Response from the LUCU Committee to recent racist violence

Response from the LUCU Committee to recent racist violence

LUCU stands in solidarity with Muslim, racially minoritized, immigrant and refugee colleagues and students against the racist, fascistic and Islamophobic violence by the far-right that has unfolded in the UK over the past week.  

We recognise this violence as a form of terrorism, enacted by individuals but encouraged over years by messaging from UK media, government policies, and influential individuals. It is also enabled by the actions and complicity of other institutions, including higher education and research bodies, through the reproduction of institutional white supremacy, alongside the suppression and demonization of anti-racist and decolonial thinking and practice. The result is a sustained anti-migrant and anti-Muslim sentiment that has become normalised in UK society. 

We also acknowledge the intersectional aspects of this issue that have led to visibly Muslim women being frequently targeted and extend particular solidarity and support to them. 

UCU National has released this statement condemning the violence as fascist, and importantly, returning our attention to the senseless killings of three girls in Southport, whose losses we mourn in solidarity with their families and community. We agree that their deaths, and the injuries of others attacked, have been exploited by the far-right to incite further Islamophobic, anti-Asian and anti-Black hatred, which is unacceptable at any time. Although the attacks were horrific, this is no justification for racism and further violence. 

We are especially grateful for all those staff and students who are working tirelessly to offer mechanisms for listening and support to the University’s affected communities. Please contact the committee at ucu@lboro.ac.uk if specific additional support is needed. 

We are also extremely grateful for, and proud of, all the people, of all ages and from all walks of life, who poured onto the streets on Wednesday in direct and peaceful challenge to the terror the far-right seeks to create. We hope to see this show of solidarity continue over the coming months, both in public and interpersonally, to change the culture that has grown and sheltered this racism, and drive home the belief of the vast majority in our communities: that white supremacy is not welcome in the UK. 

In solidarity

LUCU Committee

Teach Out & Picket Details for Week 3

Teach Out & Picket Details for Week 3

Teach-out: Creating Racial Dialogue
You are invited to attend a Teach-out: Creating Racial Dialogue, hosted by Angela Martinez Dy on Monday 28th February from 10:30am – 11:30am, online via MS Teams. The teach out is open to all Loughborough University staff & students and builds on the previous work of “Building the Anti-Racist Classroom” & Collective Anti Racist Efforts (CARE) training. Please register here before Sunday 4pm to receive the link to join: https://lboro.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/event-registration-teach-out.

Please share this invite with other staff/students you think may like to attend.


Picket Details – Week 3

Thanks, again, to everyone for their efforts on the picket line so far. We wanted to remind you of the picket arrangements for next week when we will be striking over Four Fights dispute. Strike days for week three are Monday 28th Feb, Tuesday 1st March & Wednesday 2nd March.

Picket times and locations remain the same 8am – 11am daily at the main gate of the Loughborough Campus (unless you’ve agreed to attend another gate – contact M.A.Gibson@lboro.ac.uk ). London based colleagues, please keep an eye on our social media accounts for details of further London Campus pickets. Well done to all for your solidarity so far, let’s keep the pressure on and force employers back to the table.

LUCU Committee

Decarbonise & Decolonise 2030 Webinar

Decarbonise & Decolonise 2030 Webinar

The LUCU committee recently discussed UCU’s new Decarbonise & Decolonise 2030 campaign and feel this should be supported by the branch. With this in mind and a campaign on the topic to come, we wish to encourage members interested in the topic (and potentially being involved in the local campaign) to attend the Decarbonise and Decolonise Webinar for UCU members in the East Midlands region on Wednesday 8th September starting at 2pm. For more information on the campaign please click this link where you can find a quick guide pdf for download and further resources.

What to expect from the webinar:

Decarbonise and decolonise is the third in a series of our webinars on the climate crisis, and how we can play our part in resisting it. Building on existing CPD workshops ‘Introduction to climate education’ and ‘Embedding climate education in the curriculum’, SOS-UK have developed for UCU a ‘Decarbonise and decolonise‘ workshop to introduce members to the interconnectivity of these two agendas and identify opportunities to take action.

To take part in this webinar you do not need to have completed the previous sessions.  This workshop will give an overview of climate justice, and how this links to the concepts of decolonising and decarbonising as the structural and systemic roots of the human-induced climate crisis. We will explore examples of climate injustice, and how this often intersects with issues like race, gender, class and indigeneity. We will also look at examples of when sustainability actions and initiatives have not taken an intersectional approach, with discussions on how we can avoid this in education to create sustainability activities that recognise and work to challenge the harmful legacies of colonialism and imperialism.

Learning Aims – The full aims of the interactive workshop are to:

  • provide an introductory understanding of climate justice and its connection with decolonising and decarbonising
  • support participants to identify opportunities to apply decolonising and decarbonising for climate justice to the education sector
  • encourage participants to develop their own practice to consider climate justice and intersectionality
  • explore the role of UCU branches and members in mobilising action for decolonising and decarbonising.

How UCU CPD webinars work

The taught session will last for about 75 minutes, after which time we take 15-20 minutes to discuss the issues raised. The total time commitment will be around an hour and a half.


You will need to find a quiet space, away from distractions (like telephone and email!), and you may prefer to use headphones for the session. UCU would also recommend that you check that you can use zoom before the session if you are unfamiliar with it.

Once registered you will be sent a meeting number and password for the webinar using zoom. You will be able to join the session from about 10 minutes before the stated start time. UCU would also recommend that you do join 5 to 10 minutes early as you will need to be admitted to the session, and of course there can be technical problems. Live transcription will be available.

If you have any questions please email Glen at gpickard@ucu.org.uk

If you require any additional support in accessing or taking part in this webinar please let Glen know ASAP so that he can do everything possible to help.

To register for the session on Wednesday 8th September please CLICK this LINK.

UCU Week of Action Against Workplace Racism

UCU Week of Action Against Workplace Racism

(22-26 February 2021)

LUCU would like to call members’ attention to this week of national action. Action Against Workplace Racism aims to encourage anti-racist initiatives in further and higher education to transform education by placing the broader anti-racist agenda at the centre of our thinking – from how we relate to each other as colleagues to how we teach and carry out research/enterprise activities.

The theme for this week of national action is Community Accountability: an antiracism for abolitionist times.  For more information about the lived experiences of racism, its impacts on Black and Global Majority people in education, and how we might act to bring about change, members may find the following video material of interest.

Building an anti-racist environment: barriers to progression (2 mins)
The Race Pay Gap (2 mins)
Racism in the workplace – ‘intelligent covert racism’ (2 mins)
Micro-aggressions – ‘death by a thousand cuts’ (2 mins)
Unconscious bias – ‘what will it take for the unconscious to become conscious?’ (3 mins)

You can find out more about the UCU campaign here.

LUCU Committee

Loughborough UCU: Position Statement on Race Equality

Loughborough UCU: Position Statement on Race Equality

LUCU recommends that the University:

  • Be open and transparent regarding race inequality statistics at the university with the intention to improve outcomes and achieve parity over time
  • Be pro-active in taking positive action to improve outcomes for staff and students from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, with a focus on increasing BAME leadership for staff and closing the degree awarding gap for BAME students
  • Refrain from considering ‘BAME’ and/or ‘international’ as static, homogenous categories, and instead seek to take account of the specific forms of oppression and exploitation which different groups face
  • Draw upon and utilise expertise from within its academic community and beyond to inform its definitions, processes and procedures around race equality and ensure they are fit for purpose.
  • Challenge racist legislation from the Home Office surrounding the surveillance of international students and staff, and comply to only the legally minimal extent
  • Increase financial and legal support to international staff struggling with time-consuming and costly procedures regarding their citizenship, settled status and/or right to work in the UK (and similar)
  • Reduce reliance on casual contracts (including zero hours contracts), as they disproportionately affect BAME colleagues
  • Become an accredited Living Wage employer on both campuses, considering the fact that low pay disproportionately affects BAME colleagues
  • Be willing to engage with and take on board constructive critique regarding race-related matters at the university
  • Recognise how intersectionality can result in particular groups of staff and students’ facing specific problems or disadvantages which remain unaddressed by initiatives focussing only on one aspect of their identity, demographic characteristics and/or social positionality.
  • Ensure BAME staff are recognised and compensated for their efforts and contributions to the race equality and EDI strategies of the university through accurate citation and agreed workload hours, secondment time or additional payments. Additional payments should also be available to casual staff, who should be encouraged to contribute and rewarded where they do so.
  • Create and promote accessible pathways for students, especially BAME students, to contribute to and demonstrate leadership within the university’s race equality efforts. This may involve creating paid positions for students and pay for these roles should be at a level which acknowledges the importance of the work and the emotional labour it requires.
  • Systematise and share knowledge about best practice in race equality throughout the university through staff and student development.

LUCU are pleased to share this Race Equality statement which has been co-developed with LU BAME staff network.

LUCU Statement on Anti-Racism

LUCU Statement on Anti-Racism

12.06.2020

Black Lives Matter protests in the past week across the United States and worldwide have demonstrated international resistance to, and outrage against, police and white supremacist murders of Black people, most lately George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade, as well as David McAtee and Jamel Floyd who were killed by police during the protests. Many people who want to condemn racism and show support for the Black Lives Matter cause have been asking “What can I do?”

First, it is important that we do not tell ourselves that this problem exists only in the USA.  As a colonising nation Britain has a deeply problematic track record with race relations, which is far from over, as evidenced by the recent Windrush scandal, ongoing police brutality and racism, racialised unequal COVID19 health outcomes, including the condemnable deaths of Belly Mujinga and Trevor Belle, Black British essential workers, both of whom were assaulted at work and later died of COVID19. We should recognise that the legacy of colonialism, including structural and interpersonal racism (overt and covert), anti-Blackness, shadeism and colourism, lives on across Europe and worldwide.

Second, we can call attention to the issue. In particular, we believe it is the role of white people, and those whose racial backgrounds put them in closer proximity to whiteness, to use their relative privilege and safety to amplify Black voices and advocate for change. The ability to ignore this issue and believe it does not concern you is one way that structural racism is perpetuated. In response to this moment, it is not enough to be “not racist”.  We must be “anti-racist”.

Third, we can acknowledge and understand the history that has made it necessary to demand in this moment that Black lives do matter. Racial inequality in the world today is the outcome of historical processes, producing structural racism benefiting white people, while othering and discriminating against those who are not white. 

Finally, we can recognise that many Black colleagues and students, and those of mixed Black heritage are currently experiencing trauma, anger and exhaustion, as a result of the combination of everyday racism, the disproportionate health impacts of COVID19 on communities of colour, and the heightened racialised violence, pressure and anxiety of this moment. The LUCU committee extends to them our care and concern, and we urge supervisors and peers to please be mindful of and compassionate to these circumstances.

We welcome the articulate response from Loughborough University and its commitment to recognise its part in the problem and dedication to being part of the solution, as well as the Vice-Chancellor’s recent statement in which he centres the importance of challenging racism, and positioning the university as anti-racist. LUCU are also committed to (1) working closely with the BME staff network to address issues of racism within the union, and (2) continuing to engage with university management to improve staff experiences in a way that is cognizant of the specific issues faced by Black staff, staff of colour and minority backgrounds. In addition to anti-Black racism, we also wish to speak out against the everyday Sinophobic and Islamophobic racism against Asian and Muslim colleagues and students on campus and in Loughborough, which has increased due to COVID19, and the ongoing challenges of the hostile environment for immigration that affects our international colleagues.

We invite all members of our University community, but particularly those who are white, to respond to this opportunity to listen, learn and take action.  Below we provide a range of suggestions, some which can be done for free in seconds, others which ask you to invest some money or time. While some of the resources were developed in the US, this does not mean they are irrelevant to us in the UK.

More recommended books available here.

Resources for teaching staff

Educators have a special role to play in tackling racism in the curriculum, in the classroom, and in the student experience as a whole.  These resources will support you in doing this.

Resources for Black/BME Colleagues

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the individual members of the BME, International, and LGBT staff networks, many of whom are UCU members, who co-developed this statement on our behalf. Thank you also to all the Black, Indigenous, people of colour, and white ally thinkers, activists and content creators whose excellent work we draw upon here.  

Anti-Trump and Stand Up to Racism Events

Anti-Trump and Stand Up to Racism Events

There are two political protest events coming up which have wide support from the Trades Union movement including UCU.

The first is on Friday the 13th of July to oppose Donald Trump’s visit.

The second is to oppose racist and fascist groups, with a focus on Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, a former leader of the EDL with links to other vile organisations such as Pegida and the so-called “Football Lads Alliance”. A man even Piers Morgan has condemned as a “a bigoted lunatic”. Since his imprisonment in May “Free Tommy Robinson” has become a rallying cry of the far right.

The Anti-Trump Protest is on Friday 13 July 2pm Portland Place, London W1A 1AA followed by a rally at 5pm in Trafalgar Square. Please be there to show Trump he is not welcome and that we in the UK trade union movement oppose his divisive and racist policies.

There are coaches available from Nottingham, and Derby and further information at the Stop Trump website.

The Stand Up to Racism ‘Oppose the Nazis and Tommy Robinson’ event is on Saturday 14 July 2pm Whitehall, London SW1A. It is vital we mobilise against the pernicious ideology peddled by Tommy Robinson and his friends in the so-called Football Lads Alliance.

Further details on the Stand Up To Racism Facebook page.