Dr Chris Grocott (University of Leicester)

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