and was instituted by Congress after the 2018 strike.
We were also visited by students members of Acorn, a union which seeks justice for low-income people in the UK, for example fighting against abusive landlord practices. Thank you for your support!
photo © Steffi Doebler
We also saw our members organise a swing dancing picket! Come back tomorrow for more dancing.
Nationally, we received an update from our Vice-President, Vicky Blake, on the negotiations that happened with UCEA on Wednesday. Vicky stressed on the importance of attempting discussions with our respective VCs, something UCEA also asked them to do. You can read about her report on Twitter here.
We are still waiting for Lancaster University Senior Management to meet us on the picket.
Meanwhile, two important articles have been published in the Guardian about the hostile environment’s consequences for some of our members. Asiya Islam describes her personal experiences in this opinion piece while the collective Unis Resist Border Control have published the result of very important research outlining the consequences of this hostility on Higher Education workers. Complete findings of their study can be accessed here.
Finally, Josephine Cumbo kept us informed on the lack of access that is being given on the report that led to USS’s decision to sack Prof Jane Hutton, USS trustee.
In the afternoon, we got together for a teachout on resistance to managerialism which much needed discussions on the history and background of management and the underlying idea of corporatism, i.e. that there is no conflict of interest between employees and employers and how that is the background for the the kind of authoritarianism and bullying that goes on in universities right now.
Lancaster UCU 