Endorsement from Dr Alice Bennett, Liverpool Hope University

I’m heartened that Jo Grady is running for General Secretary of UCU. She is offering a real alternative to the candidates who represent the union’s existing factions.

Members like me in post-92 HE institutions watched the USS strikes in February 2018 and offered our support and solidarity to our collaborators, mentors, colleagues, former students, and friends. We were a sector united and it was a lesson in how powerful the Union can be when it makes use of the wealth of passion and expertise in its membership. Members in universities whose pensions are with TPS know that we are next for this fight, and that we will need the support of our friend and colleagues across the sector, in pre-92s and in FE, to defend both TPS benefits and ensure TPS employers’ contribution hikes do not lead to waves of redundancies sweeping through post-92s.

I agree with Jo’s emphasis on tackling inequality, casualisation, the hostile environment, and marketisation in our sector, the effects of which disproportionately affect those members who are already the most precarious. I trust Jo to give us the well-researched policy, passionate activism, pragmatic strategy, and engaged leadership that we need for the future of the union.

Published by Jo Grady