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Jo Grady for UCU General Secretary

Vote for Change—Jo Grady's 2019 campaign for UCU General Secretary

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Academic freedom under threat: what can UCU do?

Mike Finn (University of Exeter UCU) and I have published an article on UCU and academic freedom for USSbriefs. You can read the article by clicking here.

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17 May 201917 May 2019Academic Freedom, Anti-Casualisation, FAQs, Higher Education, Industrial Action, Professional Services, UCU, USSstrike

Published by Jo Grady

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Twelve weeks since I got elected General Secretary, but he’s still wearing the #Grady4GS badge 💞 Dads are the best 🥰😍🥰
Calling all UCU HE members. We have an important pay ballot in September. But we are fighting for more than just pay. We are fighting against inequality, increasing casualisation & unsustainable workloads. Weekend task, pls update your membership info✅: https://ucu.custhelp.com/app/utils/login_form/redirect/membership?utm_source=lyr-&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=members&utm_term=&utm_content=
Office vacant, but I’m leaving the propaganda up for the next occupant.
‪Emptying my office. Much like when I left Leicester Uni, I am finding little mementos hidden away. This one is from Sept 2017 & was under a stack of paper.‬ ‪It’s important to question the conventions you inherit, cos sometimes you gotta break old rules to achieve new things.‬
That ‘rule’ list was designed to go viral. It’s a distraction. Jacob Rees Mogg opposes abortion, opposes gay marriage, celebrated zero hour contracts, & believes the rise of food banks is 'uplifting’. He is dangerous. Boris is PM because these silly disinformation tactics work.
you will have heard by now, I officially take up my post as General Secretary of UCU on 1 August. But although the election is over, we will need to stay organised and keep working together if we are to achieve what we want, both inside and outside UCU. My campaign has built a new coalition of UCU. Many of you put a lot of time and effort into campaigning on my behalf. We had at least one volunteer who had agreed to knock on doors and put up posters in every single one of the 60 largest branches in UCU. Those efforts translated into a record-breaking turnout for UCU GS elections and a record-breaking share of the vote. If we keep working together, both inside and outside UCU’s formal structures, we can get even more done. I will be touring branches in September and October as part of UCU’s joint USS and pay/equality/anti-casualisation campaigns, and you will hear more about that via official emails from UCU HQ. But as well as speaking and taking questions at branch meetings, I also want to take the time to meet informally with supporters of my campaign, to give you the inside track on what I’m doing for UCU and hear your thoughts on what we should be doing next. I’d love to hear from people who want to get more involved in UCU at a national level, perhaps by taking part in committees or the new ‘task groups’ which I pledged to set up in my manifesto. You don’t need to be very experienced in UCU or involved in your branch to consider doing this – I want to see a range of people with different backgrounds getting involved now that I’m General Secretary. There is a mailing list on www.Grady4GS.com. You can subscribe to this to stay informed. The list is not, nor will it become, an official UCU list. It will not be administered using UCU resources, but only in a personal capacity by me and the registered data controllers for my campaign. If you join it you can look forward to hearing more from me in the coming months, and I encourage you to invite anyone else who might be interested to subscribe via my campaign website. If you’ve made it this far and don’t wanna join the list, thank you so much for your support regardless. ♥️⚡️
Today at #EICongress I was asked to talk about the USS strike, trade union renewal and engagement, and the role social media played. I was clear that whilst social media was an important aspect of USS strike, human activities were critical. Social media was a representation of human action as well as a way for people to organise online for physical activities. It helps organising - but isn’t a substitute for organising and human action. We mustn’t reduce the mobilisation that occurred during the USS strike as simply the product of savvy social media. If we allow stories of mass mobilisation & engagement to become stories about twitter we neglect to focus on the activists that make online & offline things happen.
Incredibly honoured today to share a platform today with Jalila al-Salman, a Bahraini teacher and vice president of the Bahrain Teachers' Association (BTA). During the uprising Jalila was central in organising strikes, criticising the regime, demanding reforms in Bahrain's educational system, and protesting the killing and suppression of protesters, many of which were students. As a result of her trade union activity & role in the uprising, she was arrested for 149 days, tortured, and sentenced to 3 years in prison. Our panel at #EICongress was about union renewal and it was humbling to hear about Jalila’s bravery, but also the international solidarity she attributes her freedom to.
We are here at the Educational International 8th World Congress in Bangkok. Rob Copeland @ucunion Policy Officer updates international colleagues about concerns in Europe; these include consequences for staff of funding & financing, & threats to academic freedom by increase in political authoritarianism & marketisation. Key lesson from the FE & HE caucus is that the around the world casualisation of labour in our workplaces is undermining education. This is evident in key issues we face, from collective bargaining, academic freedom, staff voice, & defending the profession. #eicongress

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