2024 is, clearly, the year of elections.
Most of the UK has an eye on a pending general election, or – perhaps – the local elections in May that will precede it, or a handful of by-elections that will precede them.
However it is fair to argue that the election with the greatest impact on UK higher education this year might well be that of the University and College Union (UCU) General Secretary (GS).
Jo Grady’s five year term of office, that began back in 2019, is coming to a close. And Jo is standing for another five year term, in competition with three other candidates.
UCU, and other campus unions, play an important role in maintaining the health of the sector. They’re not just there for industrial action – from dispute resolution at a single employer to national pay and pensions negotiations it is generally unions that speak up for staff and staff needs. Rightly or wrongly, the role of general secretary at UCU (the largest and best known of the campus unions) is perceived by some as a kind of a spokesperson for a certain part of the higher education sector: in the same way as Vivienne Stern speaks up for universities as a whole, and Raj Jethwa speaks up for universities as employers, you could see Jo Grady as speaking up for university staff as a whole (and, perhaps inevitably, university academics in particular).
