Dr Chris Grocott (University of Leicester)
29 January 2021
Election address
I have been a member of our union for nearly fifteen years, having joined in 2006 when the union was founded. For seven years after that, I was precariously employed, jobbing around a number of HE institutions - Post-92s (MMU, DMU) and Pre-92s (Lancaster, Birmingham). Since 2013, I have been employed as a Lecturer in Management and Economic History at the University of Leicester School of Business.
I have been involved in campaigns against redundancies, casualisation, and harassment during my time in our union and have acted as a case worker. My experiences and expertise gained over my career could have led me to focus on any one of the issues which our union bargains over. Yet, I surprised myself by getting most involved in - what should be - the dry subject of pensions. Sadly, for UCU members pensions are a highly contested issue. It is in this area that I will bring considerable expertise to NEC.
At present I am:
UCU nominated Chair of the USS Advisory Board;
Member of the UCU Superannuation Working Group;
Leicester UCU Pensions Officer and member of the university's pensions working group;
Member/Editor USSbriefs (@USSbriefs on Twitter).
I also have experience of working for the union when, between 2007-09, I was employed by Lancaster UCU as a Branch Organiser.
On NEC I will work for:
Strategic action on USS, tying industrial action to specific concrete goals;
Affordable pensions for precariously employed staff;
Focussing the priorities of NEC on issues that directly and materially affect staff such as precarity; safety (especially during crises such as Covid); pensions; and equality.
The challenges faced in decent pension provision reflect broader problems in our sector and society - inequality, discrimination, unfair pay, precarity, to name a few. We will only solve the problems of pension provision when we tackle these issues, and I will work on your NEC to advance our union's campaigns on these issues.
I am a member of the new UCU Commons network (www.UCUCommons.org) and share its principles on equality and transparency.
You can contact me at cagrocott@hotmail.com and follow me on Twitter @DrChrisGrocott
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