LUCU Equality Report: 2024 UCU Equality Conference and Local Developments

LUCU Equality Officer (EO), Dr Angela Martinez Dy, recently attended the 2024 UCU Equality Groups Conference at Aston University in Birmingham. This annual event comprises five conferences over three days, serving disabled members, Black members, migrant members, women members, and LGBTQ+ members.

Angela participated in the migrant and women’s conferences in person, whilst attending some of the Black members’ and LGBTQ+ conference online. All were offered in hybrid format. She did not attend the disabled members’ conference as she does not identify as a member of the group.

Overall, this valuable space enables members from these groups to openly raise and discuss important issues relevant to them and thus to the Union as a whole. We encourage LUCU members from any of these groups to consider attending. UCU National reimburses reasonable expenses for attendance.

Migrant Members’ Conference

The Migrant Members’ committee is the most recently established of the equality groups. At this conference, several crucial issues were discussed, including:

the challenges of transitioning from biometric residence permits (BRP) to e-visas

inviting speakers from the Global South to UCU Congress 2025

UCU’s ongoing lobbying against the immigration health surcharge, which the union argues constitutes double taxation alongside National Insurance contributions

HMRC’s classification of university-reimbursed visa fees as workplace benefits.

A panel featuring solicitor Kemi Obayelu, Dr Kamran Khan, and Dr Paul John Alegado provided valuable insights into migrant perception and contributions to UK society, challenging narratives that frame migrants as security threats and societal burdens.

Women’s Conference

Intersectionality formed the central theme of the women’s conference, featuring keynote speakers including UCU President Maxine Looby, Dr Jenny Douglas, Dr Amelia Baldwin, and Dr Victoria Showunmi. Vibrant discussion and debate following these presentations, exploring both the importance of intersectionality (and avoiding its dilution and depoliticisation) and ways to continue to address women’s marginality within interlocking structures of oppression.

Black Members’ Conference

The conference opened with a focused discussion on the ongoing review of racism within UCU itself, with President Maxine Looby sharing her experiences and initiatives as a Black woman resisting racism within the Executive. This was followed by an impactful workshop on challenging workplace racism, led by Nitin Rajyaguru and Saleem Rashid.

LGBTQ+ Members’ Conference

Angela attended portions of this conference remotely, noting particularly engaging presentations from Muwonge Gerald, Lexi Breen, and Harun Tulunay, who highlighted the continued risks to LGBTQ+ safety and the need to better incorporate international LGBTQ+ experiences into our understandings of inequality.

Local Developments

Following a handover from Kerry Featherstone in October 2024, Angela has stepped into her role as EO with great enthusiasm. A former leader of the BAME (now REACH) staff network, EDI Advisory Forum initiator and co-chair, and Strategic Architect of the LU Race Equity Strategy, as LUCU EO Angela is now part of the University’s EDI Board and contributing to the implementation of the newly approved EDI Core Plan. Key developments from the latest Board meeting include:

Recruitment planning for new associate directors’ EDI roles

Collaborating with Organisational Development to enhance reasonable adjustments processes

Promoting the uptake and use of equality impact assessments (EIAs) across the University

Angela has also conducted a thorough demographic analysis (descriptive statistics only) of LUCU’s membership as of Oct 2024, looking at age, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and contract type/status data, as well as some relevant intersections. Although numbers are very small in places, patterns locally mirror expectations based on national trends. For example, local membership data suggest that higher percentages of women and BAME people hold fixed-term contracts (50% women, 11.3% BAME) as compared to permanent contracts (42% women, 5.8% BAME), and that a large majority of our members on part-time contracts are women (78%).

Following her analysis of these data and her attendance at the Equality Groups Conference, Angela will work with LUCU Branch Organiser Callum Salfield to conduct a series of online focus groups with LUCU Members to better understand their needs and priorities. The proposed groups include: Migrant, Black/BAME, Women and Gender Non-Conforming, LGBTQ+, Disabled, and Early Career members. If you have feedback on these plans or are interested in participating, please message Callum with the groups you wish to be included in, and/or keep an eye out in emails and future newsletters for upcoming polls for dates and times. Members are welcome to attend more than one if multiple categories apply.

Finally, we would like members to note that last year, our committee raised a motion calling for UCU to change the “Equality Officer” title to “Equity Officer” in line with changing terminology at Loughborough. It became clear that that the process to amend the terminology was too complex and time-consuming to be worthwhile, so we decided instead to focus on progressing work directly addressing the many equity and equality related issues instead.

Please message Angela to discuss this update or any equality or equity related issues.