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
ucublackmembers 