Dr John Hogan (Anglia Ruskin University)

post-92

Election address

I am a Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations at ARU, Chair of our UCU Branch, as well as holding a Fellowship with the Harvard University Labor and Worklife program. 

While membership is now higher than ever, our union faces profound challenges.  Pay, pensions and job security are under attack.  Workplace stress is soaring.  With the pandemic, health and safety are sacrificed to meet the venal pursuit of profit by University leaders.

HE is now a major source of community transmission.  General Secretary and President, Jo Grady and Vicky Blake, have led the way in exposing failure.  Local Branches are mobilising.  Unity is essential.  Our core mission is to advance the interests of our members. To do so, we need to organise to win.  This requires civil and considered dialogue.  The establishment of UCU Commons represents a welcome opening, while established formations, with experience and commitment, have much to contribute.

Experience informs my candidacy.  At ARU, membership has grown by 70% in the last five years. We have not lost a single disciplinary case in six years.  With the last three reorganisations and cuts programmes, we have prevented compulsory redundancies at every turn.  With the Covid crisis, we were the first UCU branch to declare an official dispute.  We won.  We have achieved all of this because the branch leadership enjoys the trust of members, in no small part because of the long history of case work victories, and the expert support from our UCU Regional Official.

We need to be smart and strategic.  There are a range of tactics on offer.  Strikes require careful planning and execution, with clear objectives and realistic timely assessments of what can and cannot be achieved.  We need to embrace alternative and complementary tactics.  With bullying, workplace stress and corruption out of control, the judicious and aggressive application of legal action and the devotion of resources to forensic accounting, could be used to place our "masters" under pressure.  Imposing transparency and showcasing errant behaviour in the media and courts might well prove productive in enforcing better behaviour.  Likewise, democratising the academy, to elect leaders and University Governors, could give us the leverage to check the invasion by private business interests into our world of public service.

There is much to be done, to advance the aim of progressive education.  We must not lose sight of the climate emergency and the fall-out from Brexit.  Internationalism is key.  With the reunification of Ireland in view, it is time to open up discussions with our sister unions in the Republic.    Solidarity with the Palestinian people must intensify.  Following the BLM movement, to meet the challenge of de-colonialising education, we need to put our own house in order.