It’s that time of year. Yay.
TL;DR
UCUCommons is running a slate. Please vote for them. It would make my life easier. They are very good and sensible folks. We don’t always agree but we try to work together to make things better.
We asked questions and got (some) answers. On this basis we have endorsements. (It was not a slam dunk for anyone outside our slate except maybe Mark Taylor-Batty. I’m not saying we’d have endorsed alternatives, but there’s a general mood which is wary of endorsements in Commons.)
I endorse Jo Grady for GS and it sort of follows (not entirely) that I think voting her slate is a good idea. Some of our slate appears there…maybe all of it? I know some of the others directly and can vouch personally for Ann Gow and Janet Farrar. I believe on fiscal and industrial matters Andrew Feeney and our former Honorary Treasurer, Steve Sangwine for trustee are good picks. I’ve worked with these folks on HEC and NEC and for industrial dispute strategy they seem fine.
Background
UCU has so many elections. We have significant ones every year which can shift the direction of the union profoundly. Vice-president (alternating FE and HE) and about half of NEC every year. These generally are super low turnout elections and NEC can be highly gerrymandered with the regional seats. (For example, some seats…such as the disabled members rep for HE had ≈6000 votes to make quota while some regional seats make quota with <500.)
Every 5 years we also elect the General Secretary, for which turn out goes higher. Last time it was about 20%. GS is an important but not paramount role. The GS is often a focus point for people’s feelings about UCU and how things are going but a lot of the praise or blame is not grounded in the actual facts in part because the public face of an org gets loads of praise or blame, UCU’s structures are complex (the fact that the sectoral “VP” we elect has as much or more influence over sectoral negotiations than the GS is not very well understood), and some folks actively promote the misunderstanding. Not great.
But the GS role is important and we should try to elect a good one. Or at least the best of those running.
Big picture
The most important point to realize is that there are deep and fundamental divisions in UCU. I can mostly speak from an HE perspective, but one divide seems to span both sectors: what’s a good strategy for our disputes.
To simplify, we have the maximalists and build-and-bankers. (Note, I’ll present the views in a super simplified form.) The maximalists believe that maximal demands couple with maximal (declared) action is the way to go. Last Congress, we had motions and speeches in favor of indefinite, continuous strikes. Indeed, some speakers asserted that the mere threat of an indefinite, continuous strike would end most disputes before they started. (The evidence is quite against them, fwiw.) Build-and-bankers believe that action must be guided by expected utility and that realistic assessments of resources is critical to success. They tend to think that partial wins and harm minimization help build strength whereas lots of calls to action with little progress is demoralizing.
Historically, in HE, maximalists have favored disaggregated ballots because that maximizes the chances of some action happening. Build-and-bankers have favored aggregated ballots on the “longer the picket line, the shorter the strikes”. Maximalists tend to think that action in itself build momentum and is the locus of organizing (“snowball theory”) where as build-and-bankers think that loads of action without progress demobilizes (“snowman theory”).
I’ve lots more to say about this in detail, but, I think it is obvious that I’m a build-and-banker. I think we need to analyze the power differentials, the psychology and red lines of management, and our own resources carefully. I think we need to build toward smart action and go from win to win rather than massive winner takes all campaigns.
Given this divide, the election (as most UCU elections) comes down to a choice between a maximalist or build-and bank approach. (It might be different in FE, but I see some similar currents there.)
Jo Grady is a consistent build-and-banker and the only one running who’s even close, as far as I can tell. Thus, she gets my wholehearted endorsement. This is probably the most important issue for UCU,. So vote for her and vote for her slate. Both are important.
Vicky Blake and Saira Weiner are in the maximalist camp albeit in different positions. UCULeft is deeply and often weirdly committed to snowball theory which extends to claims that “we can always raise money for. the fighting fund” which, speaking as someone who was on the local hardship fund committee just isn’t true. Blake is not UCULeft (though their second choice) but a lot of her closest allies on NEC seem friendly to Socialist Alternative or seem to be “UCULeft adjacent” (on industrial action approaches…UCULeft has some views many find abhorrent). They are firmly in the maximalist camp though less bonkers about it. I did not find Blake to be a helpful moderating force last year whether on indefinite strikes (or the weird escalating strikes) or on the decision that led to the MAB (which I campaigned against). [ETA: On USS, as Mike Otsuka helpfully notes, Blake was a useful moderating force and made the right call. Weiner and McGaughey did not. This seems like a low bar as the decision to accept the USS deal seemed so easy but it’s definitely worth noting that two of the candidate failed to meet that bar. Credit to Blake that she did.] We could have had what we’re going to get wrt the 4Fights for a lot less of our pain and suffering and lost income and we really could have gotten no better. This was knowable and the maximalists never gave any evidence to the contrary.
Grady pushed early on for aggregated ballots, for well timed ballots, for long ballot periods with good lead in. She also pushed against indefinite, continues action with no prep, to her cost. I don’t think I’d made the same tactical moves that she did but she was in a tough situation. She made some hard choices and this enraged some maximalists. Her “smart” move would have been to let HEC go its own way and let the failures clearly belong to the narrow majority which pushed through an unworkable “plan” with little prep. I try to stick to my collective responsibility obligations and did so, with pain, at the time. But, it’s election time so a bit of airing of linen is reasonable. (Note that many of my fellow HEC members do not adhere to collective responsibility at all.)
Grady has been analytical correct at every step of the way afaict. She does not dodge responsibility and does not shy from doing what she thinks is best for the union. HEC has sent her on many of fools mission over the past 5 years and she has done what’s required. She has also sought to give a voice to the broader membership including to smaller and less well organized branches. These are very good things in a GS.
But if you want a maximalist, Weiner is the most reliable there, but Blake is likely to be swayed by a maximalist dominated N/HEC. It’s your right to prefer such a strategy. I’d encourage you to think hard about it, though. Tough times are coming and we need to be very smart about how we fight.
You’ll note that Ewan McGaughey doesn’t appear above. That’s because the only thing I’ve seen of him especially at a national level was a boondoggle, lost lawsuit that he wanted UCU to back in spite of its rules. He doesn’t seem to be a serious candidate to me.
UPDATE: This morning (5 Feb 2024), I read in McGaughey’s email to UCU:
“Vote by record and conscience! Here are my picks:
• General Secretary, second or third, vote Vicky Blake or Saira Weiner – they’re organised + work with other people.
•Vice President, vote Peter Evans – easily the most experienced + qualified.
To the degree that this is coherent, it, in essence, endorses a maximalist position. Who knows where he’d come down, but his second choices for GS are maximalist and he doesn’t care what flavour. This just seems mindlessly anti Grady. The reasons for the endorsements are embarrassingly vacuous.
Doesn’t seem serious to me.
Finally, it’s important to remember that experience actually does help. The GS is a big administrative and political job with a lot of constraints. Someone “new” might seem better but they’ll face a learning curve wherein they will find that things are hard to do that then were to imagine. Grady may have blemishes on her track record in your eyes but that’s because she has a track record in the job. Adjust your anticipations appropriately.
And The Rest
I don’t think splitting your ticket makes a whole lot of sense unless you know some particular person you like a lot. Even then…if you are a maximalist, you kinda want your votes to go for maximalists. If you are a build-and-banker, I’m not sure voting for a maximalist you’re pals with is going to give you outcomes you want. For the last year, HEC, at least, has been on a knife edge for votes. The year before was more heavily weighted toward the maximalists. (The reason we didn’t do indefinite continous was the overwhelming results of the survey and BDM. Even there, the hard core maximalists (i.e., UCULeft) still voted for it but suffered defections from the soft maximalist (which seem to be Friends of Vicky; some who designed the escalation alternative are her endorsers).
Each side of the divide has to work with the other side, at least some of the time. Neither side is going away soon: There is strength of feeling and reasonable numbers on both sides. There’s no magic independents that can harmonize this at all. It’s not even clearly factional. There are declared factions which are strongly on one side or the other (e.g., UCULeft for maximalising; UCUCommons for build and banking) but there are a range of individuals, antifactionalites, crypofactions, loose groupings, friend groups, etc. who fall on one side or the other. These might be in bitter disagreement on other matters (e.g., what’s left of IBL is way too TERFy and TERF tolerant to ever get my vote; though they have internal division there) but dispute strategy is cross cutting.
In Conclusion
I’m a harm-minimisng, good-maximizing, radical democrat with a strong technocratic bent with, I think, a strong moral compass. My considerations may not chime with you. I encourage you to vote and to vote your perceived interests.
This post is all my own doing. I didn’t show it to anyone. It is not supported by UCUCommons in any way or by the Grady4GS campaign. I’ll probably give the Grady4GS campaign an endorsement, but this is the “grumpy” version.
It’s obviously ok to disagree with me, but I’m not terribly interested in being abused or getting into a long debate about these views. If you found this helpful great. If you found this helpful to bookmark for next year’s NEC elections in case I run so you remember to vote against me…also, fine! If you have a sort of technocratic question that might help inform your vote, please feel free to contact me.
Update: There’s been a few (anonymous) queries/challenges about whether Socialist Alternative is on NEC etc (see comments or Twitter for details). I’ve softened those claims as getting conclusive, direct evidence even when I recall there being some is proving elusive. I believe those claims and don’t think they are objectionable per see but given that people might object it’s better to hedge a bit.
Also, I’ve have had personable, friendly interactions with Grady, Weiner, and Blake in the course of N/HEC and Congress/Conferences. I’ve had disagreements and agreements with each on a variety of topics. But I think the core strategy divide is clear and if you care about it (either way) you choice between Grady vs Blake or Weiner is equally clear. Any of the candidates will have to face the realities of the job including the political divide in UCU.
Update Codicil
I’ve updated the post in a few places in response to feedback. I think these are mostly nuances which don’t affect the main point. I welcome factual corrections always.
(Note that I may or may not see a post on various social media for a variety of reasons. So feel free to put a link to something as a comment or cut and paste a challenge from elsewhere. Thus far, most of the corrections have been anonymously given so feel free to continue that trend! For judgment disagreements I think it’d help if you presented a stable identity with a track record but it’s up to you.)
And of course you might disagree with my judgments and preferences. This is a personal view and a brian dump of my thinking. I did not do a detailed analysis of votes, speeches, posts, etc of each candidate. Nor do I think it’s incumbent on me to do so. I don’t think any personal endorsement I’ve seen rises to that standard. I’d be interested if there were one! So pointers welcome.
Mitigated Frenzy 