Academic common room
Jo Grady UCU tour and Post-92s
Pota2 · 17/09/2019 12:49
I don’t currently work for a post 92 but have studied at one and I think that it’s important to stick together on union issues. Jo Grady has announced that she will be going on tour and visiting a number of UCU branches in her new role as GS of the UCU. There are about 20 odd universities on the list. Not a single post-92. Zilch. Nada. Wtf. I refuse to think this isn’t deliberate. I have seen her take an excessively RG-focused approach before but this is deliberately excluding a large part of the university sector and I think it’s pretty outrageous. There is no excuse as many of the towns she is visiting have a post-92 too so she could make a choice to visit that or visit both. Is this the future now?
I also think that the recent guardian piece on pensions had the measure of her, although her fanclub is protesting on twitter. She is out of her depth and has an unrealistic belief that a final salary scheme is still a viable option, as per her PhD thesis.
For those of us at pre-92s, I fear a load of strikes that will get us nowhere because the union is led by someone who is more interested in tweeting about her lipstick or Zara coat than actually doing her job and seems intent on excluding a significant proportion of the sector because their universities are not seen as good enough.
StrikeAPosy · 17/09/2019 13:07
I was under the impression that most post-92s were members of the teachers union, not UCU? I might be wrong about that.
For me, all of her rhetoric is about pensions and very little else. Since most post-92s are in the teachers pension (again, I think but I might be wrong), I just don't think she sees them as being part of her universe.
I agree, she is out of her depth. She lacks the experience and credibility needed for a union leader. I genuinely think she could do some real damage to the UCU.
Pota2 · 17/09/2019 13:13
Post-92 academics are all part of UCU and each uni has a branch, same as the pre-92 ones. She is just excluding them despite them forming a large part of the union.
This is the tour to celebrate her being elected as GS. Obviously she doesn’t see the post-92s as being important to her role. Totally agree that she is focused on a single issue- pensions. And her ideas are all theoretical and unworkable and she is likely to stick on points of compromise.
I am going to vote no for pension strike and yes for precarity strike. She is seriously going to do so much damage. And that’s not even mentioning her attitude to academic freedom and the fact that before she needed their vote, she blocked a huge number of female academics.
StrikeAPosy · 17/09/2019 13:40
Oh, I didn't know that. That's really ill-informed of me, sorry.
In that case, I totally agree. I think she's an expert at surrounding herself with her fans and existing in an echo chamber. My guess would be that the loudest voices in her campaign were from RG branches so those are the ones she's visiting.
I'm in a very pro-Grady department and it's horrible. I actually fell out with a colleague over her blocking feminists on Twitter 
Has anyone asked her on Twitter why she isn't visiting post-92s? I came off Twitter a while ago so can't see replies.
GCAcademic · 17/09/2019 13:46
She isn't visiting the post-92s because it's all about the pensions issue for her. That's the only reason she even got involved in union politics (less that two years ago) in the first place.
I completely agree that she's out of her depth and is about to wreak a huge amount of damage to the union. She should stick to posting pouting selfies on Twitter, that's about her level of competence.
Pota2 · 17/09/2019 14:14
So true GCAcademic. Have seen a few grumblings from the branches of post-92s but not much engagement with their comments from Grady. I don’t get the supposedly intelligent people who thought that electing her would be a great move. Not only does she have next to no union experience, she also has zero background in leadership or management. This is one of the largest trade unions in the country and she is being paid a six figure salary.
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