Loughborough UCU

Tag: Solidarity

  • CPD Course: Allyship and Solidarity

    CPD Course: Allyship and Solidarity

    Lboro UCU branch has re-scheduled an online CPD workshop, open to all LU staff. Masters and PhD students at LU are also welcome to attend the session. The Allyship and Solidarity CPD workshop will now take place online on Tuesday 11th November from 12 noon – 1:30pm. Please come along and invite your colleagues (including those who may not be UCU members) to join us.

    “Allyship” has its roots firmly within the LGBT community and has more recently been a live discussion within the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. But how can real allies truly support each other? And how can we build that support into organisations that will help us realise the dreams of equality that we all yearn for.

    If you are fed up with seeing tokenistic gestures of solidarity on social media and want to explore what genuine and meaningful allyship looks like, at work and in your trade union, please join us.

    The full aims of the interactive workshop are to:

    • Know what we mean by “allyship”
    • Understand why allyship and solidarity is essential now
    • Understand the difference between meaningful allyship and performative allyship
    • Explore how we can build structures that allow us to support each other.

    The taught sessions usually last for about 60 minutes, after which time we take 15-20 minutes to discuss the issues raised with a UCU official, depending on availability. The total time commitment will be around an hour and a half. The Allyship and solidarity workshops are designed to be more interactive than most in order to help you discuss the issues and to find new allies of your own.

    Sign up to the training here and please share this link with any other staff at Lboro who may be interested in coming along – https://cpd.web.ucu.org.uk/events/allyship-and-solidarity-loughborough-2/.

    Upon signing up you should receive an email including an outlook calendar invite and a link to join the session within 3 working days. If you have not received this within a week of signing up, please contact ucu@lboro.ac.uk and we will make sure it comes through.

  • Palestine Motion

    Following the motion passed at our autumn General Meeting we have continued to pursue the motion’s stated objectives.  In particular, we have continued to push the University to re-assess its projects with potential links to breaches of international law, war crimes and genocide against the Palestinians, as it did with links to Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.  This request was refused.  We asked as a general case what the bar would be for re-assessment where the ethical context had significantly changed since the project’s initial ethics approval.  The University responded, emphasising legality as the important factor, implying that our “Ethics approvals” process is in fact simply a “legality checking” process.  We will continue to challenge this, given the emphasis on ethical and moral implications embedded in our Ethical Policy Framework.

    LUCU are planning an open meeting on the history of the Middle East conflict to help everyone better understand the context that has led us to the current situation.

  • Save Higher Education: Solidarity with Branches Fighting Cuts

    LUCU unequivocally stands in solidarity with UCU branches that are taking industrial action against the wave of cuts to higher education that is arising in light of the current economic climate. We believe that the local disputes, including Coventry University, Newcastle University, Brunel University, University of Kent Canterbury, and more, are of national significance. These cuts, regardless of form, will fundamentally damage both the sector’s reputation and the national labour market for decades to come.

    Our branch recently passed a motion acknowledging that these disputes stem from local financial mismanagement, alongside longstanding structural problems of a broken University funding model and hostile immigration environment. The strategy of campus expansion a revenue generator has proven limited. This ongoing financial crisis, of which the current cuts are merely the latest manifestation, result from decades of sector marketisation.

    We believe reimagining the sector’s future requires courage and creativity, looking at and learning from successful government-funded models such as in Germany. London Economics has also proposed viable alternatives to the current broken system, including a stepped repayment system and a graduate tax. Both options would remain fiscally neutral while improving progressivity, with the graduate tax socialising what is currently individualised debt.

    Decades of disinvestment in higher education has contributed to current stagflation conditions, themselves symptomatic of poor economic policy, planning, and resilience gaps. Higher education is a public good, not a commodity, and deserves to be valued accordingly.

    In our unanimously passed motion of March 12, 2025, we resolved to: 

    1. Act in solidarity with branches in dispute, including regularly amplifying branch-level calls for support on social media.
    2. Encourage members to sign petitions and donate to the UCU Fighting Fund, or the local funds of striking branches.
    3. Urge UCU to take a national approach to this national problem.

    To take a step today, please consider reading and signing this open letter to Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, and Sunderland MP. Written by Newcastle University UCU and Northern Region UCU, it urges recognition of higher education’s value and implementation of sustainable solutions.

  • Spread the resistance to the job losses in Higher Education

    The Grassroots Counter-Playbook: How to Fight the Employers’ Offensive

    Thursday 20th March at 12:30pm on Zoom.

    With 1000 jobs losses a month and unprecedented crisis in higher education in the UK, a growing number of branches are resisting.

    Newcastle, Brunel and Dundee Universities are taking industrial action. Other branches such as Durham, Sheffield, Cardiff have balloted for industrial action.

    The employers have a playbook to push through the cuts, we need a counter-playbook.

    Come to the meeting to hear how you can support branches taking industrial action and the lessons of moving into action.

    They cannot win on their own, we need to get the crisis of our universities onto the government’s agenda.

    Link to join the Zoom meeting: https://newcastleuniversity.zoom.us/j/81485600063

    Meeting ID: 814 8560 0063
    Passcode: 322405

    Please also sign the open letter, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTY20tsLYA7JVe6X354VD_e8oS4FGHmm6DEyBBPYj8i6aOO7S5_vyzqpxle8nWYaShxT0NMQ3yU5vfw/pub

  • Week of Action on Palestinian Right to Education

    In response to Birzeit University’s call for academics, activists, unions and solidarity groups to participate in the “Right to Education” Week of Action (November 23-30). Loughborough UCU (LUCU) organised an awareness-raising event amplifying the theme of “United Against Scholasticide”, highlighting Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s higher education infrastructure and community.

    On November 28th, colleagues and doctoral researcher members of LUCU based on the London campus hosted a stall from 10AM-4PM. Printed resources from Scholars Against the War on Palestine (SWAP), including its useful toolkit, were made available, alongside flyers from other solidarity organisations. These set out the definition of scholasticide and the devastating statistics regarding affected educational institutions, educators and students. LUCU’s new Palestinian Solidarity Working Group, formed in response to a successful member-raised motion to support Loughborough Action for Palestine Coalition, also created and distributed a leaflet in printed and digital versions, highlighting British universities’ potential complicity in the genocide through collaborative research and development partnerships with organisations enabling Israel’s occupation, colonialism and apartheid.

    At the time of writing (2/12/2024), SWAP’s tracker for scholasticide notes the following:

    • All 11 Gazan universities have been bombed
    • 5,213 students have been murdered
    • 90,000 university students cannot attend university
    • 8,691 students have been injured.
    • 370 schools have been damaged or destroyed, leaving more than 620,000 students out of schools
    • At least 239 educators have been killed
    • 60% of bookshops and libraries have been destroyed

    The stall and stallholders were met with an overall curious and positive reception from both staff and students. On the same day, Loughborough Action for Palestine Coalition endorsed and attended a rally hosted by other university coalitions and solidarity groups to protest the University of London’s injunction to criminalise protests in support of the Boycott Divest and Sanctions movement on campus.

    Dr Angela Martinez Dy, LUCU Equality Officer, commented: “The ongoing destruction by Israel’s military of Palestinian knowledge, evident in the targeting of educators and students in the ongoing war, is a concern for academia globally. It’s great to see LUCU members responding to Palestinian scholars’ leadership, drawing attention and raising awareness about scholasticide amongst the Loughborough Uni community, and encouraging people to take action.”

    Please consider signing the petition here, and contact LUCU Equality Officer Angela Martinez Dy to join the working group and progress future actions.

    Thanks go to Iman Khan and the LUCU Palestinian Solidarity Working Group for writing this update.

  • Loughborough UCU Statement of Solidarity with Coalition of Loughborough Action for Palestine

    In Oct 2024, Loughborough University UCU (LUCU) passed a motion in defence of students and staff speaking out in support of Palestine. We write this as a statement of solidarity with those in the University community who are speaking out, especially the Coalition of Loughborough Action for Palestine, an interdisciplinary student coalition made up of UG, PG, and PGR students across disciplines and both Loughborough campuses, with widespread staff support and links to national higher education activist organisations.

    The war in Gaza, and continued violence in the West Bank has seen the physical destruction of every Gazan university, damage or destruction of around 90% of school buildings, arbitrary military detention and silencing of Palestinian academics, and the killing and wounding of academics, teachers and students. This is educide, the deliberate destruction of educational infrastructure, and epistemicide, the destruction of knowledge.  As a higher education union, we condemn this.  Loughborough University should as well.

    Moreover, we stand for the protection of academic freedom and freedom of speech. Universities are legally bound to promote freedom of speech under their obligations through the Office for Students, even at the risk of causing offence. We believe it is important that both Loughborough University (LU) and Loughborough Students Union (LSU) allow student and staff protests and recognise the legitimate fears many have about revealing their identity, especially if they are not UK citizens. We also request that the University and LSU continue to facilitate ongoing discussions on the war, violence and occupation, as LUCU commits to doing as part of the motion passed. We are deeply concerned by multiple accounts of suppression by LU and LSU of pro-Palestinian sentiment, which we are prepared to discuss in more detail at a meeting, and we wish to have these investigated and addressed if substantiated.

    Similarly, students should not be hindered in their right to boycott third parties, for example by being required, as part of their studies, to attend career fairs that include representatives from companies to which they object on political grounds. 

    Since the Coalition is made up of members of the University community, we believe it should be considered a legitimate channel for student and staff concerns. To that end, we request that key members of the University Executive Board meet and engage with representatives of the Coalition, and LUCU are prepared to attend and support such engagement.

  • Response to transphobic statements in Rishi Sunak’s conference speech

    Colleagues and Students,

    You may be aware that Rishi Sunak made transphobic comments in his speech to the Tory conference this week, stating “we shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t.  A man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.”  As an academic community we recognise that the Appeal to Common Sense is a logical fallacy employed in desperation when an assertion cannot be properly defended.

    As the committees for Loughborough UCU branch, and the Staff LGBT+ Network, we would like to make absolutely clear that we condemn Rishi Sunak’s comments.  We recognise that gender is a complex, multi-dimensional aspect of everyone’s identity, and is unique to each of us.  To characterise the experience of being transgender as “being any sex [you] want” is a deliberate over-simplification and mis-representation designed to scapegoat a marginalised community for populist appeal. As is the suggestion that this group are “bullying” the majority.  And while anti-trans sentiments are often portrayed as defending women, they are in fact propping up patriarchy and the disempowerment of women, by emphasising the idea that men and women are fundamentally and radically different.  We support members and non-members of any gender identity; everyone is part of our community.  We are also committed to playing a key role in shaping and delivering the University’s EDI agenda, which includes recognition, respect and support for all individuals in their gender identity. 

    If you are interested in learning more about the complexity and nuance of gender identity, we recommend the LGBT Awareness course available through Organisational Development and presented by LUCU Treasurer and LGBT+ Network Trans and Non-binary Lead, David Wilson, as well as their post on the University’s LGBT Blog Trans visibility as an act of resistance.

    In solidarity

    Loughborough UCU Committee

    LGBT+ Staff Network Committee

  • Solidarity with Ukraine

    Following a motion passed at our AGM, the committee has considered the best way we, as a branch, can support and show solidarity with Ukraine. This has now resulted in a £200 donation of branch funds to the Help Ukraine Emergency Appeal.

    The branch committee has also raised a motion for the next UCU East Midlands Regional Committee, calling on them to condemn the unprovoked, unjustified military attack by Russia against Ukraine; to support the provision of any form of aid that Ukraine needs, including military aid, humanitarian aid; to consider tougher political and economic sanctions against Russia; and to discuss cooperation and affiliation with the Ukrainian Solidarity Campaign. The motion also asks the East Midlands Regional Committee to call on UCU to engage with the Ukrainian community in the UK, including Ukrainian academics hosted by British universities, to ensure stronger representation of Ukrainian voices; to state opposition to the UCU Congress motion 5, and for UCU to recall it; to follow the Ukraine Peace Appeal’s call for more informed solidarity, and to call for its support by UCU; to call on UCU to express solidarity with colleagues and students in higher education in Ukraine or displaced by the war, and within the wider Ukrainian diaspora; to call on UCU to support initiatives helping displaced Ukrainian colleagues and students, aiming at the reconstruction of Ukrainian higher education institutions; and, finally, to call on UCU to review and change the governance procedures that resulted in the wording of motion 5 and the contradictory passing of both motion 5 and motion 6 at UCU Congress.

  • Solidarity with Brighton UCU

    Kevin Biderman, a UCU rep at Brighton University, joined us on Friday 15 September to talk about the threat of redundancy at his institution and about the actions his members are taking in support both of their jobs and of high-quality student provision at Brighton. A summary of Kevin’s talk is below:

    In May, Brighton University proposed 130 redundancies, saying it wanted to save £7.3m – but while also spending £50m on building projects. The University is planning to grow student numbers, potentially causing massive workload issues for the remaining staff.  Hundreds of students have been marching, calling for the VC’s resignation, and they have staged a sit in in the VC’s office. Students at Brighton are joining UCU in asking for zero redundancies, sharing the belief that the planned job cuts are a choice, not a necessity. The VC lost a vote of no confidence, with 94% of staff and students voting against them. The UCU branch held a ballot over 2 weeks, resulting in a 61% turnout and a 90% vote for local strike action in October. UCU has grey-listed Brighton – encouraging members not to apply for jobs there or engage in any collaborative projects. Brighton has deducted 100% of pay for involvement in the MAB and has said it will do the same during the upcoming strike. Brighton UCU has a strike fund which so far has received close to £100k in donations, but it needs more.

    What can you do to help colleagues at Brighton UCU?

    1. You can sign the petition in support of zero redundancies at Brighton University, here.
    2. You are encouraged to make supportive posts on social media. 
    3. Brighton UCU would really appreciate further donations to their strike fund, here.

  • April News

    We hope that you’re reading this having returned from an enjoyable Easter break.

    IMPORTANT: remember to vote in the formal consultation on the dispute proposals.

    We appreciate that if you’re returning from time away from work over Easter, you’re likely to be wading through a big backlog of emails.  However, please make it a priority to act on the email which you should have received late on Tuesday 4 April from Jo Grady. Your vote must be cast by 10 am on 17 April.  Allow yourself enough time for this task as UCU has supplied a considerable amount of material to enable you to make an informed decision.

    Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB)

    Should the consultation results take us into a MAB, a branch General Meeting will be called to discuss our approach and to answer members’ questions. You can read UCU’s MAB FAQs here and specific advice for academic-related and professional services staff here.

    In the meantime, we urge you to register for UCU MAB training on 17 April, beginning at 5pm. For more information and details of how to register, please click here.

    Joint statement with management and LSU

    Building a strong relationship with Loughborough Students’ Union (LSU) has been high on our agenda for some time, and we are delighted that a recent innovation has been the scheduling of tripartite meetings between ourselves, student leaders and members of the University’s senior management. Though our perspectives on the disputes sometimes differ, the meetings have been highly constructive and have allowed us to stake out some common ground. Please see here for our first joint statement. We will continue to meet while the industrial action lasts – though our aim is for this positive collaboration to extend beyond the current moment and engage other of our priorities as a branch.

    Hardship fund donation by Leicester Workers Support Group

    The branch is very grateful to Leicester Workers Support Group for its generous donation of £100 to our hardship fund.

    WhatsApp groups

    We would like to remind members that we have two WhatsApp groups available for your use. The first group is for all members, regardless of which campus you work on. The second group is specifically for London campus members. These groups were set up to allow members to communicate during strike action when the use of work email is discouraged. The WhatsApp groups have developed into a fantastic branch building forum, enabling members to stay informed and up to date on the latest dispute news and – more broadly – to connect with each other and engage in discussions on union issues.

    Our branch is committed to extending engagement with our membership, so that we can more effectively represent your interests. We encourage all members (both those in Loughborough and in London) to join and participate in our main WhatsApp group. We believe that, together, we can create positive change and better working conditions for all.

    We should emphasise that, while we welcome questions and feedback via WhatsApp, it is essential to email the branch directly if you have a message for the committee. This ensures that nothing is missed and we can address any concerns as quickly and effectively as possible.

    In summary: stay connected, stay informed and let your voice be heard. Join the Lboro UCU WhatsApp and, if a London member, the LUCU London WhatsApp using the links in the email of this newsletter that has been sent to members, or email the branch for the link to join.

    Branch Equality roles

    During our recent general meeting, a motion was presented to create new Equality Officer roles for various areas of equality work, including BAME, LGBTQ+, Women, and Disability. After considering the feedback received, the committee has decided it is currently most practical to maintain the arrangement of one branch Equality Officer. However, with an important modification: we hope that the Equality Officer will be supported by several Equality Reps who will work on their chosen area(s) of equality interest. The Equality Rep roles will be created as volunteers come forward. 

    Equality Reps will be encouraged to join the committee in non-officer positions and will be welcome to attend all committee meetings.

    If you are interested in becoming an Equality Rep for the branch, we encourage you to get in touch with us. Your involvement will help us to better address the needs of our members and ensure that we are effectively promoting equality in all areas.

    Advance notice of AGM and branch elections

    We are pleased to announce that this year’s LUCU AGM is scheduled for 28 June. Official notice of this meeting will be sent out in May, and, with it, a call for nominations for branch officers and committee members. We encourage all members who are interested in joining the committee to put your names forward.

    It is important that we increase our numbers on the committee, in order both to better represent our membership and to share the load of union work. All committee members have time assigned to them in their workload allocation so that they can undertake this role during normal working hours. By joining the committee, you will play a vital role in shaping the union and supporting our members.

    If you are interested in joining the committee and would like to find out more about our work before the nominations open in May, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. We would love to see some new faces on the committee for the upcoming year, and we hope that you will consider taking an active role in our union. Let us work together to strengthen our collective voice and achieve positive change for our members.

    Motions sent to Congress and SHESC

    The branch has recently approved two motions to be forwarded to national bodies. The first of these, regarding student engagement in our campaigning and disputes, has been sent to the Special Higher Education Sector Conference scheduled for later in April. This motion urges national UCU to form a working group to extend student engagement during industrial disputes, so as to increase pressure on university managements.

    In addition, the branch has passed a motion for UCU Congress in May. This calls on UCU to move away from using the term and principles of Equality, and instead adopt the concept of Equity. The reason for this change is that Equity, as a concept, recognises that not all individuals start from the same place, and some may require greater support to reach fair outcomes. We believe that adopting the term Equity will both serve our members better and contribute to a more just society.

    Both motions are available to read here.

    University of Leeds petition

    We express our condemnation of the recent decision by management at the University of Leeds to implement 100% pay deductions for staff who did not deliver teaching missed on strike days. This approach goes beyond the usual deductions applied across the sector for strike action and is punitive and provocative.

    We urge our members to join us in signing the petition to revoke the 100% pay deduction threat for action short of a strike (ASOS) at Leeds. It is crucial that we stand together in solidarity with other branches and push back against this unjust treatment of our colleagues. Let us send a clear message that such actions will not be tolerated and that we demand fair and respectful treatment of all staff.

    LUCU Committee

  • LUCU June News: Workload / USS & 4 Fights / LSU

    Workload: Project Enable

    Colleagues involved in Phase 1 of Project Enable, the University’s review of workload, have thus far identified 77 areas where work could either be removed from the system or processes could be revised to create more headroom in staff workloads.  For example, a new triage system has been set up in the Research Office so faster decisions can be made on contract approvals, and bureaucracy is being reduced in the staffing approval process.

    Changes are being made to the Ethics Approval process for both staff and student projects, which will reduce the amount of checking and save time for both PS and RTE colleagues, particularly in SSEHS and SDCA where staff have highlighted this as a workload stressor. Also, changes to a range of practices around learning and teaching, such as module and programme approval processes, are either underway or are being planned. LUCU welcomes these initiatives as they afford potential to free up time for professional services & RTE colleagues. 

    The work carried out by the branch committee on the Task and Finish workload groups for RTE and Professional Services staff informed Phase 1 of Project Enable. In June, the Programme Board, chaired by Richard Taylor, will meet to carry out a prioritisation exercise to determine the workstreams for Phase 2 of Project Enable.  This exercise will consider the impact, effort required, beneficiaries and appetite for change in each of the items identified in Phase 1.

    LUCU will be represented by Mary Brewer in Phase 2, who will join the Project Group. She will work closely with Sue Hignett as Equalities Officer to assess the EDI implications of proposed changes. Management recognizes that Phase 1 is unlikely to have captured all the activities where we might change working practices; therefore, members are encouraged to pass on ideas/suggestions for smarter working in their areas by speaking to their Department Rep or emailing UCU@lboro.ac.uk.

    USS and 4 Fights: LUCU solidarity with assessment boycott at University of the Arts, London

    UCU members in a relatively small number of branches began a marking boycott on the 23rd of May, in support of the USS and Four Fights campaigns.  As we are not taking part, our branch has “twinned” with the University of the Arts, London, who are undertaking this action despite threats of 100% pay deductions for partial performance.  The branch committee will offer practical campaign assistance where possible, and to further support our colleagues at UoA, £500 has been donated from our hardship fund to theirs.

    We also urge you to consider donating to their Just Giving page if you can afford it.  This small number of colleagues are taking on a huge burden on behalf of us all, and any financial solidarity we can offer them will make a real difference to those who face having their pay withheld.

    LUCU and LSU

    At recent EGMs, members have asked us to prioritise establishing supportive exchanges with Loughborough Students’ Union (LSU), and we can report good progress on this front. Though mindful of the need to reflect a range of student opinion on campus, LSU has been helpful in soliciting material from us about our reasons for taking industrial action and in posting this on their social media platforms.

    With a possible marking boycott in the air, Freya Mason, the LSU President, recently contacted us again. Mary Brewer and Andrew Dix then met with Freya and four of her team. We’re glad to inform members that this was a warm and productive conversation. While it would be unreasonable to expect LSU to be on the barricades with us, they are keen to play whatever role they can in finding solutions to current disputes (most pressingly, the pensions issue). With this in mind, we will be exploring the possibility of tripartite meetings, involving management, LSU and ourselves. At present, exchanges are only bilateral – and we would welcome the chance to make our case with student leaders, as well as managers, in the room.

    We will say more in future newsletters as these initiatives develop (there will be opportunities for collaboration with LSU on other fronts as well, including mental health and equity and inclusion). For the moment, we’d just like to thank Freya and her colleagues for their support this year and to say that we look forward to working equally productively with the incoming LSU team. 

    We hope you have a good break over the extended bank holiday!

    LUCU Committee

  • Global Boycott of University of Leicester

    UCU announced a global boycott of the University of Leicester, starting yesterday 4th May 2021, as the union hit the institution with the ultimate sanction of being greylisted. The announcement comes as Leicester staff also begin a marking and assessment boycott.

    The greylisting sanction is part of a long running dispute over redundancies at the university. The sanction means UCU is asking its members, other trade unions, labour movement organisations and the international academic community tosupport its members at Leicester in any way possible, including by:

    • not applying for any advertised jobs at Leicester
    • not speaking at or organising academic or other conferences at Leicester
    • not accepting invitations to give lectures at Leicester
    • not accepting positions as visiting professors or researchers at Leicester
    • not writing for any academic journal which is edited at or produced by Leicester
    • not accepting new contracts as external examiners for taught courses at Leicester
    • refusing to collaborate on new research projects with Leicester.

    The University of Leicester also faces action short of a strike, which begins today after 84% of UCU Leicester members who voted said they were willing to take industrial action. The action includes a marking and assessment boycott and Leicester staff will stop marking all work from today. The action could impact students’ graduations. UCU said Leicester must lift the threat of compulsory redundancies to end the dispute.

    The university had originally threatened 145 staff with compulsory redundancy, although that number is now slightly lower due to some staff taking voluntary redundancy or accepting inferior contracts. Managers deny there are any financial reasons for planned redundancies and refuse to share data on finances with campus trade unions. But the university’s 2019/20 financial statements show the institution is having to borrow money in order to remain financially viable.

    UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: ‘We will not stand back and allow the University of Leicester to be destroyed by dismal management. Nor will we allow staff and students to pay the price for catastrophic failures of governance. It is rare for UCU to call for a global academic boycott, and doing so reflects the seriousness of the situation. Leicester staff have the support of the whole union in their ongoing action; we all stand alongside them in this fight against brutal job cuts. The university needs to lift its threat of compulsory redundancies if it wants to end this dispute.’

    LUCU Committee