Tomorrow’s Higher Education Committee meeting of the UCU will decide whether or not to put the offer tabled by UUK to a ballot of union members. At our branch meeting in Bristol, I was among a large majority in favour of this ballot. There are, I now realise, good reasons why the proposal should not […]

Read more "Deal or No Deal"

  There is something rotten in the university. We feel it, and we know it from simple statistics. It is the statistics on the gender pay gap. It is the collapse in numbers of mature students in higher education.  It is student mental health and suicide rates. It is staff being told year after year […]

Read more "Solidarity is a Feeling"

The USS pension deficit is not the problem. The occult workings of UUK are the problem. Universities UK (UUK) exists in a realm that floats high above the firmament of the University. Even the most proactive staff and students, those who labour to understand the workings of the deans, pro-vice-chancellors, beadles, and archangels of their […]

Read more "Who are UUK anyway?"