In the first blog, I attempted to locate the research I am engaging in through “listening in” to rhythms (Lefebvre, 2017): the pandemic everyday, the crisis tremors of FE, and the clamour-for-keyworkers in the context of an imagined future FE. To continue, I want to think about space, domestic and public, and how it is inhabited and can be mapped.

Lorde (2017) directs us to the urgency of the thinking snatched in the domestic. For Crenshaw (2020), there is a pressing need to consider the geographies of pandemic-containment. There is a danger for women, for non-binary and LGBT+ people, in the enforced intimacy of the “household” as the state-prescribed living unit of pandemic, which has been discussed in a series of blogs by Grewal, Hemmings, Sabsay and Tudor (2020). Education work under a pandemic takes place for a large number in the “household”: an imagined as well as real space. This space is demarked by the boundaries of the heteronormative, the nuclear; a narrative of this place as haven does much to mask the relations that transgress those prescribed by the state, and to hide the violence done within confined walls.

I read about the leap in domestic danger and death (Bradbury-Jones and Isham, 2020), and my heart beats faster, an echo of the faster heartbeat of those trapped in state-endorsed spaces being paced by predators. For students (and colleagues) in my life as an access lecturer domestic violence, not always historical, was a reality driving the journey into education. I wonder how many of the bodies counted could have been future students and education workers. While I am snatching reading time to work on this assignment, I hear loud shouts. A man appears over the road with a bar, threatens a woman on a doorstep, and from my own doorstep I shout to him that I will call the police if he does not stop. He threatens me and leaves while I tell a confused phone operator about an event he eventually decides has already been reported.

I become conscious in the moment and after that my response has been a white feminist response. I have done it to physically remove a (white) threatening man, from a distance, but my Black partner now beside me in front of our home is reminding me of the threat police bring to the streets: for James Baldwin, the hired enemies of Black people. I’m reminded of the standard I want to reach for, of the need to strive for decolonial intersectionality (Kurtis and Adams, 2017); to prioritise listening over speaking. I have acted on privilege (in terms of how I as a white woman am situated in relation to the police) in the moment, and it could have caused harm.

In Manchester, Desmond Mombeyrara is tazered by police in front of his toddler. In Birmingham, an enquiry opens into police use of excessive force against Black males. In New York, a white woman calls police and quickening her breath to perform an assault after a Black man tells her to leash her dog around birds.

In Minneapolis, a recurring scene plays out. George Floyd calls for his mother, crying out that he cannot breath, as he is murdered by police. A city erupts and the tremors reach out across the world.

This spectre could be considered a haunting, to use Gordon (2011)’s notion of haunting as both the recurring emergence of racial social violence, and the simultaneous urgency for social change as a response. George Floyd evokes Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Natasha McKenna. The haunting is not just taking place across the Atlantic; it reverberates here in Mombeyrara, Rashan Charles, Sarah Reed, Mark Duggan, Kingsley Burrell. As a number of critical race theorists including Priyamvada Gopal have identified in social media commentary, all of these spectres evoke Frantz Fanon’s (1970) words that often when revolt happens it comes from the inability to breathe.

Why does this matter for research into the struggle over the boundaries and entry points of education? Firstly, because education is resistance as well as state socialisation. Emancipatory pedagogy speaks to Gordon’s (2011) “something-to-be done”. Also, because the violence of education and the violence of policing interconnect. Police brutality is a reverberation of what Bourdieu, Passeron et al. (1977) refer to as the symbolic violence of education in the lines of prevention, exclusion, expulsion. The right to breath is the right to live free from police violence, but also the right to free participation in education as part of participation in a democratic society, to (breathe in) existing knowledge and (breathe out) produce known understanding of what the world is and how it works. Currently, the curricula markers of cultural difference which push racial containment such as Prevent and British Values are in suspense. The metrics of examination are also suspended, which as Fautley (2020) notes in his blog brings a potential de-legitimisation of these neoliberal systems of ranking as appropriate to learning. However, as Patel (2020) has outlined in his decolonial education blog The Teacherist, this also removes the (partial) cultural blindfold of the examiner, leaving student performance to be estimated by a teacher with all of the bias this entails.

There is a tension in the pursuit of social justice between big data and the critical interrogation of human experience. Data shows us the disproportionate BAME Covid death rate, the doubling of femicide, the disproportionate charging of Black people with lockdown violations while the country is travelled with impunity by the PM’s closest ally. Big data sketch out otherwise intangible structures of power and oppression, the skeletal form of how violence and persecution fall under a pandemic. On an intimate level, there are stories. In a racist attack, TSSA member Belly Mujinga is spat at by a man claiming he is infected with Covid. She reports it to her bosses and is ignored. She dies.

My position as a researcher in considering this mesh between statistics and stories is shaped by my journey as a lecturer up to this point. I have worked primarily with adult returner students at level 3, teaching social sciences. This, combined with my engagement in education activism as a trade unionist and campaigner, has formed and reinforced my perspective as grounded in critical theory (trying to learn from feminism, Marxism, intersectionality, antiracism) and emancipatory pedagogy. But to have a way of talking about power as something with a bigger form across our interactions in my experience as teacher necessitates some recourse to statistics, even while these must be open to deconstruction. Feminist methodology (e.g. Childers, Rhee and Daza, 2015) cautions against the privileging of the positivist approach, the placing of statistics shaped by the power positions of those who produce, select and distribute them at the top of a hierarchy of knowing the world. Gillborn, Warmington and Demack (2017) identify quantitative claims of objectivity as a site for obfuscation of racist coding practices. Further, emancipatory pedagogy demands a critical approach to knowledge and authority claims. Lather (2006) discusses the nature of power and the struggle for legitimacy, arguing that increasingly plural methodologies shift the ground underneath the traditional “monolithic oppostions” of positivism and interpretism, leaving in place diversification. As Gillborn et al. (2017) suggest, big data should not occupy a position of unchallenged authority: its value comes from its use in a struggle for justice.

Echoing through both big data and the personal story are power and resistance.

 

References

BBC News. 2020. Disproportionate Number Of BAME People Fined. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52905787&gt; [Accessed 3 June 2020].

Bourdieu, P., Passeron, J., Nice, R., Bourdieu, P. and Bottomore, T. (1977). Reproduction in education, society, and culture. London: SAGE publications.

Bradbury‐Jones, C. and Isham, L., 2020. The pandemic paradox: The consequences of COVID‐19 on domestic violence. Journal of Clinical Nursing,.

Childers, S., Daza, S. and Rhee, J., 2015. Promiscuous Feminist Methodologies In Education. London: Routledge.

Crenshaw, K., 2020. Under The Blacklight: The Intersectional Vulnerabilities That COVID Lays Bare. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoFGUrkGbmo&gt; [Accessed 26 May 2020].

Fanon, F., 1970. Black Skin, White Masks London: Paladin.

Fautley, M., 2020. Grading And Standards In Troubled Times. [online] drfautley. Available at: <https://drfautley.wordpress.com/2020/04/03/grading-and-standards-in-troubled-times/&gt; [Accessed 4 June 2020].

Gillborn, D., Warmington, P. and Demack, S., 2017. QuantCrit: education, policy, ‘Big Data’ and principles for a critical race theory of statistics. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(2), pp.158-179.

Gordon, A., 2011. Ghostly Matters. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Grewal, K., Hemmings, C., Sabsay, L., and Tudor, A., 2020. Confronting ‘The Household’. [Blog] Feminist Review, Available at: <https://femrev.wordpress.com/2020/05/26/confronting-the-household/&gt; [Accessed 27 May 2020].

Grierson, J., 2020. Domestic abuse killings ‘more than double’ amid Covid-19 lockdown. The Guardian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/15/domestic-abuse-killings-more-than-double-amid-covid-19-lockdown&gt; [Accessed 18 April 2020].

Keeling, N., 2020. Police watchdog launches investigation after man tasered in front of young child at petrol station. Manchester Evening News, [online] Available at: <https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/police-watchdog-launches-investigation-after-18250259&gt; [Accessed 15 May 2020].

Kurtis, T. and Adams, G., 2017. Decolonial intersectionality: implications for theory, research and pedagogy. In: K. Case, ed., Intersectional Pedagogy: complicating identity and social justice. London: Routledge.

Lather, P., 2006. Paradigm proliferation as a good thing to think with: teaching research in education as a wild profusion, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19:1, 35-57

Lefebvre, H., 2017. Rhythmanalysis. London: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Lorde, A. (2017). Your silence will not protect you. London: Silver Press.

McDonald, H., 2020. IOPC launches investigation after alleged police brutality in Birmingham. The Guardian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/29/iopc-launches-investigation-into-alleged-police-brutality-in-birmingham&gt; [Accessed 29 May 2020].

Office for National Statistics, 2020. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Related Deaths By Ethnic Group, England And Wales: 2 March 2020 To 10 April 2020. [online] Office for National Statistics. Available at: <https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/coronavirusrelateddeathsbyethnicgroupenglandandwales/2march2020to10april2020&gt; [Accessed 20 May 2020].

Patel, P., 2020. GCSE and A-Level Grades 2020. [Blog] The Teacherist, Available at: <https://theteacherist.com/2020/04/19/gcse-and-a-level-grades-2020/&gt; [Accessed 20 April 2020].

Weaver, M. and Dodd, V., 2020. UK rail worker dies of coronavirus after being spat at while on duty. The Guardian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/12/uk-rail-worker-dies-coronavirus-spat-belly-mujinga&gt; [Accessed 14 May 2020].

On 23^rd March 2020, the UK went into lockdown in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic. As an early doctoral researcher, I am using this sequence of four blogs to record my navigation of my research journey in this unsettled moment. It feels more like mapping a seascape than a landscape. There are institutional structures deep beneath the surface (“Education” “Pedagogy” “The College” “The University”), and the fluid, rhythmical tides and currents of power (government, educational leadership, colonialism, capitalism, nationalism, the hetero-patriarchy) – and counter-currents of resistance, strongest at their intersection (Crenshaw, 1988). But there is also the disorientation of an environment missing the familiarity of landmarks. We are all at sea.

In this first blog I aim to map where I am, what is happening around me, the disruptions of education including FE “as normal” and what these disruptions say to us. This will include locating my own “messy” perspective as a researcher (Mosselsohn, 2010), shaped by my journey up to this point as practitioner and activist, as well as the wider forces of theoretical and political influence around me. Using Lefebvre’s (2017) rhythmanalysis as a tool to guide the research process, certain questions emerge. What can we understand about further education (FE) based on what is revealed and what is hidden in a moment of crisis? When the “post-pandemic” education system starts to emerge, what form will it take? What does this mean for the students I have historically worked with, and for the research I want to undertake into the struggle for their access to the education system?

The pandemic appears to be a crisis point for FE, though it could also be argued that this is an intensification of existing crisis. Slater (2014) identifies the neoliberal practice of permanent reform in education as a “politics of crisis”, while Rouxel (2015) points to FE as being destabilised through crisis of professional identity and the problematic imposition of metrics, where educational value is equated with student quantitative performance. FE underwent incorporation in the early 90s. My experiences as an FE worker and activist from 2004 onwards have suggested FE is consistently insecure and unstable in terms of identity, purpose and funding. Feeding into this instability are inconsistent and often competing narratives about what FE is: FE is about second chances but recognises that it serves those failed by earlier faults in the wider education sector. FE is profoundly local in contrast to the cosmopolitan nature of HE, feeding into local economies and serving local communities: it must become more flexible but needs to restore the value of traditional skills and trades. FE is there to facilitate cultural integration and cohesion but colleges are in permanent competition and must strive for excellence in order to recruit enough students to fund the excellent provision they aim to deliver.

FE has an organic hunger for survival and solidarity. This has sustained an (admittedly dysfunctional) existence through decades of cuts, identity crisis, broader community vandalism and increasing inroads of “the market” into the schools which feed into the sector and the universities which feed from the sector. COVID-19 represents an historical crisis for FE but not a passage from tranquillity to storm. In the mid-2010s, the austerity government attempted to manage this crisis through engaging in FE commissioner led “FE area reviews” consulting those defined as stakeholders (business leaders, college leaders, LEPs) on how the sector could be pushed into practices of efficient co-working. Unions were grudgingly allowed a space to separately vocalise the view “from the ground” and repeatedly identified that co-working exists organically in the human connections (including unions) within the sector but also the impossibility of facilitating stable formal co-working in colleges pushed into a market. A number of mergers were pushed through. The expected financial re-stablilising and pragmatic co-working efficiency practices were not delivered.

In May 2020, FE week published leaked government plans for a White Report which admitted “recent attempts to financially stabilise the sector with an area review programme and restructuring funds totalling around half a billion pounds were deemed to have failed” and heralding radical plans to bring FE back into tighter governmental control. Interestingly, the leaked report used the language of “community”, re-emphasising the college as a community heart in contrast to the relationship-with and service-of business prioritised over the last decade of governmental statements on FE. It seems highly likely that under the current government any new “community focus” for FE is intended to feed into a greater discourse around localism, nation and Brexit rather than a deeper re-democratisation of college structures. But the ground is opened up further for contest.

Lefebvre (2017) instructs us that in historical moments, time can become quicker or slower, move forwards or backwards. The rhythmanalyist, he says, notes this, listening in to the interweavings of secret and public rhythms: moving beyond what is seen to what is sensed and discarded in the conventional measurement of phenomena.

In the moment of pandemic, thinking about the roles I inhabit (former FE lecturer, current HE lecturer, mother, trade unionist, future FE researcher) I try to listen in. What are the rhythms of life in lockdown? On Thursday nights my daughter counts-down, appearing periodically to announce the time left. At 8pm we take to the doorstep (are doorsteps our equivalent to Lefebvre’s balcony, in giving us the distance of a viewing point of the quiet roads we oversee?), and clap-for-carers, including my children’s father who they have not seen or touched for 2 months. My daughter’s hands come together and part until they are red and sore: her little hands touching themselves in the absence of a father’s hand to hold and sooth. Around the cycle of VE celebrations, big band and Vera Lynn blast out. The rhythms of celebration of the saving and nurturing of life have blended with the fanfares celebrating the taking of life, all intermixed with a silent nod to Nation.

My daughter’s father, like many keyworkers, came back to education as an adult. What does this weekly clamour mean for the students and education workers I have worked with historically in FE and plan to engage in research? FE and its contributions are poorly valued and understood (Bennett and Smith, 2019). The adult returner students I have worked with follow pathways into what are now called “key worker” roles. Before reaching college, these students (like Lefebvre) often already listen into and respond to physical rhythms beyond the visual metrics that will be brought to the foreground in their formal education. They read touch, speak soft reassurances, sense through smell the need for toileting or changing, decode cries from not just pitch but rhythm and the gaps in between. Will this clap-for-carers, this ceremony of national gratitude, translate into a revaluing of these students? Does the clap signify for FE a new respect for these embryonic nurses, teachers, social workers, and their experience in calming, soothing, and guiding their children, patients, elders?

I listen in also to the rhythms of union work. My weeks are punctuated cyclically by meetings with management. Survival of the worker (physical survival, and contractual survival) crashes against the language of institutional survival; softened speeches in defence of the neoliberal university, and what Dakka (2019) identifies as the “ambivalent relationship of academics, especially the elite, towards competition” as our post-92 leaders call on the government to intervene in the competition to retain the imagined fair market. There is a moratorium on unconditional offers. The future remains destabilised. We draw and reinforce lines of resistance, interconnect our existence as workers into hundreds of home/work spaces.

Drifting in and out of our shared work-space I hear my partner receiving and transmitting training and organising to keep schools places of distance: the threat is more immediate for colleges than universities, and more again for schools than colleges. Union leaders are paraded as pantomime villains plotting, “the blob”. It is deadly farce.

Elsewhere, in other virtual spaces, I guide reps at the college I left behind and join meetings to bring together different branches, different unions, parents with workers. While these take place virtually, our discussions consider repeatedly the threat of physical intimacy. Spaces between bodies, the screening and containment of breath and the moisture it carries. Breath, its disruption and blockage, will become an increasingly urgent demand as the pandemic continues to unfold.

 

References

Bennett, P. and Smith, R., 2019. Identity and resistance in Further Education: Routledge.

Crenshaw, K., 1988. Race, Reform, And Retrenchment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Law Review Association.

Dakka, F., 2019. Competition, innovation and diversity in higher education: dominant discourses, paradoxes and resistance. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(1), pp.80-94.

Department for Education, 2019. Area Review: End Of Program Report. London: HM government.

Lefebvre, H., 2017. Rhythmanalysis. London: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Linford, N., 2020. Government to take ownership of colleges. FE week, [online] Available at: <https://feweek.co.uk/2020/05/07/government-to-take-ownership-of-colleges/&gt; [Accessed 10 May 2020].

Mosselson, J., 2010. Subjectivity and reflexivity: locating the self in research on dislocation. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(4), pp.479-494.

Rouxel, D., 2015. Dancing in plain sight. In: M. Daley, K. Orr and J. Petrie, ed., Further Education and the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Croydon: Institute of Education Press, pp.131-137.

Slater, G., 2014. Education as recovery: neoliberalism, school reform, and the politics of crisis. Journal of Education Policy, 30(1), pp.1-20.

Nita Sanghera, late president elect and first UCU black presidential officer:

Rhiannon is an amazing woman, mother, activist and of course teacher… she will knock UCU into shape by being her fabulous self. She has my complete support.

Sue Abbott, UCU elected national equality chair and chair of UCU national Women Members’ Standing Committee:

I have worked with Rhiannon for several years on the national women’s committee and have attended the Women’s TUC with her as well. Rhiannon is passionate about women’s rights and has made amazing speeches both at women’s TUC and at Union congress that inspire others to follow her lead. I fully support Rhiannon as I know she will be dedicated and committed to all and particularly to women in our union.

Dave Muritu, former UCU National Equality chair, former chair national black members standing committee, former branch secretary Sandwell College:

Vote Rhiannon for Women’s officer.  She is a tireless fighter for equality often pushing UCU on policy to support oppressed groups.  She has always been committed to transparency and placing members views at the centre of her work, reporting to the membership regularly on her voting positions and her activities in the name of the union.  Rhiannon has consistently supported members taking action, delivering solidarity to picket lines across the country.

Emma Fisher, former Access student:

As a former access student , I had the privilege to be taught by Rhiannon. Rhiannon not only taught me the academic content of my course, she also made me aware and inspired me to both acknowledge and challenge many inequalities and barriers to learning for many students. I have seen Rhiannon dedicate her life to fight tirelessly for many causes which affect many minority and marginalised groups both locally and globally. Rhiannon gives her heart and soul into any campaign in which she embarks on, highlighting issues and finding effective solutions. To have Rhiannon on board any team, panel or board would implement positive action with maximum effect.

Ioana Cerasella Chis – University of Birmingham UCU Committee Member, University of Birmingham UNISON Membership Officer, Doctoral Student.

I am particularly grateful for and impressed by Rhiannon’s commitment to doing everything in her power to be an ally to those who are fighting for improved working, learning and living conditions. These are not just empty words – I have seen Rhiannon being a fierce and consistent supporter of the campaigns and strikes that have taken place at the University of Birmingham over the past few years – be they organised by UCU, UNISON, or activist student groups. She has made every effort to offer advice, spread the word about our various campaigns, and travel to our campus (despite not being based here) to speak at rallies and be with us on the picket lines.

I cannot stress enough just how important it is that our NEC members use their initiative to build bridges with struggles that may appear to be outside of our union’s own struggle. Rhiannon is committed, politically astute, and (according to a former student of hers and friend of mine) a truly supportive teacher and mentor. Finally, Rhiannon has the experience of working both in further education and higher education, and she is now also undertaking a doctoral degree.

We need Rhiannon’s experience, approach, and practice of solidarity to be part of our union’s NEC. I urge you to vote for her.

Laura Such, branch Secretary, Halesowen College

Having worked with Rhiannon during her time as Branch Secretary at Halesowen College she never ceased to amaze me. Rhiannon regularly communicated with the branch on our local issues and national campaigns; regularly fighting the fight on a picket line or representing us at regional meetings and national Congress.

I sat with her in staff council meetings as she raised the collective concerns on behalf of members in a calm and collected way, but when the need arose she would fight for us! Rhiannons’s door was always open… if you could find her behind the bags of donations for the women’s refuge. When Rhiannon left Halesowen there was a big void. Her tireless campaigning inspired me to try and take on her legacy. Anytime I have a question or problem she is there to advise and mentor me, despite lecturing, being her own Branch Secretary, undertaking a doctorate, being an amazing single mum to two great kids, swimming for refugees and campaigning for the labour party!

Although it’s a HE seat members at Halesowen College fully supported Rhiannon’s nomination, and all FE members can vote for all of the women’s seats. I urge all members to vote for this truly inspirational superwoman.

Julia Roberts, NEC (London FE), Branch Secretary Lambeth College UCU

My name is Julia Roberts, and I am Branch Secretary of Lambeth College UCU.  I am also an FE representative on the NEC for London and the East.

 

I urge you to vote for Rhiannon Lockley as Women Members’ Representative (HE).  I have known and worked alongsideRhiannon for over five years.  She has unfailingly proved herself to be a hardworking and dedicated union activist.

 

Rhiannon and I first met in 2014 when the Lambeth College branch was taking indefinite strike action over a proposeddegradation of contracts.  Rhiannon played a key role in our West Midlands support base.  She was instrumental in providing practical and moral support throughout our campaign.  Throughout the time I have known her, Rhiannon has always stepped forward to support members under attack in the workplace whether as individuals or branches taking industrial action.

 

Rhiannon and I have also worked together on the NEC.  Rhiannon has consistently highlighted injustices outside of, as well as inside, the workplace, and has in particular been a strong campaigner on behalf of the disadvantaged and vulnerable within our communities.  Women’s issues have always been to the fore and Rhiannon will be an energetic and committed women’s representative.

 

PLUS SHE HAS TWO VERY GORGEOUS CATS CALLED RONNIE AND REGGIE WHO WILL DO YOU IN IF YOU DON’T VOTE FOR HER.

James Brackley, University of Birmingham UCU

Throughout my time as an officer, my UCU branch at the University of Birmingham has received tireless support across many meetings, protests, and pickets from Rhiannon who is one of the leading activists and trade unionist in our city.

She has played a crucial role in developing young members and in linking together the fight for equality across the education unions, always giving support and guidance where it is most needed. She is extremely knowledgeable of both FE and HE, a really effective organiser, and always so passionate about everything she does.

She is a pleasure to work with and I’m certain she will be an asset to the union on the NEC. Please make sure you give her your vote!

Andrew Scattergood, West Midlands regional Secretary, FBU

I have had the privilege of knowing Rhiannon a number of years. She is well respected and well like within the wider labour movement and I’m honoured to call her a friend. Her tireless campaigning and standing up against injustice is second to none. When firefighters have been fighting our own battles, Rhiannon has always been right by our side standing shoulder to shoulder and has represented the UCU impeccably. The FBU are grateful for her support and solidarity. Rhiannon’s professionalism, on top of her energy and passion, mean I couldn’t think of anyone better to represent UCU members on your NEC. The UCU is very lucky to have Rhiannon.

Kirsten Forkert, UCU NEC (Midlands) and branch co-chair, BCU UCU

“I’ve worked with Rhiannon Lockley on the West Midlands Regional Executive Committee and more recently as part of the branch at Birmingham City University. She is an excellent trade union activist and is committed to inclusive education. Rhiannong has an astute analysis of the power struggles in education, an imaginative approach to campaigning and organising and a principled commitment to equality. These are all qualities our union needs right now and she would have much to offer as a a member of the National Executive Committee.”

Cllr Louise Gibbard, Swansea (former Branch Secretary Halesowen College UCU)

I’ve known Rhiannon for almost 15 years first as a colleague, then a union comrade and lasting friend. I feel privileged to have witnessed her growth as an activist over this period and she is an endless source of inspiration to me both politically and personally.

Her commitment to the issues and people about which she is passionate knows no bounds. She feels so deeply about what she believes in, but importantly it is always backed up by thorough knowledge and understanding of the facts, theory and processes and she’s able to articulate this winning combination of emotion and information so well.

Her dedication to women’s rights in particular, both in the workplace and in wider society, is a perfect example of this. She draws on her own experiences as a working mother, but also acts as an amplifier for other women’s voices from a wide range of backgrounds. She’s the true embodiment of an intersectional feminist. From reproductive rights and childcare to domestic violence and the hostile environment, she is a real warrior for equality and there is no one I would rather have fighting for me in boardrooms with management or on the streets at protests and rallies.

Jane Inskip, prison members rep in the West Midlands

Rhiannon is the epitome of solidarity and this is why I’m supporting her for the NEC. Most people recognise that Education should be from the cradle to the grave but less consider those whose access to Education is behind bars. Rhiannon has been an ally for those who live and work behind the walls. She not only recognises the difficulties we face but amplifies our voice when the nature of our work often silences us.

Rhiannon knows that our students are your students, that we are you and that your union is our union. I have confidence that she will continue to fight for Prison Educators, ensuring that we have safe, decent conditions and that we are heard. Vote Rhiannon!

Cheryl Hedges, Vice Chair UCU West Midlands

I have known Rhiannon for 3 years both as a colleague in the HE/FE sector and as an activist at West Midlands Regional UCU.

 

Rhiannon is totally committed to equality and social justice. This is reflected in her practice in the classroom and in her relationships with students and colleagues. She is always ready to support colleagues on issues of injustice and discrimination. She works collaboratively and inclusively including encouraging me in my union work. She went beyond my expectations in supporting me at my first congress last year, including me in discussions and providing a commentary on debates.  She is totally committed to the idea that education can change one`s life chances and it is this that is the engine that drives her on. She is kind, thoughtful and tender. I have worked with students at HE level who carry this admiration with them from her work with them in FE. 

 

She is well organised and is able to plan and reflect on a number of actions at any one time.  Her campaigning in the region has been brilliant including the campaign against the closure of Stourbridge college last year. She has done much to improve the representation and participation of women, including myself, within the union. Campaigning with her fills you with confidence and trust. She is a loyal and reliable member of the union who will make a brilliant advocate for all members in her position on the NEC. 

 

I fully support her candidature for NEC and know that she will work in the  interests of all members in all levels of  UCU.

Martin Bradbury, West Midlands ACE member

Rhiannon Lockley is an experienced and highly competent educator and labour activist. I was taught psychology by her during my time as a mature student on the Access to Higher Education programme at Halesowen College between September 2010 and June 2012. She was always an excellent facilitator of group discussions and engaging in her presentation of psychological theories. Later, whist studying for my PGCE at Birmingham City University in 2018-2019  Iobserved her teaching sociology, once again at Halesowen College. I can without reservation say that Rhiannon Lockley is an activist who takes intellectual questions seriously and is an advocate for positions which are progressive and forward thinking. Her work in UCU has demonstrated her commitment to the workers movement and the broader community in Halesowen and the Black Country area generally. In the time that I have known Rhiannon she has consistently advocated for a feminist working class perspective and I believe that she would be excellent in the role of Women’s Officer.

Myka Tucker-Abramson, chair, Warwick UCU

Rhiannon is a fierce and committed trade unionist, feminist, and anti-racist activist and organiser, and has been a particularly important presence in the West Midlands regional UCU.  Based in Birmingham, she would also bring more of our regional perspective to national. Finally, she is a trans-inclusive feminist which is very important in these elections.

UCU Vice President, NEC and trustee elections open on 31st January and close on 4th March 2020. I am standing for a women’s HE seat and supporting UCU left candidates for a union which is member-led and has equality issues at its centre: exactly how these two, my gritty, vivacious sister Nita Sanghera (and of course my partner Dave Muritu) always fought for it to be.

What I stand for:

 

Equality belongs at the heart of our union. 

I’m energised by the determination of our pickets this winter and support the centralisation of equality and casualisation in our disputes: this has been hard-fought for my left activists over a long period of time and must not be abandoned. As as NEC member I will always speak for our most vulnerable members and hold leadership to account.

We must build from this and fight for an education system which values all of us: we have to dismantle the hierarchies which trap women, disabled workers, LGBT+ workers, Black and migrant workers at the bottom with lowest pay and least security. 

We must end the practice of shutting down dissenting voices and strike leaders from our most marginalised workers.

We must defend educational access for all. 

I’m a lone parent, a foundation year lecturer and a doctoral researcher at BCU. 

I work with amazing studentsin health, education and life sciences, whilst studying the journeys of working class adult students. My background prior to HE is Access education: I am proud of my FE roots.

I am a Labour Party member, an antifascist, and a feminist influenced by intersectional feminism and Marxism. 

I am a UCU left backed candidate: this means I will support member-leadership, industrial action, and centralising equality in UCU decision-making. In my previous time on NEC I worked hard to ensure I was accessible to members, attending regional meetings and sending full reports on meetings and my activity to support the union. If elected I will continue to report fully on meetings and engage transparently with members about how I vote.

 

 

My record:

In my time as a UCU activist I have consistently pushed our position on equality, repeatedly fighting for and winning the support of congress on issues which have faced opposition from conservative elements of the union. We must consistently stand with marginalised and oppressed groups.

I have won national UCU backing for policy on: 

Reinforced commitment to: 

 

It was an honour to play a central role in the election of UCU’s first Black presidential candidate Nita Sangheraand I’m proud to have her endorsement. I did not know when I stood for NEC she would not be here with us. I want to do everything I can to live up to the belief she had in me.

 

I have been a branch officer for the last 8 years, steering and supporting through a period of catastrophic attacks on our communities and on education itself.

Branch representation: 

I have led a branch through a local dispute over victimisation and through parallel pay disputes outside of national bargaining. 

I am active in the community and will always support mobilisations against attempts to intimidate.  My community record includes collectively driving the Trump funded anti-choice march for life out of Birmingham, organising large mobilisations against the bedroom tax and the DUP deal. I value working with student groups and sister unions.

 

 

Trade union service:

 

Branch Secretary: Halesowen College 2013-18; BCU 2019+

West Midlands Region: Women’s officer 2011-14, 2017-18, Chair 2014-17

Women Members Standing Committee: 2013-19

UCU Women’s Conference delegate: 2011-19

Women’s TUC delegate: 2014-18

NEC: 2017-19

TUC delegate: 2017-18

It is a privilege to represent members. If you elect me I will work hard with you to grow our union and honour that privilege. Whoever you vote for, please vote!

On Wednesday 29th May, during the half term holiday, my partner Dave Muritu was summarily dismissed as a Maths lecturer by Sandwell College of Further and Higher Education, where a senior manager ruled that he was guilty of gross misconduct.

The gross misconduct in question was writing in pen, on a Prevent poster, the word “racist”. Although he owned up to having done it and apologised, this writing on a single piece of paper, according to the ruling manager, was “serious damage to college property” – the seriousness comprising of the “potential to bring the college into disrepute” and the use of “inappropriate language“ –  the word “racist”.

Without knowing any political dynamics of the college or Dave’s role there, it is easy to see that this is a disproportionate response. It is not an isolated response, but an act which fits into a pattern of disciplinary responses across the education system which sees black males around 3 times as likely to be permanently excluded compared with the average, and which also falls onto disciplining of black staff. This isn’t news to people in education: it’s taught as part of the sociology curriculum. But in the current climate of our colleges, it is not educationalists but corporate managers who run the show.

This act of sacking Dave does have a political context. Since Dave arrived at Sandwell College in 2013 the UCU branch he is secretary of has grown considerably. Collectively, the branch have achieved a number of victories. They’ve had pay increments put back after years of stasis, gained considerable extra holiday, and fought off punitive lesson policy. A branch is as strong as the will of its members, but with Dave’s enthusiastic organising approach along with hard work from numerous reps and activists, confidence and engagement has been growing and growing: not something which should be frightening to education managers, but in a funds-starved steeply hierarchical corporate model of education provision, the growth in confidence and union success has correlated with downward pressure on Dave as an individual and a branch officer. Last year the branch took 5 days of strike action, taking to the picket lines even during the Beast from the East, and won a sector leading pay deal of 6.5% across three years.

Dave wrote on the poster in a moment of frustration following some case-work relating to race where he felt a member was not being listened to by management. It is easy to come to the assumption that this act was characteristic of someone who must be reckless or easy to anger, a silly little act, but the reality is that out of the many many union reps I know, Dave has experienced some of the most extensive antagonism, bullying and attempted marginalisation by senior management over the years, and remains one of the calmest, most pragmatic and thick-skinned people I know. While as a white woman I have the luxury of being able to prickle and emote over any perceived injustice, to survive as a black activist and sustainable voice for others, Dave does not have that room. This one minor moment which he owned up to was one incident in years of self-discipline and skill in holding off victimisation.

If you are a black man who wants to speak up about injustice, there are strict rules which unconsciously shape survival. You had better not be too loud or deep-voiced, or you could come across as intimidating. You shouldn’t be too passionate trying to voice your frustrations or the things you believe in, or you could come across as aggressive. Choose your words carefully and maximise how articulate you sound, or you could sound like you are ignorant and lacking in education. Don’t sound too educated, or people will assume others are putting words into your mouth. Be patient and calm with the self-indulgent indignation your all-white senior management will need to go through whenever you raise an issue of race. Expect to be spoken over or repeatedly missed out from invitations to negotiations. In an environment where an all-white leadership can cultivate the ego to see the word “racist” as equivalent to personal abuse, which I think is a part of what has happened here, anything below perfection is a potential avenue for problems. 

There are other places where the issue of whether or not the Prevent strategy is racist can be discussed (although not Sandwell College of FHE under current leadership, clearly). It is notable that while Sandwell College senior management considered Dave’s case, the world was shaken by the Christchurch terror attack, where elderly people and children were among the Muslims slaughtered by an emboldened fascist, followed shortly by attacks on Mosques in Birmingham, some very close to West Bromwich. The New Zealand prime minister won praise for her compassionate and determined response to the Christchurch attack, stating to would-be attackers of the Muslim community in NZ “they are us”.

During this time, Dave worked with other trade unionists to reach out in the West Midlands and offer the support of educationists to the Muslim community. This was just the latest small part of a long service as an anti-racist activist which has seen him visit Calais to bring solidarity and supplies to migrants, marching with Grenfell survivors, physically standing in the way of fascists who seek to march through our streets to intimidate Muslims while being spat at and pelted with beer, as well as more formally drafting and moving countless motions to bring TUC and UCU resources and attention to anti-racist work. While Dave was engaged in solidarity work as a response to the Birmingham Mosque attacks, the senior leadership involved in his case were working themselves up over the shock and shame of a black man writing the word “racist” on a poster, and how to deliver the hardest possible response to this. To me, this is the decision of a leadership which is not only not listening to black staff and students about race, it is actively looking for ways to silence to topic being raised. It is the antithesis of what education should stand for. No challenge, no critical thought, no dissent, no compassion. Do not think, follow.

Sandwell College have an opportunity to turn around the terrible damage one of their senior managers has done to their reputation as a place for education, listening to one another and learning together. Dave must now be reinstated.

You can support Sandwell College branch who are now moving to ballot in response to Dave’s victimisation by

• Joining the lobby this Friday (7th June) at 11.30am outside the main campus at Spon Lane, West Bromwich
• Sending support messages to the branch chair, Dharminder Chuhan atdharmindersinghchuhan@hotmail.com; (also personal messages of support to Dave atdmuritu@hotmail.com; )
• Signing and sharing the petition at https://speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/reinstate-david-muritu/ with family, friends, colleagues, your union branch or committees

Dave is a determined trade unionist and equality activist, an extremely loving father and partner, and a dedicated Maths lecturer. Please give him your support.

This week, ballots opened for the election of UCU general secretary, following Sally Hunt’s retirement on ill health. I differed politically from Sally on many issues and respected her on others: notably her commitment to internationalism and her tenacity in holding her own as a GS in a testosterone-flooded general council. Had she continued to fight on for another term, I would not have supported her, but I do not think it is helpful for the political problems of structures we come up against to be personalised and laid on individuals, however unhelpful their actions may be, and I am thankful for all that she put into the union in aiming to deliver what she believed in.

Three candidates are standing to replace her: Matt Waddup, a senior official in the union who is credited not least by himself for much of what was delivered under Sally’s leadership in recent years, Jo McNeill, the UCU left endorsed candidate who is branch president at Liverpool, a long term NEC member and national negotiator, and Dr Jo Grady, an industrial relations expert at Sheffield University with some experience in branch activism who is due to take a seat on the NEC for the first time following Congress. Broadly, we are looking at a continuity candidate who is an established manager of the union (Waddup), a seasoned activist who has played a key role in branch, regional and national mobilisation in favour of industrial action and member-leadership (McNeill), and an e-famous academic known for her high profile in the recent USS disputes and who specialises in industrial relations (Grady). I’ve written elsewhere about my admiration for Jo McNeill as an organiser, an activist, a sister and comrade. She’s a cancer survivor and an adult returner with educational participation at the heart of her work as well as her activism. Whenever I have needed Jo she has supported me, and the branch endorsements clocking up along with individual endorsements outline her history in organising on the ground in our union. However, more relevant to what I want to discuss, Jo McNeill is the only candidate to declare as being supported by an organised grouping (UCU left, the long-standing left organising body in the union) whilst the other two candidates have positioned themselves as independent or non-aligned.

For me a key democratic issue in elections is candidate transparency. I think the most democratic elections involve candidates stating clearly what their core principles are and how they will vote as a representative on key issues. Where an issue arises after an election which could not be predicted it should still be possible for the electorate to have an understanding of how decision making will be guided. I understand the arguments against factions as divisive, insular and off-putting, arguments which are amplified by many who oppose left organising, seek to disguise their own organising processes, or are unconscious about the extent to which they operate as part of an organised political collective with shared political values differing from others within the union or party they belong to. I also believe there is a risk in factional organising of becoming insular on the basis of shared endurance. However, based on my experiences, I believe that being open about organising groups we belong to, being clear about how to access and take part in those groups, and being clear about what those groups believe in, are a key part of how we push for apparatuses such as unions and political parties to be grass-roots led and proactive in fighting for worker rights and social justice in a system which is far from neutral and in which these apparatus are actively pulled in a way which aims to bureaucratise and depoliticise to support social continuity.

In UCU national structures independent candidates are fairly rare and incredibly difficult for voters to pick out from those who are thoroughly under the belief that they are independent but discuss votes separately from main union meetings and vote as part of a bloc, and those who seek to promote themselves as independent to gain election knowing that they are far from independent. Vicky Blake who recently won the VP election is a notable example of an independent candidate. I believe in her integrity and skills to organise and vote on principle, and I believe these things primarily because I know Vicky as a good union friend and sister who I have worked with over a long time period. I absolutely support Vicky as our elected VP as someone who will do a great job, but I gave her my second rather than first preference because I believe in voting for those who like me support the need for an organised left in political groups such as the Labour party or the union and because I support a socialist rather than liberal model of candidacy which rests on collective endeavour and beliefs rather than individual qualities. In the current election I will vote again for Jo McNeill, the candidate who openly states she is the candidate endorsed by UCU Left. The level of transparency of the other two candidates in standing on a ticket of independence I will review later in this piece, but I endorse Jo Grady as the second preference. I believe Matt Waddup could present big challenges to member-led democracy in our union.  

One of the key issues which has arisen in the union over the last year has been the motions of no confidence in Sally Hunt and the motion calling for her censure last congress (motions 10 and 11) following criticism that the USS dispute was poorly overseen in relation to recommendations to members over settling and terms of settlement. It has been commented on elsewhere that Matt was involved in officials walking out to terminate congress, but this is not what I wish to look at here.

UCU left candidates for NEC were elected on a mandate of standing for democracy and member-leadership of the union. When the IBL and IBL-supporting NEC majority pushed to have an NEC recommendation to congress that the no-confidence motion and a motion calling for the GS to be censured should be removed from the order of business on the grounds that there had been advice given that a vote of no confidence could if acted on be in breach of the GS contract, it could be predicted logically by those voting for UCU left candidates that their representatives would uphold the right of congress and the CBC as the elected body to oversee proceedings there and support the right of branches to have a motion which had been through the correct democratic proceedings heard on the floor of congress. It could also be predicted that those elected on a UCU left ticket would have a political view of the GS as an elected and accountable figure, and that this would take precedent over a view of the GS as an employee, albeit an executive employee, in a matter of recall. 

UCU left does not operate on a system of democratic centralism which means it would be less easy to call how we would vote on motions 10 and 11, because the political interest of members in different sectors in relation to the continuity of the GS varied. There was broad agreement to support the motion to censure the GS, but whilst pre-92 UCU left reps supported the call for no confidence FE reps faced a different situation. The AoC (the employers group for FE) had threatened to pull out of national negotiations and after a long process of growing support for action in the sector head office were mobilising to potentially pull all branches out in response. This was after years of frustrating one day strikes and stop start action, including a court injunction pulling action at the last hour and more amazingly, the IBL calling and packing a special sector conference to pull a live ballot and boycotting a special sector conference to get action back on to ensure it was not quorate. Whilst it transpired shortly that the threat was enough to bring the employers back to negotiations, a spiralling into an internal election cycle and removal of our key officer during that process had the potential to spell disaster for FE action. UCU left discussed this and were open in our lines of difference. 

There was some outcry at the time over how left representatives could even think of speaking or voting against a motion of no-confidence from those newly active in the union following the USS dispute, but for me this highlights the necessary space for left organising as something which happens in a coherent way across the union. UCU left candidates agree on the need for the union to be active and to fight. In this instance, pre-92 members had had their ability to fight severely inhibited, but the consequence of a vote of no confidence following this would mean FE members in incredibly difficult to organise conditions losing momentum and national resourcing for fighting. We need activists across all sectors to understand the dynamics of political arguments which relate to the union as a whole in terms of context and possible consequences for the different parts of the union we organise in. Where there are differences of impact, there needs to be a comradely space to consider these and if no consensus can be reached, the ability to openly explain reasoning more widely as to how different decisions have been reached.

When recall congress came to pass, with Sally Hunt now on long term sick leave relating to MS, UCU left members supported the withdrawal of the motion of no confidence and primarily voted and spoke in support of the motion calling for her censure. The reasoning for this was the need following the events of the USS dispute and the Congress walkout the need to reinforce the GS as being answerable to membership. I understood this argument but disagreed with the branch, the new layer of USS activists and UCU left comrades on the correctness of this motion being passed while the GS was sick; this was primarily based on the standards I would try to enforce during case work in relation to employers pushing through with disciplinaries during sick leave, but also a little influenced by my reservations over the use of disciplinary action as a way to resolve issues of democracy and power within the union. Contrary to allegations over the Left being a controlling or mindless group, I discussed this amicably with others prior to and after the event who understood without agreeing with my reasoning.

In the current GS election, a number of newly active members are enthusing about being able to vote for a left candidate who is not part of a faction, with comments also being made that the union has been paralysed by internal warfare between factions. This doesn’t fall too far from the vision of the union portrayed in the notorious Daily Mail article Matt Waddup has referred to on a number of occasions during his campaign, and it is easy to see why it is a palatable view: it offers hope that the obstacles to action are largely surmountable through unity, an ideological position Matt has put forward in his own vision for the future for the union. A level of unity is of course a desirable and necessary thing for a functioning union, and there are a number of issues which activists broadly agree on across the various factions and alignments, including the desire to defend members’ jobs, members’ working conditions, and members’ well-being.

But once we move past that, there are a couple of other trickier issues. These include whether a union should have a purpose beyond member-advancement/defence: are we self-interest groups, or do we have a broader remit as part of the labour movement to be actively anti-racist, anti-austerity, feminist, and to actively fight against disablism, homophobia and transphobia? Distinct from this though still concerned with power, for a union to work there is a need to continually make decisions about how it is achieves its aims, what it will claim and what it will agree to settle for. There is then a whole debate over who is best placed to make these decisions. Should these decisions be taken through open debate with wide members of elected voices feeding into the discussion, or should they be formulated through consultation of every member with the GS and paid officials deciding the frame for and managing responses to this consultation? All of this does not take place in a vacuum, but in 21^st century Western capitalism where unions to some extent occupy a role of managing as well as organising worker unrest.

This being the case, the idea that a new non-aligned left would be any more effective in steering the union in a direction which is pro-democracy/member leadership, industrially active and pro-broader-struggle (which we can assume is what we mean by left in the context of trade union politics) takes a bit of unpicking. If a group of individuals are elected as non-aligned left candidates, without a clear electoral position separating them from other independent candidates speaking the same language, how do they organise in an environment where they will meet repeated opposition from those who do not share their beliefs on strategy, democracy, action, broader struggle or any combination of these things? If they meet or communicate in groupings in some way to exchange thoughts and strategy, it is difficult for them to be considered non-aligned at this point because an alignment has now formed. If they do not meet and exchange views, they will lack scope of information from across the different sectors, employment conditions and oppressed groups represented across the union and be limited in their ability to deliver something which includes the widest possible democratic left representation. It is naivety at best to assume that those who occupy the right wing of the union (not the right wing of broader politics, but to the right of trade unionism in favouring officials as best placed to inform strategy and direction, urging caution in industrial action in initiation and settlement, and sceptical of broader-struggle falling within the remit of the union) would behave any differently than in the past in promoting the election of “independent” and often “left-talking” candidates who would then vote in a bloc to force through their ideological positions on strategy. Perhaps it would be a level playing field if all candidates declared independence regardless of alignments but this would not deliver transparency to the electorate so would weaken rather than strengthening our democracy.

Another issue relating to alignment and factional organising in the current UCU climate is the power of the internet. In the USS dispute, this worked very much to the advantage of all who support a left position, in that those engaged in the dispute included a large body of members very interconnected online through twitter and to some extent other media through their academic networks who were then able to use this as a platform to organise revolt – firstly against the employers, and then against the union. It is not surprising that these connections have strengthened and continued, but their role in the current election is less clearly one which facilitates struggle. While pre-92 academics are relatively free and protected in their social media output, and have the time and cultural capital to communicate effectively to advance a candidate and their particular interests within the union using this media, in a broader election this creates a hot-point of campaigning in an area which relates most to those who work in elite institutions but is much less accessible, navigable and responsive for those who participate in the union elsewhere.

Academic-related staff do not automatically have the time or freedom of speech to engage online, and while some post-92 members are very engaged in the twitter network many are not: I would be interested to look at some sort of network mapping of how this all fits in terms of sector and activity/number of followers/number of interactions etc. In FE there is a triple penalty awaiting members who engage actively in open social media to even a fraction of the level of output of pre-92 e-activists: potential dismissal on the grounds of bringing the institution into disrepute, potential dismissal on the grounds of excessive non-work related activity during work time, or if the activity went undetected, dismissal on the grounds of capability due to the impact of online activity on ability to fulfil work requirements. Alongside this is a lack of familiarity with the codes of twitter speak, how to engage, and an absence of the extensive networks of academia. I am unaware of e-activism existing in the ACE section of our membership. For prison members, even having an electronic device at work is grounds for dismissal. Therefore, e-campaigning is in one sense delivering for a member-led union in that it allows access to a less controlled and more self-owned network than Sally Hunt ever faced as an IBL-endorsed bureaucratic candidate, but it is also acting to secure a lot of the biggest noise in this for pre-92 academic members.

This has happened alongside an emerging commentary from academics stating that they are endorsing Jo Grady because they believe only an academic can lead the union, that their own passivity in previous years is directly a result of non-academics activity in the union, and other problematic elitist statements. I’m not convinced enough has been done to separate the Grady campaign from this narrative, and in all fairness it would be tactically risky to do so given her support base. I am satisfied that she does not actively hold these views herself, and that any problems for those outside pre-92 should she be elected will relate to a laissez-fair stance on power imbalances in the union relating to class and sector/role rather than an active hostility. Her positioning of herself as “the only candidate in this election who works on the front line of teaching, research, and administration” gives a degree of concern over the extent to which non-academic staff are considered to be not on the frontline, particularly given the lower pay grades and higher pressure on non-academic staff in most institutions, but my interpretation is that this is about an election narrative in terms of how she wants to represent herself rather than a continuous political view on non-academic staff. This sits alongside other varying positions she has made publically on length of active service in the union and willingness to be endorsed by the left (she was endorsed in the NEC elections, having agreed endorsement, but reports this as a non-aligned campaign).  

To move from electoral transparency back to democracy more generally, I think Jo Grady’s manifesto is a mixed bag in relation to whether it points to a top-down or bottom-up model of the union. I think Grady’s appeal is built on a “new broom” approach, which means her manifesto is heavy on tick boxes of new initiatives rather than having a deep political focus: this necessitates in part from the need to attract the disillusioned from the left and the right, as well as the need to sweep up newly engaged members. As has been reported elsewhere by Michael Carley a number of initiatives laid out already exist, which demonstrates a lack of experience although not something which would be insurmountable for a new GS with an experienced staff base to guide her, which Jo G has already hinted at in the Cambridge hustings. Mainly her campaign promotes active membership and she has agreed to GS recall, a key point for a democratic union. It is likely that once the dust settles if elected she will seek to listen to long-term activists as well as long-serving staff.

A number of points in her campaign are surprisingly Sally-esque: the binary between “activists” and “members” used historically by the right to carve out distance between the legitimacy of listening to those who work to build the union and those who pay their subs in exchange for service was notable in her first all member e-mail. The GS surgeries are definitely reminiscent of a premiership which sought to at times replace layers of regional and national elected representation, and definitely evoke a top-down populist model of trade-unionism. There is some reference to innovative new forms of action has been knocking about for at least the last decade: seasoned FE activists may remember the IBL motion calling for UCU branded vuvuzelas as part of how we could deliver alternatives to industrial action to win for members. Perhaps coming from her awareness of her academic support base electorally, Grady’s regular reference to expert groups (particularly where counter-positioned against the time needed to run elections) are also one to watch, particularly where referring to the traditionally self-organised equality spaces.

That said, Jo Grady comes across as driven, broadly pro-member, expert on many issues within her sector and primarily sympathetic to if not aligned with the organised left of the union. As a working class woman she represents another female voice following on from Sally Hunt at the general council and I believe that she will be a more visible presence on pickets and (if allowed on the premises depending on sector and ferocity of management!) in branches. She is definitely a different candidate altogether from Matt Waddup.

Matt Waddup has been very careful in his choice of endorsements, choosing tactically to draw from non-aligned members and former supporters of other candidates along with less prolific NEC members traditionally voting with the IBL, taken from FE. There is no real doubt that he is the IBL endorsed candidate and his circulation of preliminary material to “branch leaders” outlines that the IBL have used their networks to generate a lay base for him. The IBL are very good at working under the radar and there will be an organising group in place. I think it is unlikely that he will publicise endorsements from figures such as Joanna De Groot or Dougie Chalmers given their connection to widely reported IBL interventions in the USS dispute and a number of members will perceive him as independent. Initially in his favour compared with Jo Grady, like Jo McNeill he is very knowledgeable about the different sectors of the union and the various levels and structures of the union. However I think there are a number of threats to union democracy more nakedly present in his narrative during campaigning so far.

It is very possible with Matt Waddup in post that we will see a continuation of the drive under Sally Hunt to move away from open debate and elected structures of the union (branch meetings, regions, congress) and in the direction of a top-down consultative model of democracy. This can be packaged very neatly under the label of increasing involvement, broadening democracy and making the union more representative of the “silent majority”. This is comparable to the battles in the Labour party between the anti-Corbyn PLP who perceived themselves as more able to understand Labour voters, and the activist membership (a narrative which has shifted in the party with different alignments appearing in relation to Brexit and a second referendum). It is very likely that Sally’s consultation of members over a second referendum will be used to underpin an argument for more GS led consultations and less collective decision making at other levels. This damages democracy in a number of ways: it assumes that a member sat overloaded and isolated at their desk clicking on an e-survey is no different from a member in a branch where debate has allowed exploration and the strength of collectivist democracy. It ignores the power of the person who frames the question and the material allocated to consider the question. All of these things we have come up against under Sally Hunt’s leadership, and I believe Matt is more confident in his ability to push through on them. 

If you believe that unions are in part apparatus to manage as well as facilitate the fight against oppression, then you should understand the need for an organised left within a union, and you should vote 1 Jo McNeill, 2 Jo Grady.

If you believe that candidates should be open about and conscious of how they will organise and what the collectives they organise with stand for, you should vote 1 Jo McNeill, 2 Jo Grady.

If you believe that members need to be active in unions, that left candidates should openly stand as candidates who will organise collectively for union democracy, industrial action as a necessity, and broad struggle beyond member pay and conditions, you should vote 1 Jo McNeill, 2 Jo Grady.

Whoever you vote for, you should vote and encourage all members you know to vote. A mandate is about transparency but also about turnout.

 

Dave Muritu – UCU equality chair, NEC (black members), chair black members standing committee, branch secretary Sandwell College UCU

Rhiannon Lockley – UCU NEC (Midlands, Further Education) and West Midlands women’s officer, Birmingham City University UCU

Dharminder Chuhan – UCU West Midlands black members officer, chair Sandwell College UCU

Andrew Misiura – UCU West Midlands lgbt+ officer, Gloucester UCU

Kirsten Forkert – UCU West Midlands HE chair and Midlands NEC elect, Birmingham City University UCU

Justine Mercer – UCU NEC (Midlands, Higher Education), Warwick UCU

 

Lesley Foley – West Midlands regional organiser

Nick Varney, South West regional official and former West Midlands regional official

Babs Gisborne-Land – West Midlands retired members rep

Nick Hardy, University of Birmingham UCU and NEC elect (Midlands HE)

Pura Ariza – UCU NEC and lgbt+ standing committee, MMU UCU

Vicky Blake – UCU VP elect, Leeds UCU

Sue Abbott – UCU NEC and chair women’s standing committee, Newcastle UCU

Jo McNeill – UCU NEC and GS candidate, President University of Liverpool UCU

Elizabeth Lawrence (former President)

Secretary UCU Yorkshire and Humberside Retired Members’ Branch

 

Lesley McGorrigan, Yorkshire/Humberside UCU Regional Secretary

Julie Hearn, UCU NEC, Equality Officer Lancaster UCU

Saira Weiner, UCU branch secretary, Liverpool John Moores University

Elane Heffernan, NEC, chair disabled members committee and co-chair UCU democracy commission

Jess Meacham, University of Sheffield UCU

Sean Wallis, UCL UCU President and UCU NEC member

Rutherford

Colin Merret

Steve Harper

David McQueen

Maike Helmers 

Marian Mayer – Chair, South Regional Committee

William Proctor

Stephanie Allen 

Crispin Farbrother

(All Bournemouth UCU)

Naina Kent UCU

London Regional Executuve Comittee Equality Rep.

 

Adrian Budd, LSBU UCU

 

Cecily Blyther UCU NEC

 

Bruce Baker, NEC & Newcastle University branch chair

Assistant Professor  Jayne Caudwell, Bournemouth UCU

 

Roddy Slorach, Branch organiser, Imperial College London UCU

 

Margot Hill, NEC and Croydon College

 

martin ralph Liverpool university ucu 

Christina Paine, NEC

Deepa G Driver Co-Chair, UCU National Dispute Committee

John Fones, Bridgwater and Taunton UCU

London Met branch committee

Essex branch committee

Laura Miles

Sheila Hemingway

Marion Hersh UCU NEC

Angie McConnell UCU

Jane Holgate University of Leeds

Geraint Evans, Bradford College UCU Branch Secretary

Carol Cody UCU NW Women’s Rep.

Mark Abel, Chair, UCU Coordinating Committee, University of Brighton and UCU NEC.

Warwick UCU

Dr Sharon Kivland, Sheffield Hallam University

 

 

Rebecca Richards, Keele UCU

Billie Loebner UCU Middlesex University

Graham Wroe Sheffield College UCU

Gargi bhattacharyya Uel branch

Bee Hughes, member & Branch Action Committee member, LJMU UCU

Elaine White Bradford College Anti-Casualisation rep and Women’s FE NEC

Joe S. Sanders Cambridge UCU

Uni of Hull UCU committee:

Jean Kellie, membership secretary

Tim Buescher, equality officer

Janine Kopp, secretary

Martin Nickson

Mike Lammiman

Michael Carley, University of Bath UCU President, and NEC

University of Leeds branch committee UCU

Sunil Banga Lancaster University UCU

Jacob Phelps, Membership Officer, Lancaster UCU

Mike Barton, Branch Secretary, New City College Redbridge UCU

Craig Jones, Lancaster UCU PGR Rep

Wendy Olsen

Patrick Montague Lancaster University UCU

Simon Williams, Sussex UCU executive

Mario Novelli, Sussex UCU executive

Luke Martell, Sussex UCU

Chloe Vitry Lancaster UCU

Carolyn Downs, Lancaster UCU

Maggie Mort, Lancaster UCU

Jo Grady, Sheffield UCU, NEC elect and GS candidate

John Drury, University of Sussex

Roger Phillips UCU Sussex

Mike Coogan Lancaster UCU

Bob Jeffery, Anti-casualisation officer, UCU Sheffield Hallam, chair of Sheffield trades council

Evangelos Ntontis, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK

Fergus Neville, University of St Andrews

Petroc UCU Branch Committee.

Steve Cushion

UCU London Retired Members

Paul Gardner, University of St Andrews UCU member

Syesha Francis, Sandwell College UCU branch committee

 

Camille Ettelaie

Paul Skarratt

Steve Burwood

Kerry Dobson

David Pennie

(All Hull UCU)

Libby Hudson, RNC UCU

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cause of labour has not been advanced by the nuanced reflection of capable individuals, but through collective struggle. Corbynism was not delivered in the Labour Party by a series of atomised individuals, but rather through an organised left. He will not remain as party leader, and the empowerment of members he represents will not remain, without a collective, disciplined and organised left.

I often notice that those who accept without question the need for the left to be organised in the Labour Party (seeing from their own experiences and perhaps the greater visibility of internal events the need for continuous struggle) flinch and despair at left organising within unions. Factions are associated with sectarianism, ego, and misdirection of energy. That a political party is a site of struggle is understood and accepted, however reluctantly, in a way in which the union is not. We organise in the Labour Party because only organisation keeps the party accountable as a vehicle for the collective advancement of the membership and the cause of labour itself. But through some cognitive inconsistency, we view unions as passively remaining in the power of members through dismissal of political difference and assume we can select independent guardians who through virtue of their independence itself are able through their atomised reasoning to deliver union leadership in a way that bypasses left organisation to create some sort of homogenous direction the union then takes to support the cause of labour.

It’s a palatable, cosy way to view unions and the organised right within UCU have recognised this for a long time, obscuring their collective organising as the IBL in any election material. A CP core and a much wider less consciously factionalised block of small c conservatives are “recommended” rather than being put out as a slate and they almost always identify themselves as “independent” in election literature, before going on to vote as a bloc in their executive positions to “urge caution” when members vote for action, and to support bureaucracy over the grassroots.

It’s easy to see why it works, and why genuine independents are attractive to members when they vote. It is not hard in particular to understand how baffling and unnecessary internal struggle in a union seems to officers in our most isolated branches: you’re struggling to engage members who have been smashed by cuts, escalating workloads, bullying management regimes or victimisation, desperate to even get your members to show up at a meeting, and the idea that union officers are diverting much needed energy into internal struggle rather than facing off against those that deliver these conditions to our members is disheartening and tiring. This tells us a lot about how isolated these branch officers are: for them to exist shows we have much work to do in engaging branch officers with their regions and the NEC. These branch officers are too removed from the heart of the union to understand how political struggle impacts on the direction of the union for all members: the fights we will have when necessary and the role these fights have in delivering for members. Electing candidates who will organise together to tip the union in the direction of action, equality and democracy is a way of taking action against the push always taking place within unions in the direction of servicing in place of activism, against the bureaucracy which pushes branch officers to be first and foremost case workers; caseworkers sent in by a union alone if they are sent in without a visible collective which is prepared to fight. Without an organised left, these officers remain isolated.

Jo McNeill is a leader: a strategist, and a fighter seasoned by the continual struggle she has faced who will always come back when there are knocks with positivity. If we are moving past a cosy vision of what unions are to a pragmatic politicised understanding of what unions are and what they do, we need to be honest about the fact that internally and externally there will be many knocks.

Jo is the sort of leader who will inspire members and deliver grit when many others would crumble. A former Access student who knows first hand the vital role FE plays in class empowerment, she fought the USS dispute alongside fighting for her life and has come back to stand again for a democratic UCU which defends the role of the grassroots membership, a union which fights.

Vicky Blake is similarly an outstanding individual: quietly courageous and often battling exhaustion to pursue what she believes in, she has worked tirelessly for anti-casualisation and the union more widely. She inspires deep loyalty and friendship in those close to her and inspires and reaches out to others more widely.

Both the left (Jo) and the non-aligned candidate (Vicky) are amongst UCU’s finest. But for me, and for those who recognise all political organisations as sites of struggle, the choice is between a vote for collective, organised struggle to defend and advance democracy, equality and activism in the union, and a vote for a model where these things are handed down to us through discernment in selecting appropriate independent guardians for those things. Crudely, it is the distinction between Marxism and an acknowledgement that -all- of our interactions and structures are shaped by power, and a liberal position where the independent individual, rather than collectivism, is key to democracy.

After 2 years on the NEC, full time work combined with being a lone parent means I will be standing down. I know how it feels to be an isolated branch officer in the aftermath of union busting, and I also know the very clear lines of power and the alternative visions for the union that take place at its heart. Just like in the Labour Party, only collective left organising can deliver for a member led union.

I will be voting 1 Jo McNeill and 2 Vicky Blake, plus voting for UCU left candidates across the other vacancies. If you understand that all of our victories come from struggle rather than being handed to us, then you should too.

 

 

(In pic: Pura Ariza (UCU left), Adam Ozanne, (IBL), Rob Goodfellow (IBL), Dave Muritu (UCU left), pictured at the regions and nations meeting on the eve of UCU2018)

Earlier today the IBL faction published their account of what happened at congress this year, penned by IBL NEC member Adam Ozanne.

The Real Democratic Deficit in UCU

While there have been responses elsewhere challenging the account of congress itself, as well as branches stating that their positions have not been accurately reflected in accompanying material, I thought it would be helpful to focus specifically on the claims made in the article about the Independent Broad Left (a group of like-minded individuals rather than a faction from the point of view expressed in the article) and the UCU left (SWP controlled militant wreckers, again from the perspective of the IBL article). Specifically I thought it would be useful as someone who is in the left and transparently elected to the NEC on a left slate to respond to the differences identified between the two factions, before identifying what I experience as the key differences between the two. I will tackle these one at a time.

Before launching into his assessment of the differences between the factions, Adam repeats the misrepresentation made elsewhere and in particular in connection to the communist party that motions 10 and 11 originated from the UCU left:

“Some members of UCULeft are clearly angry that they lost the argument and the vote, but that does not justify their attempts to mislead UCU members about the March 28^thmeeting and discredit the vote; nor does it justify their attack on the GS (who comprehensively defeated their candidate in last year’s election) on the basis of flimsy allegations of misconduct and holding her “accountable”. Moreover, the USS ballot result proves the falseness of the myth they seek to perpetuate, and which was repeated at Congress, that pre-1992 members were keen to continue striking into the exam period after Easter and that the union leadership “stole victory” from them.”

It is for others in HE to discuss the USS vote which is already happening elsewhere but the representation of the left attacking the GS patronises the non-aligned members who brought the motions along with their branches who voted for them. Over the course of congress the left organised to support the right of members to get their motions heard, but we played no role in the motions arriving at congress and had not agreed a position to support the motions. It has been suggested elsewhere that senior members of the IBL are more than aware of this but choose to allow their less politically knowledgeable support base to repeat the lie that the motions were a left plot. For what purpose? A number of different conclusions can b drawn: I have seen more cynical explanations about the long term managed timidity of the union but maybe initial hope that conservative elements of the middle ground would fall into a game of “us and them”?

Adam goes on to say

“The reluctance of UCULeft to accept these defeats gracefully also demonstrates the hollowness of their claims to being for a “democratic and member-led union”, as does their past opposition to the introduction of the consultative e-ballots and Get The Vote Out campaigns that have been so successful in nullifying the 50% turnout requirement of the government’s anti-trade union legislation and building grassroots member support for industrial action.”

UCU left have historically opposed e-ballots as a replacement for branch meetings. E ballots are a useful tool but if they are used as a primary method of communication we leave a member isolated and surrounded by the deluge of messages from management that saturate the rest of her inbox. She doesn’t get to listen to debate or gain the confidence of solidarity that is at the core of successful trade union organising. There has been historical opposition to moves to use “e-democracy” to cut away the democratic layers of our union as a sole direct GS-member connection with no other sources of argument is not how we see a member led union. The allegation about Get The Vote Out is just outright false and buries the role the left have played in developing and pioneering this as a strategy.

Adam then goes on to review the differences between the factions (or as he prefers, faction and network) which I will take in turn.

UCU left

• controlled NEC from the time of the AUT/NATFE merger until about four years ago;

I first attended congress in 2012. At that point I was not aligned with any faction. The NEC was not to the best of my knowledge dominated by the left, and this certainly wasn’t reflected in the top table. NatFHE historically was seen as the more militant union (representing FE and post-92, i.e. traditionally working class sectors of education), and AUT less so. Others will know more. The next year Liz Lawrence was elected as a left president and this was a break from the norm rather than the norm.

• has a separate national membership list, which means it can inform its members how to vote in elections etc., and quickly instigate social media campaigns – for example, in the 24 hours before the meetings about USS on March 13 and 28 HEC members received a barrage of 400-500 Twitter messages;

UCU left does have a membership list and pass on information about elections – it would be a pretty rubbish organising outfit if it didn’t. UCU left was not responsible for organising the #nocapitulation member revolt and the more politically savvy IBL members must surely be aware of this. It would be a fantastic thing to take credit for but it came from rank and file members, including of course those who are members of the left but certainly not led by them.

• has separate membership subscriptions of up to £30 per year;

UCU left do have subscriptions for those who choose to join. This funds campaign materials and organising meetings e.g. the left fringe held on the first night after walkouts where delegates from across the union regrouped to discuss events. I will return to this point in the IBL section.

• is dominated by the Socialist Workers Party and other ultra-left group (sometimes allies, sometimes enemies) like the Socialist Party (formerly Militant Tendency, famous for “entryism” into the Labour Party in the 1980s – see Michael Crick’s book, “The March of Militant”, 1986), Socialist Equality Party (one of many splinter groups from the Workers Revolutionary Party) who also claim to represent the “Rank and File”, and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW);

UCU left is a democratic group and is not dominated by any political party. It does include members of the SWP along with left wing Labour Party members, socialist party members and Greens. I’ve not heard of the Socialist Equality Party but could be true. Badging the left up as an SWP front is patronising to the majority of us who are not members and acts as a red-baiting diversion to demonise the individuals involved rather than engage in debate over politics. It is a cheap shot and things are about to get cheaper. Before we move on to the next point, I would add that there is clear confusion here between the UCU left and the emerging “Rank and File” grouping. While there are common goals there are clear distinctions between the two. I would say that UCU left is a deep rooted part of the union which stretches across all sectors and centres on the long term project of a member-led fighting union. The Rank and File is more like a wave than a deep rooted plant: it is the momentum of a new layer of angry activists, many casualised, and is the culmination specifically of the USS mobilisations and the perceived shut down of that dispute. It is currently quite specific to pre-92 HE and to the dispute itself though as it is in motion this may well change significantly.

• the SWP is a Trotskyist party believing in democratic centralism (i.e. a central leadership deciding how members will vote), impossibilism (i.e. raising people’s expectations so that, when they are dashed, they become politically radicalised), vanguardism (the leadership of the proletariat by a revolutionary elite) and permanent, international revolution;

I’m not in a position to answer on impossiblism, but this doesn’t match the behaviour of the SWP members I know which is grounded in pragmatism and broad church organising. I am not the right person to fully explain SWP ideology but I suspect that the author has less of a grip than I do. UCU left is not a democratic centralist organisation hence we have membership, elections and discussions. Where there is no democratic consensus we do not vote collectively.

• SWP membership declined dramatically after sexual assault and rape allegations involving a leading member, “Comrade Delta”, were denied by the party’s leadership in 2013-14; it has little influence in unions anymore, apart from UCU and the NUT;

I have been working with Elane Heffernan, a UCU left member who left the SWP during the incident referred to and a sister on the women’s committee, to ask that this is not repeatedly weaponised to score political points. It is completely triggering and inappropriate to do this and it has impacted on assault survivors in attendance at congress. I have no idea what membership figures look like but SWP members are active across a broad range of unions, because like the CP who we will come to in a minute, it is a key arm of their organising. So far there has been little  work done by Momentum to organise in unions and other left outfits are just smaller and less organised so far as I can tell. The NUT does not exist: it has been the NEU since merging with the ATL.

• the SWP national organiser attended Congress and regularly meets with SWP members before meetings at Costa across the road from UCU’s London headquarters.

I assume the congress point relates to the SWP press pass (which is also extended to the Morning Star, the communist party paper). See above point on organising levels of different parties for “Costa-gate”.

Independent Broad Left Network:

• was set up around five years ago by NEC members who were fed up with the domination of ultra-left UCULeft members who, it was felt rightly or wrongly, did not reflect the priorities of members and were leading the union into poorly supported industrial actions;

This is just not true though the name may have emerged then. The politics definitely pre-date 2013. Sally Hunt endorsed an IBL slate in the 2012 election and I regularly heard “the Stalinists” referred to before that point. The political picture at that point was that we had won a considerable victory in getting rid of the IFL in FE and had just been on strike with increasing numbers of unions across the public sector over pensions. There was considerable dismay across the membership when Unison GS Dave Prentis effectively ground this to a halt a day after our biggest day of action.

Since that point it has been increasingly clear that the IBL exist to block the “impossiblism” they attribute to the SWP. After a court injunction prevented FE strike action a year or two later the IBL responded by firstly packing a special sector conference in order to pull a live ballot, an incredible stunt to pull, and then later boycotted a further special sector conference when they did not have enough delegates to be certain of control rendering the meeting inquorate – an historical event I remember very clearly as a mother having arranged childcare for the occasion.

• outside of the previous and current NEC and one or two regions, where like-minded UCU members have set up separate mailing lists, has no national membership list;

This is not reflected in what I hear from people about communications received.

• has no separate membership subs;

… which begs the question: who pays for their materials etc? I would be interested to know. If the IBL is not a rank and file organisation with members meetings and votes then how do members input into the decisions taken by this group which are communicated on such a big scale to the wider membership?

• discusses before votes which candidates may stand the best hope of winning but does not “whip”, there is no block voting at Congress or on UCU committees – members listen to debates and vote accordingly, often in different ways;

This just doesn’t reflect how NEC happens. If we had the voting record the left have asked for to deliver transparency it would be absolutely clear to members that there is a bloc vote. I have seen IBL tweets telling people how to vote at congress and material produced for congress with voting instructions – notably to my mind the instruction to vote against the West Midlands motion at Glasgow calling for individual equality seats for all the strands on regional executive committees, a motion which was carried but has not made its way on to regional standing orders. At one congress the chair had to point out that we were in a closed session after the IBL twitter account tweeted telling people how to vote on a motion.

• includes members and former members of the Labour Party, SNP, Liberal Democrats, Communist Party and no party at all, often with differing views and opinions – the key is “independent”.

Similar range to the left then – I would add that it has included very vocal opponents of Corbyn and also make the point that the CP should be first rather than last on this list.

Adam concludes this section by stating

“Contrary to UCULeft claims that there are two factions in the union, it is fairer to say that whereas UCULeft is indeed a faction, i.e. an organisation within an organisation with its own subs etc., IBL is a loose network or, at most, an “anti-faction faction” that would disband quickly if UCULeft did not exist.”

The three key differences I would identify between the two factions are as follows:

1) Transparency

UCU left are always open about our political beliefs. We make it clear that we are standing as UCU left candidates and that this means we will vote to support industrial action, we believe in a member-led union (hence we supported the right of branches to have their motions heard at congress), and we support equality issues as central to the union. In contrast, the IBL operates in a shadowy fashion with little clarity of intent communicated to the members who elect them. I have only ever known one IBL candidate declare his faction in a contested election – David Ridley. The others all stand as “independent” candidates, suggesting to the voting membership that they oppose factions in the way Adam describes, and often repeat that they are independent in various forums. Nevertheless, they run a slate, organise and vote as a bloc, but without any of this being communicated to those who elect them.

2) Purpose

Adam’s comments make it painfully transparent that the unifying purpose of the IBL is to block. While the left have a shared ideology centred on the  view that unions have to act to be relevant and energise, the IBL do not have an alternative vision. Rather, Adam makes clear, their formation and purpose is to be an obstacle to what he presumably views as impossiblism in the union. It is a hollow position to mobilise around, and to some extent points to an existential crisis in play. The IBL are the self appointed guardians of the membership, but faced with dissent from this membership they declare a leftist plot rather than conceive that they are not in touch. I find it incredibly cynical and sad if this really is the raison d’etre of the IBL as it suggests no hope, no ideas, merely a plan to avoid kamikaze militancy reducing the union to a barely functional shell by modelling the union on a barely functioning shell.

3) Equality

UCU left views equality as central to the union. From the aforementioned material opposing equality strand representation on RECs, to attempts to end self organising equality strand conferences, there is a strong strand of IBL thought (not shared by all) which opposes equality initiatives as expensive and slams hard fought for spaces in the union as discriminatory to hetero white able bodied cis men. While debate exists on the left between class first liberation thinking and intersectional politics, the concept of oppression and the many forms it takes guides the way we think. Equality is something which always has to be worked on and clearly there is permanent work to be done on this in the left but a vacuum seems to exist in parts of the IBL.

Equality, purpose and transparency must be central to whatever comes next as the usual lines of the union shift. What comes next for the IBL is unclear. Their existence and behaviours have been made far more evident to the general membership than has ever previously been the case. I am not sure that they can easily disappear back into the shadows.

 

 

 

 

It’s been a couple of chaotic weeks since UCU’s annual and most explosive yet congress was held in Manchester. I’ve been caught up in student completions and some family issues so not yet had time to write some reflections on what has happened but I wanted to get my thoughts out before too much more time passes for me to fully process it all.

It was always going to be a different event this year. Firstly, there have been unprecedented events. We have had to organise under the restrictions of the new trades union bill and where this has been successful the sheer workload of getting the vote out and the hurdle of having to repeat this has meant the members have voted for and officials have agreed extensive strike action – a possibility always denied pre TU bill because of the belief members would not sustain it. In pre-92 universities we have had huge picket lines as a young, newly active and energised precarious workforce have led the battle for pensions. Elsewhere in FE, where pay ballots have been achieved there have been pickets for days in the snow and rain, again only known at local disputes in left branches like Lambeth or Tower Hamlets historically in UCU. There is a whole other post to look at the differences between HE and FE at the moment to be written but it would eat up paragraphs here. Suffice to say that while FE is years into a corporatisation of culture in which working class education has been transformed ideologically from a social participation struggle to a product which can be made much cheaper than “standard” education through cutting to the bone the knowledge production process, HE is teetering on marketisation but retains a notion of professionalism and academic independence (albeit under permanent attack) in its outlook. Regardless of this, there is energy to organise and fight distributed in various different ways in both.

Other than the scale of the fight back, the other unprecedented event this year has been that the newly emerging activist layer is not prepared to allow action to be bureacratically managed without a struggle. There have been two wranglings over the future of the USS dispute: firstly, the mobilisation of branches and activists to reject the first deal under the banner of #NoCapitulation . A combination of live links between activists through the currency of the social media they were engaged in and the live connections of the picket line saw a huge demonstration at HEC where the leadership were forced to reject what had previously been assumed to be a smooth settlement, and the strikes continued. The second wrangling was more carefully managed, and when a second deal proposing what appears from my non-expert position as an FE activist to be a working group was proposed, a sequence of mailings were sent by GS Sally Hunt apparently acting alone without consultation of the HE executive or the branch representatives calling for a yes vote, and the USS mobilisation was effectively stopped in its tracks.

Meanwhile over in FE, more novel events were taking place. The small number of branches who had successfully mobilised for extensive pay action had infuriated the employers group (the AOC) who were now threatening to end national bargaining on pay. We saw a flurry of activity at head office, with all steam ahead for a national mobilisation where all branches would be supported in building for national strike action in response. Now, technically, we have all already been supported nationally, but there was a real drive going on which looked something like the national campaign East Midlands FE committee (who fall under my constituency of the Midlands FE for NEC) have been asking for in motions to congress for some time – repeated mailings, instructions, clear time frames, reminders, repeated support from the GS – all happening in a very short space of time in the build up to congress.

When the papers were released I was not particularly surprised to see that there was a backlash from HE branches involved in the USS dispute. I have seen that there has been a lot of frustration at Keele and Warwick, two branches in the region I was chairing at the time of the dispute, over the way that decisions were being made, and more generally have been hearing calls for transparency and democratic accountability in decision making. At the last NEC we were presented with a motion coming from then VP Douglas Chalmers condemning leaking of documents related to the HEC and the USS dispute. I joined Rachel Cohen in trying to amend this to acknowledge the need for members who make sacrifices to feel there is transparency in the process. I stated that there is a perceived hierarchy between the membership and the the leadership and that this is damaging to collectivity. I was told by Douglas that this hierarchy is necessary.

Appearing on the order of business for congress were two contentious motions: motion 10, calling for the GS to resign, and motion 11, calling for her to be censured.

 

Tuesday: the storm gathers

I arrived at congress on Tuesday afternoon where the NEC were meeting as is custom to look at any last minute business. As Joanna De Groot (as president) began introducing business the GS pointed out that she and other staff needed to leave the room and bar Linda Newman, who as national head of resources is – I think – the senior HR official within the union, they all left.

Joanna or possibly Linda (apologies that I cannot remember which) then stated that they had had some last minute legal advice relating to motions that were being brought to congress and that motions 10 and 11 were considered to be breaching the GS’s terms and conditions of employment in threatening her continued employment and moving to act on a complaint which had not been investigated using correct procedure. Effectively we were being told that the GS was an employee and that this was sovereign in terms of how she should be treated rather than her elected position as leader of the union. We were also informed that the NEC are considered the employer of the GS and that should things progress it was possible that we would end up with a trade dispute from Unite, the staff union, and possible legal action.

Joanna advanced to say that there was a pre-prepared statement from the NEC calling for the removal of the motions from business which we would vote on in this meeting. There then began, unsurprisingly, some heated debate. There is a lot to remember here and I will miss a lot but the key points I remember are as follows:

• Disabled members identified the (not new) disabling effects of presenting material in a meeting to allow no processing time. This is fairly common in NEC and while it is difficult for all, it is particularly problematic for disabled members.
• Related to this but more generally, given the timescale of the motions having been ordered on to business for some time, questions were raised as to why we were now on the point of a potential crisis where a staff walkout could stop congress from functioning.
• It was pointed out that CBC (congress business committee) and not the NEC are the correct body for the guardianship of the democratic processes of congress. We asked why this was coming to NEC and were told it was because we were the employer (a factor certainly not brought to my attention a few weeks previously when I asked about a resourcing issue in relation to gender pay work and was told by the GS that staffing is between her and Unite, not a matter for me on NEC, and that I should not be lobbying her). The left argued that CBC have ordered the motions on and we therefore have no right as NEC to undermine this – we were told that a parallel meeting was taking place where CBC would be given the same “new and urgent” legal advice.

A vote was taken. UCU left members voted against presenting the NEC position that the motions should be removed. While I was unconvinced that I could vote to support motion 10, I felt that it was absolutely the right of branches who have followed democratic procedures to have their motions heard in line with the ruling of CBC, the committee elected to rule on these things. We were joined by one independent member of NEC. The “independent” members of NEC who are advertised annually on the IBL election slate and vote in a bloc but are not in any way a faction, more a loose network, voted to support the position of the UCU president, elected from their slate, in what looked to me like ill advised protection of the GS, also elected from their slate.

Wednesday: walkouts, bullying, the fight for democratic control

The next morning, Wednesday there was tangible stress and energy in the air as we came into congress. I had signed the UCU left NEC statement explaining our opposition to the NEC majority statement, as I could not in good conscience having been elected on a mandate of a member led union support silencing of dissent. The Unite branch had also circulated a statement explaining their objections to motions criticising the GS being heard, on the grounds that these threatened all staff. Just to give a bit of context for what comes next, it is standard practice at Congress that if a member of staff is criticised all staff walk out. I have seen this happen once before, in Liverpool, during the FE sector conference. The principle is that as staff have no right to reply they should not be put in a position where they can be attacked with no recourse –  a fair principle. The problem in the way things unfolded as I will discuss being that the GS does in fact have a voice and a way to respond – she has personal communication with all members, a right to address congress, and channels to speak to every section of the union.

Congress began with a report from the unflappable guardian of our sovereign democratic body, CBC chair Alan Barker. Alan and CBC should be held very highly for the impartial resistance they showed in pursuing their roles as the elected rulers on the business of congress. A motion brought by Sheffield University had been ordered off the agenda by CBC and after some other motions’ removal were challenged, Sam Morecraft from Sheffield came forward to argue for the restoration of this motion. It had apparently been ruled out on the grounds of a line asking for a consideration of election of officials. This was voted on to be returned to the agenda. As this was perceived as a direct threat to staff job security, Unite members then walked out, and the president suspended congress.

Within a very short amount of time, notable figures from the non-faction the IBL were walking around the hall of congress shouting “Everyone up! Support our staff!” and a number of delegates walked out. A solidarity with staff demonstration then began, with signs held up and chanting of “No to Bullying!”

As an NEC member, given that one of the key priorities of the union is engaging new members and building activism, I found this worrying. Sam Morecraft had offered to withdraw the offending line within a very short time after the president suspended congress and it was increasingly apparent that the people being identified as “bullies” by the non-factional IBL (but probably not the soft support they had pulled around them) were the first time delegates from the branches bringing motions 10 and 11 – in other words, grass roots members of the union who had participated in the correct democratic procedures to get their voices heard being met by a large and noisy minority attacking them for this, along with a more general mobilisation in support of staff.

Meanwhile back in the hall the larger group of delegates left behind gathered to discuss what we thought the issues were. My contribution was to express my concern that there was a deliberate conflation between the position of the GS as an employee (which she is, to allow her the financial support to do her job, but not an employee with any “boss” unless you count the NEC) and her role as an elected leader. I quoted the five questions from Tony Benn for all who hold elected power which I felt were very relevant for the situation we were finding ourselves in:

“What power have you got?”

“Where did you get it from?”

“In whose interests do you use it?”

“To whom are you accountable?”

“How do we get rid of you?”

Once the withdrawal of the offending sentence had been agreed there was some more time allowed, presumably for Unite to meet with NEC representatives (the presidential team, all from the GS’s slate) to discuss steps forward. There was not any apparent negotiation with the branches bringing motion 10 and 11, to the best of my knowledge, and NEC as a body were not informed or involved in what was going on.

Business continued and we progressed through the budget and related issues until we came to the key contentious motion, motion 10. The president presented the NEC statement calling for the motions to be removed and this was rejected by congress who voted to follow the ruling of CBC rather than the advice of the NEC. The staff then again walked out and business was suspended for the rest of the day. UCU left invited all delegates interested in discussing steps forward to attend our fringe, where a large number gathered to debate what had happened and discuss progress. My contribution here was to state that political education is a key part of how activists develop and we all have a responsibility, particularly in regions, to make systems and democratic structures as transparent and accessible as possible for all members. I also urged new members as a long time supporter of Corbyn in the Labour party where similar battles have been fought that there is a need to stay and fight for a union which represents what they want rather than being pushed out by those who resist change.

 

Thursday: a lull (for some)

Thursday was the sectoral conference day meaning we broke into FE and HE to debate the policy of the union for our sectors. I will report on the FE business elsewhere, but I think in general there was a bit of sense of relief as we made progress and experienced collectivity after the fraught previous day. Elsewhere things were happening to further entrench positions and damage the democratic collective will of the union. Communist party members, key organisers in the IBL faction, used their paper the morning star to attack the delegates who had brought the motions criticising Sally Hunt. There was also much done to spread the view that the motions were not in fact the views of critically minded members expressing frustrations following a dispute, but in fact a plot orchestrated by the SWP/UCU left as part of a plot to oust the GS. This was ignorant of two points:

1. No SWP members were involved in the motions, and the party as far as I am aware (as a Labour party member so not someone involved in their internal communications) had come to a collective position to oppose motion 10.
2. The UCU left, a much wider collection of individuals, including Labour party members such a myself, socialist party, Greens, etc., had not take a position on motion 10 as there was no clear consensus on it. I was intending to vote against the motion because I am elected to represent FE members and an internal battle over leadership at this point would seriously undermine our members chances of finally getting nationally coordinated action off the ground and this improving pay and therefore funding for the sector. This was the view of many in FE, with HE understandably more involved in the USS dispute taking other positions. I had not completely made up my mind as I felt I would need to listen to the arguments on the floor of congress to get a broader overview.

The unsubstantiated claim of “SWP member” and deliberate associations between this and the history of the party was used by certain members of the IBL non-faction to engage in highly damaging red-baiting which forced a delegate from one of the branches bringing the contentious motions (who is not an SWP member or a member of UCU left) to disclose assault survival. I am horrified by this and myself and Elane Heffernan who is also on women’s committee have interceded at various points to ask for rape and sexual assault not to be weaponised and used to score points. Some of the forums this has taken place in are private but I understand the Morning Star were forced to retract something.

At lunch on Thursday we were called into an emergency NEC meeting. We were told that the NEC had met Unite to negotiate moving forward. Who, UCU left members asked, were the negotiators for the NEC? We were told that Sally Hunt normally sits on the employer side but could not in this instance so she had been replaced be a senior paid official, who was joined by another senior paid official (both of whom had been involved in the Unite action) plus the four members of the presidential team, all from the GS’s slate, to negotiate on behalf of the NEC and therefore the membership.

I made a couple of contributions during the meeting. After seeing a disabled sister being spoken to inappropriately by the top table I asked all present to remember that we are elected to represent our members and that we need to have respect in our communications to make progress towards our members being able to have their business debated and voted on. I also made the point that I felt the current negotiation team (two paid officials who had acted with Unite to stop business and four senior elected officers who are from the same slate as the GS) may not be a full enough representation and that the branch delegates for the motions being disputed must be consulted and involved for any meaningful progress with the political problem in hand to be made. This received I think a nod but to the best of my knowledge no negotiations involving these delegates took place. We were informed that a second statement combining Unite and the NEC had been prepared as the outcome of these negotiations which once again asked Congress to drop the motions from business. It was my view that our elected body to deal with these matters, CBC, had ruled them in order, and that Congress had voted to hear the motions, so the statement was effectively a “second referendum” position which was anti-democratic and highly unlikely to succeed. The left plus one independent member voted to reject this statement but were outvoted by the IBL network of like minded activists coming to a majority position in favour.

 

Friday: groundhog day, stalemate, #OurUCU

On Friday CBC gave advice on hearing further business to get this advanced before returning to the contentious motions, which was rejected by Congress. There was presumably some suspicion that filibustering would lead to the motions dropping off the agenda leaving a big hole in that the problem had not been resolved.

An emergency motion calling for a commission to review the democratic processes of the union was passed after some to-ing and fro-ing. Congress also voted to continue the lost business through an extra congress. We then returned to groundhog day.

The president presented the NEC and Unite combined position calling for the motions to be withdrawn. I contributed to this by pointing out that the GS had not been involved in negotiations (as I had heard many rumours that she was the chair of the Unite branch – not true and utterly oppositional to her role as a “senior executive” in the union, and some speculation that she had retained her normal seat on the “employer” side of negotiations). I also brought it to the attention of congress that the NEC were represented by the four members of the presidential team elected from the same slate as the GS and two senior paid officials as I felt that this was relevant in considering the combined statement reached.

After some debate, including Alan Barker in his role of CBC chair identifying that congress were being asked once more to vote on an issue that had now been decided three times through a vote (once when accepting the CBC report on the first day, once rejecting the NEC advice to remove the motions on the first day, and once voting for the emergency motion calling for the business to be progressed), the vote was taken and a much increased majority voted to uphold the previous decisions and the ruling of CBC that the motions were in order and should be considered.

Once again, staff walked out and the chair suspended business, not returning. I was incredibly distressed at this point by some interactions that were taking place and when I returned to the hall congress had apparently been shut down by the head of democratic services. A large number of delegates had gathered at the middle of the room. On the outskirts some sort of dispute over the sound systems was taking place, and I saw a woman associated with the network of the IBL aggressively rebuking a young female delegate for asking to have sound put on so that disabled members could hear what was taking place.

My sister and comrade Nita Sanghera stepped in at this point as the new VP to chair a meeting of remaining delegates who were angry and frustrated over the shut down and looking to see what we could do next. This included some members of UCU left but was certainly not a left caucus, with most of the delegates not identifying with factions and many opposed to the existence of factions (there is a whole other post for this I could write but not here). Together a way forward emerged in the formation of #OurUCU. Delegates gave their ideas which were put together into a statement expressing our views over what had happened and our determination to safeguard the democracy of the union.

The statement reads as follows:

This was signed by

Peta Bulmer, University of Liverpool

David Swanson, University of Manchester

Dan Hunter, Guernsey College of Further Education

Paul Prior, University College London

James Brackley, University of Birmingham

Clelia Boscolo, University of Birmingham

Bob Jeffrey, Sheffield Hallam University and Yorkshire & Humbersice Regional Committee

Bruce Baker, Newcastle University

David Harvie, University of Leicester

Gareth Brown, University of Leicester

Dharminder Chuhan, Sandwell College of FHE

Andy Fugard, Birkbeck, University of London

Maciej Bancarzewski, University of Hertfordshire

Sorcha Ní Chonnachtaigh, Keele University

Lesley Kane, Open University

Sarah Kean-Price, Bath College

Tor Krever, University of Warwick

Chris McLachlan, University of Hertfordshire

Steve Roskams, University of York

Hannah Cross, University of Westminster

Michael Starrs, Epping Forest College

Mike Finn, University of Exeter

João Florêncio, University of Exeter

Rhian Keyse, University of Exeter

Sonja Curtis, University College London

Ben Plumpton, University of Leeds

Malcolm Povey, University of Leeds

Roddy Slorach, Imperial College London

Sean Vernell, City and Islington College (NEC)

Linda Cronin, University of Roehampton

Annie Jones, Sheffield Hallam University

Gwen Vickers, Anti Casualisation Committee

Tony Brown, University College London

Dave Hyde, University of East London

Pauline Hall, Southeast Region & West Kent and Ashford College

Matthew Pritchard, Chesterfield College

Peter Heath, Heart of Worcestershire College

Cecily Blyther, Petroc

John Walker, Southern Region Retired Members Branch

Karen Evans, University of Liverpool

Lesley McGorrigan, University of Leeds (NEC)

Tim Hall, Senate House

Anna Duncan, University of Oxford

Mark Farwell, Southampton Solent University

Jaya John, University of Oxford

Simon Courtenage, University of Westminster

Jan Koene, Sutton College

Simon Smith, Coventry University

Pura Ariza, Manchester Metropolitan University

Isabelle Rahman, United Colleges Group (College of North West London)

Keir Mobbs, University of Bath

Mesar Hameed, University of Bath

Richard McEwan, London Regional Committee

Tassia Kobylin, Goldsmiths University of London

Tom Hickey, University of Brighton

John Carter, Teesside University

Glyn Heath, University of Salford

Chris Sheahy, University of Salford

Kevin Bean, University of Liverpool

Dianabasi Nkantah, University of Coventry

Sean O’Brien, Halesowen College

Railene Barker, Nottingham College

Elaine White, Bradford College (NEC)

Crispin Farbrother, Bournemouth University

Sai Englert, SOAS, University of London

Maciej Bancarzewski, University of Hertfordshire

Steve Lui, University of Huddersfield

Eleni Michalopoulou, University of Liverpool (NEC)

Saleem Rashid, Sheffield College

Margot Hill, Croydon College

Joel Anderson, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Mark Baxendale, Queen Mary University of London

Linda Moore, Ulster University

Nicholas Cartwright, University of Northampton

Brian Garvey, University of Strathclyde

Brian Hambidge, East Midlands Retired Members Branch

Anthony Johnson, Croydon College

Alison Forsyth, East Kent Colleges Group (Canterbury College)

Owen Mather, Runshaw College

Victoria Paine, West Kent and Ashford College

Nita Sanghera, South & City College Birmingham (Bournville College)

Rhiannon Lockley, Halesowen College (NEC)

David Muritu, Sandwell College of FHE (NEC)

Bernadette Driscoll, London Regional Committee

Charlotte Stevens, Birmingham City University

Ron Mendel, East Midlands Regional Committee

Marian Carty, Goldsmiths University of London

Sunil Banga, Lancaster University

Marian Mayer, Southern Regional Committee

Judith Suissa, UCL Institute of Education

Tony Brown, University College London

Nalini Vittal, University College London

Sherrie Green, University of Essex

Timothy Goodall, University of Leeds

Stefan Kesting, University of Leeds

Craig Gent, University of Warwick

Maria Chondrogianni, University of Westminster

Julie Hearn, Lancaster University (NEC)

Sean Wallis, University College London (NEC)

Carlo Morelli, University of Dundee (NEC)

Vicky Blake, University of Leeds (NEC)

Paul Anderson, Queen Mary, University of London (Incoming National Executive Committee)

Fiona Bailey, Capital City College Group (Westminster Kingsway College)

Mustafa Turus, Capital City College Group (City and Islington College)

David Tandy, Lambeth College

Mike Barton, New City College Group (Redbridge College)

Safia Flissi, South & City College Birmingham

Elane Heffernan, New City College Group (Hackney Community College) (NEC)

Darren Tolliday, Warrington and Vale Royal College

Julia Roberts, Lambeth College (NEC)

Mandy Brown, Lambeth College (NEC)

Ian Crosson, London Regional Committee

Brian Hawkins, Canterbury Christ Church University

Martin Morgan-Taylor, De Montfort University

Cristian Serdean, De Montfort University

Randal Jack, JISC

Stan Papoulias, Kings College London

Deej Fabyc, London Metropolitan University

Chris Keast, Nottingham Trent University

Tristan Sturm, Queen’s University Belfast

Cyprian Njue, University of Brighton

Chris McLachlan, University of Hertfordshire

Michael Szpakowski, Writtle University College

Rachel Cohen, City University of London (NEC)

Marion Hersh, University of Glasgow (NEC)

Mark Abel, University of Brighton (Incoming National Executive Committee)

Ioanna Ioannou, UCL (Incoming National Executive Committee)

Russell Caplan, London Regional Committee

Carol Cody, City of Liverpool College

Christina Paine, London Metropolitan University (NEC)

Pete Bicknell, Lewisham Southwark College

Kitty Howarth, Nottingham College

Jane Elliott, Kings College London

Anthony O’Hanlon, University of Liverpool

Josh Hollands, University College London

Will Megarry, Queens University Belfast

Rosey Whorlow, University of Chichester

Jim Thakoordin, Luton ACE

Naina Kent, Hackney ACE

Janet Oosthuysen, Bradford College

Catherine Oakley, University of Leeds

Martha Harris, City of Liverpool College

Martin Nickson, University of Hull

Grant Buttars, University of Edinburgh

Crispin Farbrother, Bournemouth University

Justin Wynne, East Sussex College Group (NEC)

Mark Hobbs, University of East Anglia

Amy Jowett, Hackney ACE (NEC)

 

Moving forward: what next?

There are a number of issues to think about in terms of how the union moves forward from this point. I believe that crisis is to some extent always going to be present in change so there is not necessarily a need to despair at the position we are in, though there are considerable challenges. It is also my view that this crisis point could have been averted through the GS hearing out her critics and reminding congress of her mandate in winning the USS vote, whatever means were used to do this. This would have been a much calmer process but the consequences would have been difficult to predict. A deadening of the energy of newly engaged activists maybe, which is not necessarily problematic under a bureaucratic model of trades unionism.

As I said, there is a whole other post to write, but I think there needs to be clear water between the officials of the union and those in the IBL who appoint themselves (currently) as their defenders. The IBL are probably to the right of the officials politically. There is also a necessary recognition to make that the IBL operates in different layers – the central grouping who identify as being part of the IBL, whatever communications they make in election material, but also a much broader surrounding group who share the conservatism and fear of the central group and vote in a bloc with them having listened to their arguments and been educated by their materials, but do not identify themselves as being “part of the IBL”. There is also a looser grouping to the right of the middle ground who are much less involved than the central or second group but who are linked in to the propaganda produced by both and imagine that the union is made up of “sensible non-factional representatives” and “the SWP”. All of these groupings have different interests and will act in different ways from each other. The officials are different again and are not one homogenous group.

Similarly, whether it is deliberate or ignorant, the conflation between the emerging activist layer (mainly in pre-92 branches) and the UCU left is misleading and reductionist. While there are common goals, and people who are in both groupings, dismissing activist criticism as a left plot willfully or  naively misrepresents both groups. The left are not democratic centralist so have different positions but are certainly not a plotting group who exist to thwart the leadership. To some extent, the GS is irrelevant to the left in that if the goal of a strong enough activist base is achieved, as happened briefly in the USS dispute, the leadership have to be led by members. If this base is not established, the bureaucracy will always hold power. The left focus therefore on building industrial action and campaigns, and contesting elections to decision making seats within the union with a clear message to members that they are voting for a member led fighting union and that this will be represented in the votes of those elected from a left slate if we take these seats. This is quite different from a grouping of activists emerging around a specific dispute with very clearly held views on the leadership in terms of how this was handled, activists who have a lot of the energy drained from the left by years of resistance but do not automatically share the same focus on a “long game” extending across the union of defending education, defending class interests and building activism through action. It is not problematic if what was the left is reformed into something different in form because this is part of the goal.

In contrast, the IBL openly admit that their reason for forming is to oppose the left, and they claim that they would disband if the left disappeared (unlikely if the left is reformed to something broader). I believe that they formed to oppose the left and this is really really sad. It is a politics of opposition: no vision, no ideas, just the act of blocking those they see as threatening stability. It is a confusing argument to follow: we are afraid that militants could lead the union into unwinnable fights, leading to member exodus with only a non-operational shell remaining. We will avoid this by fighting for a non-operational shell model to keep everyone safe. There is therefore something of an existential crisis going on for them in that they see themselves as guardians of the membership and the members are revolting against them, hence perhaps the insistence that the motions are a left plot. The more politically savvy inner circle know that this is not the case but are relying on it to appeal to the outer members; the outer circle who are often to the right of the CP are often loyalists who engage in black and white assessments of how things work, hence you end up with astonishing output like this Kipling video!

There are a number of hurdles coming up in terms of progress. My sense is that a core of members are furious with the actions of the GS and to some extent the top table over the course of the USS dispute, and a broader group are angry over the actions to prevent dissent at congress. A broader group again agree with this position but are embroiled in other issues which claim their anger and energy, or are supporters of the democracy of congress but would support moving forward with the current line up. However there are events coming up which could sway this.

NEC meets on Friday next week and we could see more disruption of the business of the union depending on how this is handled. Vicky Knight as the new president is known for her warmth and people skills compared to others but as a key CP member she is unlikely to move on the existing position which could create much more resistance. If the recall congress is shut down we come to an impasse where Sally Hunt’s position starts to look untenable. Add to this the growing body of branches apparently moving to support motion 10 and express no confidence and we see problems ahead for the leadership even if the business of the recall congress is heard: much greater problems than would exist if the motions had been heard in the first place.

Ultimately, things don’t look good for Sally Hunt, and this spells big immediate problems for the union a a whole, although clearly these problems are not insurmountable or permanent. The real question is whether a fighting union which is relevant across the sectors emerges from what happens next. One leader is only a tiny part of that and that is the bigger struggle.