Jamie Melrose (University of Bristol)

Election address

Do you want an experienced University trade unionist on your NEC, well versed in your priorities, with a track record of improving working conditions?

Do you want a decision-maker on NEC, with a track record of working with UCU members, committed to making UCU decision-making transparent, strategic and rooted in your workplace priorities?

If the answer is yes, vote Jamie for NEC.

I am an hourly-paid casualised teacher at the University of Bristol. I am also the branch Anti-Casualisation Officer and Secretary, a serial caseworker - on cases collective as well as individual -, and am also UCU South West Regional Chair.

As part of the branch officer team of the Bristol branch, I have:

• spent nearly ten years negotiating and representing members, securing workplace gains
• helped build the branch into one of the strongest in HE.
• secured employer commitments to reduce the use of casualised contracts and close the gender pay gap
• defended members dismissed on draconian performance management grounds
• secured the back payment of exploited fixed-term staff working over grade

I am proud of being part of a branch dedicated to members' interest and concerns.

I consider myself a UCU 'militant', not because of any untested verbal radicalism, but because of my work on the HE shop floor, building a union which afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. I want to make sure that this unionism, a well-organised, demand-driven UCU is represented on our NEC.

If elected to NEC, my standards will be transparency, strategic thinking and the language of priorities.

Transparency. UCU decision-making needs to be clear and open to members. That means representative, inclusive decision-making by as large a proportion of members as possible.

Strategy. When I served on UCU's Commission for Effective Industrial Action, I pushed for a UCU that had plan, that had a medium to long-term vision for its collective UK UCU struggle for improved terms and conditions, centred on building pre andpost-92 branches.

Priorities. For a union committed to improving the working condition and status of migrant members, or tackling academic-related staff's precarious, re-structuring rife working life, words alone are not enough. We as UCU must resource these priorities properly.

I promise that a vote for me is a vote for an organisational turn in UCU.

Our second Great University Strike in two years has provided the foundation for a strong UCU in every university.

Together let's guarantee that happens.

Vote Jamie for NEC.

Go to https://jamie4nec.home.blog/ for more on my campaign.