Letter to the TUC Race Relations Committee

The following letter was sent to the TUC Race Relations committee, and read out by our delegates at the TUC Black Workers’ Conference on 27 April 2024.

Dear TUC Race Relations Committee

We are writing as UCU Black Members’ Standing Committee – the national elected body representing UCU black members within our union structures. As colleagues may be aware, both BMSC and the Unite branch representing UCU staff are in dispute with the senior leadership of UCU. Both disputes arise in response to racism faced by black members and black staff within UCU, and the failures of the organisation to address these matters in any effective way or at all.

For BMSC, as the elected body tasked with organising around issues impacting on black members, the following matters have led to this point:

• Blocking of committee decisions and activities by senior officials without means of redress, including where such decisions reflect union policy;
• Blocking the committee from communicating through the union’s black members’ list;
• Removal of the committee’s support official (a black member of staff with expertise in race equality) with no identified stand-in. This has impacted severely on the ability of the committee to carry out its work and has a knock-on impact on race equality work across the union;
• Repeated failure to address BMSC concerns when raised through other routes. BMSC has attempted to raise motions at our NEC (these have  not been discussed or acted upon), raised a complaint against the senior official blocking BMSC work (no process has been followed and this matter remains unresolved); issued a vote of no confidence in BMSC chair due to actions undermining the collective decisions of the committee (the union disallowed this, with intervention from an official against whom BMSC has an outstanding complaint);
• Lack of support in the preparation and organisation of UCU black members’ conference, leaving the committee exposed and undermining member confidence in UCU race equality work.

Overall, BMSC believes this is a concerted pattern designed to undermine and perhaps contract or remove black members’ structures in UCU. We are very concerned that these issues arise at a time when Unite colleagues in UCU have raised a formal dispute about the mistreatment of their black members. While these matters remain unresolved, BMSC is boycotting UCU work. This includes our delegation to TUC Black Workers’ Conference. While we are disappointed to miss the conference and the opportunity to network with black trade unionists across the movement, we cannot allow UCU to use us as a cosmetic show of commitment to race equality while ignoring serious concerns within the union. In these circumstances, we ask that the Race Relations Committee allow UCU nominees to the committee to be included in the ballot despite absence from conference. We also ask that this letter be circulated to all delegations and observers at conference.

Members of the UCU BMSC:

Juliana Ojinnaka

Benjamin Ajibade

Cecilia Wee 

Miriyam Aouragh

Zoulika Lamamra

Aasiya Lodhi

Dharminder Singh Chuhan 

Kirsten Forkert

Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal 

Saleem Rashid 

Abdullah Yusuf

Member of TUC Race Relations Committee 2023-2024,

Gargi Bhattacharyya 

Statement on racism in UCU from the UCU Black Members’ Standing Committee

15 February 2024

We, elected members of UCU’s Black Members’ Standing Committee, speak out with anger, exhaustion and determination. Despite the progress made in the fight for equality by generations of black activists, we remain alarmingly aware of the pervasive structural racism that plagues our sector and our union — a reality that stands in stark contrast to the values of equality and justice we hold dear. It is with heavy hearts that we find ourselves compelled to publicly express our discontent at our treatment within UCU, and our intention to disengage until our concerns are adequately addressed.

We have so far been extremely reluctant to issue such a statement because we wished to prioritize our union activism, strikes, picket lines and contribution for and in our class. Despite this, we feel obliged to share our disappointment in the entrenched racism and systemic disrespect within our union. For too long we have witnessed an active undermining of our voices and dismissal of our concerns within UCU and lack of meaningful representation. Our attempts to address these injustices have been met alternatingly with resistance, indifference, procedural setbacks and deliberate stalling. We refuse to accept this status quo, and the recent revelations in the Times Higher Education Supplement from UCU members of staff have shaken us and underscored the urgent need for change.

In solidarity with UCU staff who have bravely spoken out against the pervasive ‘culture of fear,’ we stand united in our call for accountability from the union’s leadership. As a committee, our efforts to effect change have been met with bureaucratic hurdles and tokenistic gestures that diminish our agency and representation. Our official complaints have been met with unsatisfactory ‘resolution’, and the union leadership has failed to honour our democratic process, decision-making and political agency. Furthermore, the anti-racist work we do for our constituencies and the wider membership has been further hampered as UCU has not provided us with a dedicated support official for our committee for the last 5 months at this critical time for global anti-racism.

Most notably, the censorship of our Palestine Solidarity statement on UCU official channels stands as the clearest sign of the lack of trust within the union and disrespectful treatment of BMSC https://ucublackmembers.wordpress.com/2023/10/26/ucu-bmsc-statement-on-palestine-and-freedom-of-speech/.

Access to our constituency and the wider membership, as well as decision-making processes, have been and are selectively altered to prevent us from issuing democratically agreed statements and positions.

After our statement was initially denied for publication on UCU communication platforms, the BMSC had to resort to printing copies to distribute manually during UCU’s equality conference in November 2023. The statement that was written and discussed democratically continues to be blocked by unelected UCU management, who refuse to issue it online or to members. When confronted, these actions are legitimized through the Kafkaesque reasoning that ‘UCU already has put out statements on Israel/Gaza’, then we were challenged that decisions should be unanimous (10 members agreed with the statement, 1 was against), despite there being no specific, existing rule for this.

We were further told that our process was not valid as our vote was not taken at a “formal” meeting, and finally we were shut down by the claim that since there is no mechanism for publishing statements, our statement cannot be published,which completely contradicts the fact that we have had previous statements published on UCU channels numerous times. When we pointed out that this latter assumes there is no mechanism to block it either, we were met with no answer except stunned silence. We refuse to be tokenized any longer.

The time for action is now. We demand that UCU’s management, led by General Secretary Jo Grady, take decisive action to dismantle the systems of oppression that marginalize, subjugate, humiliate and silence black members and discriminate against our black sisters and brothers who work for the union. We have shared our deep concerns over our poor treatment informally numerous times and formally at many meetings as well as eventually through complaint procedures. Alas, all in vain. Our voices remain unheard and treated as unwanted.

We know that this statement will also be used as an opportunity to portray the committee as unreasonable and anti-white, and that other black members in the union don’t agree with the writers of this statement or that we are obsessed with Palestine. We know that there will be attempts to smear and isolate us when we are merely standing up for our rights and the urgent need to challenge “white structures”, a term that was apparently considered a major transgression in relation to the committee.

All these experiences have shown that the actual paradigm of progressive anti-racist trade-unionism – which acknowledges that institutional power is not immune from dominant ideas about gender, sexuality, race and disability –  is not understood.

As a committee we don’t entertain liberal identity politics. We are progressives and we critique ideological weaknesses. We hold to account undemocratic organizational tendencies and injustices that our comrades experience.
Regarding Palestine, we write and act as part of our work standing shoulder to shoulder with the millions of peoples in the Global South and with groups in the UK calling for an immediate ceasefire and freedom and justice for Palestine, just as our black trade union predecessors did for many years.

We do not take our decision lightly and it comes now as we have exhausted all internal processes within the union. This statement is our last resort: we have no choice but to boycott further engagement in UCU until genuine engagement and action is taken by the leadership and until an external investigation into UCU’s conduct is underway.

Benjamin Ajibade
Miriyam Aouragh
Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal
Dharminder Singh Chuhan
Kirsten Forkert
Zoulika Lamamra
Aasiya Lodhi
Saleem Rashid
Cecilia Wee
Abdullah Yusuf

UCU BMSC STATEMENT ON PALESTINE AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

PUBLISHED ON: https://www.ucu.org.uk/black-voices

The Black Members’ Standing Committee of UCU (BMSC) abhors the violence that has claimed innocent Palestinian, Lebanese and Israeli lives in recent days. We extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends who have lost loved ones and who continue to do so at this very moment. We were glad to read the communique sent out by UCU on 13 October 2023 which reaffirms that “achieving a lasting peace in the region must start with an end to the occupation and a recognition of the rights of all people”. We agree with UCU’s assessment that ‘the events of recent days are part of a continuing cycle of violence that has been the result of decades of brutal occupation.’ Palestinians have lived in a perpetual state of fear and suffering for the past 75 years, facing both slow and sudden forms of death. As the Standing Committee of this member-led union – one that exists in the service of Black staff and by extension Black students to whom we have a duty of care – we are also very concerned for our constituents in FE, HE and in the post-16 education sector (including Adult and Prison Education), and all Black colleagues outside it. For this reason, we make two points.

Firstly, global political conflicts do not only happen innocuously far away but usually because of the continuation of past colonial structures of injustice. These are in turn tied to political-economic systems including, such as the British military industrial complex. In other words: British colonialism means that for many of us here the developments there are not abstract and we call on the UK government to urge Israel to halt its siege in Gaza. The BMSC is alarmed about the worrying developments it observed over the past days. We note in particular the calls for censure of academics in British universities that targets mostly educators of colour. We have taken note of a shocking shift against those who express concern for Palestinian rights or who detail Israel’s violation of human rights are facing direct threats. It is our duty to express solidarity and raise concerns when our rights and safety is at risk. We are heartened by the UCU’s statement which reminds that Staff must not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as citizens, including the right to contribute to social change through free expression of opinion on matters of public interest. We recognise that this may touch upon sensitive or controversial issues. We share the concerns laid out in the statement of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) of 14 October 2023, and we encourage all members to access the tool kit on academic freedom shared by Warwick UCU. Please contact us if you are facing harassment or feel you are being targeted. We will raise awareness for the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), which defends advocates of Palestinian rights across the UK.

Secondly, we are anti-racist trade unionists and continuing the legacy of trade union history, in cases of colonial injustice our affiliation lies with the oppressed. Our shared trade union and antiracism history has been enriched by the solidarity between struggles for self-determination and equality around the world. This has been informed by the anti-imperialism of activist scholars such as Stuart Hall, CLR James, and Angela Davis, and of course the legacy of the British Black Panthers and Darcus Howe, Althea Jones-Lecointe, and others, shaped our political histories. It’s been heartening to see the internationalism and affinity amongst the marginalized and the global dynamic of solidarity. The kinship between Black political voices about Palestine in the past week has been extraordinary, especially their reminder that Decolonisation is Not a Metaphor. As has been documented and shown in many examples over the past days – for instance activists for Black Lives in Ferguson, who received support from Palestine, and now returning this radical love – this is an important heritage. But this spirit is also thanks to those in the Black radical tradition in Britain who paved the way before us, we have a platform today as Black workers in unions. This year is the 50th anniversary of the National Conference of Trade Unionists Against Racism, its wide-ranging deliberations about black autonomy in the unions indeed need to be recognised and we will not allow this heritage to be swept under the carpet in order to be seen as acceptable. We do not perform our presence as evidence of diversity in the union: we convey our diversity through how we co-shape the policies of the union. 

Black politics is about working-class struggles for equality and it stands for internationalism, solidarity and liberation. These are our core ethics and for that reason the BMSC deplores the injunction to condemn acts, the demand to address “both sides” when discussing Palestine. This rejection is not whataboutism but a basic understanding of the power structure shaping the colonized versus the colonizer. As Desmond Tutu said, ‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’ Some may think that not explicitly condemning or publicly grieving is akin to accepting the indiscriminate murder of civilians. We want to reiterate, loudly, that calling attention to the systematic discrimination of Palestinians and/or criticizing the Israeli government for its contravention of international law must not be conflated with antisemitism. In fact, where it concerns Palestine/Israel, how to grieve is a ‘political question whether we like it or not.’ This is an important reminder that the demands for such public expressions constitutes the structural and everyday racism we reject. This is not separate from a longer existing racism faced by our Muslim and Arab colleagues in particular who are subject to Prevent policies that are widely identified as racist. These assumptions exist in part due to a dehumanizing narrative about Palestine and Palestinians.

In conclusion, we remind that our union’s Congress carried several motions this year, reaffirming its commitment to solidarity with Palestinian liberation. These include: a duty to report on the moral and political consequences of Israeli policies with regards to attacks on academic freedom; to protect students and staff under attack for supporting the cause of the Palestinian people; to continue to pledge support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). We thus reiterate that UCU reaffirms its commitment in support of anticolonial struggles and academic freedom, including against the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. We wholehearted support to our Palestinian educator colleagues whose universities have been bombed and who face an unprecedented challenge in continuing with their work. We send our solidarity to the Palestinian University Union and we ask others to do the same. 

BMSC

UCU black members conference 16th November

UCU black members’ annual meeting is an opportunity to network with a
range of black educators at all stages of their careers, consider
workplace and professional issues and learn more about issues
impacting on our communities. It is free to attend and you will be
reimbursed travel expenses.

The UCU’S annual meeting for black members’ will be held on Friday 16
November 2012 at Carlow street, London, NW1 7LH from 10:30am
(registration at 10am) to 4:30pm.
The theme of this year’s conference is members building your union,
the job you save could be your own.
The meeting will include speakers who will be confirmed nearer the
time. There will be plenty of opportunity throughout the day to
network with other colleagues. We will also be having workshops The
conference will discuss and vote on motions that have been submitted
by branches/local associations. The carried motions will be used to
advise the NEC about the views of black members. Nominations to the
committee will be collected and counted during the day.
o Registration deadline – Friday 2 November
o
Registration
Branches/LA’s are encouraged to register using our online registration
form. Please click the link below. The form will only take a couple of
minutes to fill out.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Black-members2012

The deadline for registration and nomination is 5:00pm on Friday 2nd
November 2012.

Stephen Lawrence Trust

Stephen Lawrence Trust

Doreen Lawrence spoke at TUC Black Workers Conference in April 2012 about the need to ensure that her son, Stephen, was remembered for more than being the victim of an act of murderous violence. The Stephen Lawrence Trust assists young people who wish to pursue careers in architecture and design. Please consider supporting their important work.

What is BMSC?

BMSC is the Black Members Standing Committee, the national committee to represent black and minority ethnic members in the University and College Union.

We meet four times a year and organise an annual conference for all black members of UCU.

Our work informs the equality and anti-racist work of the union. If you want to get in touch with us, you can email the committee at ucublackmembers@gmail.com

 

 

WELCOME TO UCU BLACK MEMBERS

This site is to share information between UCU Black Members Standing Committee and UCU black members.

Please let us know what kinds of information would be useful to include.