Jaya John John (University of Oxford)

Election address

Jaya John John, Lead Electronics Engineer, Department of Physics, University of Oxford

I joined UCU in February 2018 to strike for USS. Since then I have become ever more involved in my branch, starting by giving pensions presentations to members during the strike. I then became a departmental rep and joined committee as our joint pensions officer. In October, I jointly coordinated our first ever Get The Vote Out for the Pay and Equality ballot, and at the end of October, I became co-president of our branch.

I have also learned about national UCU work through attending Congress, the Recall Congress and three special higher education sectoral conferences. If you attended any of these, you might remember me for concise speeches. In preparing for these meetings, I drew together working groups in Oxford to prepare motions, to reinforce UCU policy on pensions and procedures. In June, I joined USSbriefs, contributing to podcasts, research and pensions briefs. I also worked with the Branch Solidarity Network to successfully encourage branches to register delegates for the 21 June Special HESC on USS.

What I have learned in my time in UCU is that unions are a great force for good and that, although these are very challenging times in higher education, by working together we can not only defend, but improve our working conditions.

What you can see from my work to date is that my approach is to work together on our collective priorities such as defending USS and Pay and Equalities. I also have improved our branch communications, by keeping members updated more frequently, by introducing a branch blog (https://oxforducu.wordpress.com) to provide in-depth information and by arranging meetings for members on pensions and Pay & Equality.

If you elect me to the NEC and HEC to represent the South, I will work to improve communications and accountability and to strengthen UCU's hand in defending and improving our conditions. I will:

-   report on NEC and HEC meetings regularly to the UCU Regional committees and branch committees which are within the NEC South geographical area.

-  work for NEC and HEC minutes to be published promptly.

-  help to make it easier to understand UCU's structures and workings.

-   work to strengthen our hand by helping to distribute best practice with Get The Vote Out and by improving national knowledge of the most effective timing of ballots and industrial action.

-  work on precarity and UCU's movement towards progressive membership subscriptions.

I am standing alongside my USSbriefs colleagues, Deepa Govindarajan Driver, Jo Grady, and Nick Hardy and I would like to warmly recommend them to you.