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Summary of key pledges

As General Secretary, I will:

  • EMBED INCLUSIVE AND ACCESSIBLE PRACTICE IN UCU by actively listening and working alongside members to combat racism and ensure unlearning of ableism, homophobia, transphobia and sexism are central to UCU’s culture, practice, and training provision. Expanding and improving online/hybrid access to our events must be part of this work.

  • INCREASE CAMPAIGNING FOR EQUITABLE AND SAFE WORKPLACES by demanding that employers directly combat structural oppression and discrimination: we will relentlessly pursue fair, accessible, and safe working conditions for our members.

  • DEVELOP OUR EVIDENCE BASE to bolster and expedite robust campaigns and negotiation strategies to secure best workplace practices that promote equality and equity. Minimal interpretations of statutory responsibilities are never enough.

  • IMPROVE OUR LEGAL PROVISION by initiating a review of the UCU legal scheme to form recommendations to improve access to support for members in critical and stressful situations that require timely advice.

  • IMPROVE ACCESS TO RAPID SUPPORT FOR MIGRANT MEMBERS via a dedicated mechanism which can respond to urgent deadlines including visa issues or threats of deportation.

  • SUPPORT NETWORK BUILDING FOR MINORITISED COMMUNITIES by working with elected members and staff to make participation in our democratic structures accessible for all communities across the diversity of our membership. 

Read on for more detail or download pdf here

Embedding accessibility and inclusive practice 

Equality is a practice, reflected in how we communicate, organise campaigns, and conduct meetings and events. As a union we must combat racism, and ensure unlearning of ableism, homophobia, transphobia and sexism are central to our union’s culture, as well as our workplaces. I commit to protecting the democratic structures of our union, and to complement them by creating new deliberative spaces outside of formal meetings for informed discussion ahead of decision-making meetings and processes. UCU’s current over-reliance on social media platforms for communications excludes many members, others are actively deterred from engaging with getting involved in what can feel like an unwelcoming and highly sectarian culture. We must support every members’ participation in an inclusive, respectful, and comradely environment.  

I will develop further support for branches, elected representatives, and the leadership team to meet members’ needs. This will include guidance on how to organise accessible meetings and events, on enacting reasonable adjustments and working to establish a ring-fenced fund to support accessible meetings, for example, BSL interpretation,  and events where branches would struggle to meet these costs. I also commit to ongoing development of our training and continuing professional development provision, and to formalising and improving annual Equalities training for the NEC and leadership team. 

Safe and equitable workplaces

Safety is a fundamental issue in our workplaces and organising spaces, from physical demands to the traumatic effects of bigotry, sexual harassment and abuses of power. The financial model underpinning our sector is designed to extract the maximum work from fewer staff, often via insecure contracts. Minoritised, casualised, and PGR members are too often disproportionately affected by risks in our workplaces and experience more barriers in their careers. Our deeply unequal and exclusionary workplaces will only improve if we organise our campaigning and force employers into measurable improvements in our working lives.

The long term impacts are only too familiar. I will propose that UCU updates and scales up or expands our ‘workload is a health and safety issue’ project. Our routine demands must include good organisational stress risk assessments and working practices compatible with physical and psychological well-being. I will also work with staff and elected committees to redouble UCU’s efforts to promote use of the protected statutory facilities time available for health and safety work. This will integrate with our Recruitment and Organising work by increasing rep capacity, and will increase members’ awareness of the protections and limitations of Health and Safety law for the workplace. 

Our deeply unequal and exclusionary workplaces will only improve when we organise to force employers into measurable improvements in our working lives. As one example: enhanced shared parental leave is not yet a right in every workplace or for every staff group, and contractual leave is not fully accessible to migrant members (including PGRs). Tackling this issue will require a campaign with significant planning and resources but will be more effective as a result of branches coordinating via Organising Hubs.

Pandemic risks and climate change

Covid-19 continues to damage the health of many staff and students across our sector, causing and worsening many long-term health conditions. Last year, the World Health Organisation announced that one in ten Covid-19 infections are expected to lead to Long Covid. Climate change increases the risk of future pandemics with equally devastating impacts, with disabled members more at risk. I believe trade unions should be actively involved in anticipatory and emergency planning for future events and will argue strongly for adequate protections in our workplaces and union organising spaces to ensure good air quality and physical and organisational mitigations appropriate to infection levels.  

I equally commit to addressing issues such as bullying, sexual harassment and abuses of power in our workplaces as health and safety concerns. We know for example the significant impacts of exercises such as Ofsted and the REF on mental health (see also Influencing Policy and The Political Landscape).

Developing our evidence base

Members know their lived experience; minoritised members know better than anyone else the real obstacles to progression and promotion. The most important assessments of practice in a workplace should examine the issues members encounter in daily life. However, market metrics and assessment exercises tend to miss these realities, and all too often exacerbate inequality. Official assessment exercises become a means to reinforce rather than challenge discrimination.

Branches and sector committees will be supported to develop strong demands for employers to anticipate and mitigate the unequal impact of assessment exercises and other policies backed by UCU’s own analyses of equality data via the expanded UCU Research Unit (described in Recruitment and Organising). The development of Organising Hubs across UCU will further reinforce our commitment to amplify the voices of minoritised members. This model will help us to coordinate  strategy, and to turn policy into practice and run effective campaigns.

This deeper analysis of employers’ operations in combination with the more horizontal coordination of organising promoted by hubs will help branch reps, member-led groups, and our elected committees to develop connected campaigns for equity, equality and liberation. For example, this connected approach across our sector will reinforce our work in understanding how we can challenge and address the harms caused by far-right activity across campuses and on social media, and how to challenge claims that free speech is at risk if students and staff exercise their right to non-violently protest events or invited speakers (particularly attacks on the right to defend trans people in our communities). This approach will also support our work to counter the erosion of academic freedom in relation to support for causes such as Palestinian rights, Black Lives Matter, and decolonising the curriculum.

Improve our legal provision

I will initiate a review of the legal scheme including gathering the views of members who have accessed it, and the views of branch reps and regional and national officials. The review will focus on determining how we can provide better guidance and support for members, often in critical and highly stressful situations. Minoritised members express frustration in accessing our legal scheme and relevant advice. Feedback indicates this is not always experienced as supportive, particularly by disabled, Black and migrant members. Our union has often tended to be risk averse in using legal frameworks and the Equality Act 2010 to advance the collective interests of members. I commit to further explore how we can better draw upon the law in individual casework and collectively via test cases and legal challenges, in line with UCU policy formed at Congress.

Regular guidance for branches will include up-to-date information on relevant legislation, analysis of relevant case law, and specific advice on the implications of political and policy decisions for the groups of members they affect; this will be produced to reflect key differences across devolved nations and dependencies.  

Supporting network building for minoritised communities  

Racism must be tackled head on, within our union as well as our workplaces. Within FE and HE, legitimised forms of discrimination proliferate: Prevent is routinely used to target Black and minority ethnic staff and students. Disabled, Black and minority ethnic members are disproportionately represented in disciplinary and formal procedures. Self-organising and network building in UCU has traditionally driven significant progress in terms of representation and advocacy for all communities within our diverse membership. I will work with all Equality standing committees, engaging with self-organising communities across UCU to identify and remove barriers to participation in our democratic structures. The review to which I commit in Union Democracy and Decision Making will also inform the development of practical strategies to improve the representation of FE, HE, adult and community education, and prison education members in our equality work.  

This will involve opening clear channels of communication for any minoritised group seeking to organise together, perhaps including through moderated email lists, or accessing support to organise and host meetings. I commit to exploring every avenue to ensure groups and communities such as carers, members from faith-based communities, and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities are supported to build networks and contribute to developing our policy and campaigning activities.  

Rapid support for migrant members


Migrant members often face extremely urgent pressures and deadlines that our current legal scheme struggles to meet. I commit to detailed work to establish mechanisms for more rapid access to specialist support and legal advice. This will bring together elected reps and committees, migrant members across UCU, and staff, to scope and establish a new dedicated response mechanism better able to support migrant members facing visa complications or the threat of deportation. 

Migrant members face significant additional financial and administrative burdens to work in the UK but are not afforded all the same rights. We have a duty to move quickly and responsively in developing guidance and advice on the range of issues migrant members face and keeping it up to date. These issues include immigration fees, the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), salary requirements, barriers to a family life, and threats of deportation. It is just as important that our broader communications include migrant members’ concerns and make clear to all members and branches where specialised advice differs according to migration status (for example with respect to industrial action).  

More than 30% of UK higher education staff are migrants, and a significant proportion of FE staff have migrated to the UK. We must commit to developing structures which will enable education workers and their families to move between education systems in different countries, with full recognition of their knowledge and experience. I commit to amplifying the campaign to eliminate all costs related to movement, whether at government level, or through employers covering the cost of work permits, visas, and health charges. 

I am committed to, and will resource the sustained work required to win better and safer workplace conditions and to promote equity in education and wider society. I am fully committed to the detailed and responsive work it will take for us to become the more inclusive, accessible, and equity driven union our members need.