Members of the 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ and College Union¡¯s national executive committee have said that they will boycott a key meeting, claiming that they have been ¡°prohibited¡± from discussing the industrial dispute raging between the union and its own staff.

UCU employees who are themselves members of the Unite union are entering the final days of six weeks of escalating walkouts amid rows over pay, an allegedly ¡°toxic¡± working culture, and claims of ¡°institutional racism¡±.

Fourteen members of the NEC ¨C UCU¡¯s main day-to-day governing body ¨C said in a statement that they had hoped to raise the dispute at a meeting on 2 May, the last one before the UCU congress later this month.

But they wrote that they had been ¡°blocked and implicitly threatened for endeavouring to raise our concerns¡±, and told that staffing matters ¨C beyond anything reported by general secretary Jo Grady in her NEC report ¨C were ¡°not business for NEC discussion or decision¡±.

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¡°We have been prohibited from talking about this dispute and told that asking questions about this or mentioning the dispute is a health and safety violation as it causes stress for senior managers,¡± write the 14.

As a result, they say that they will?not attend the meeting unless UCU¡¯s leaders return to negotiations with staff and the Unite industrial action is suspended, noting that trade unionists ¡°should not cross a picket line¡±.

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Signatories to the statement include Vicky Blake, a former UCU president, higher education committee (HEC) vice-chair Lucy Burke, UCU Scotland vice-president Grant Buttars and recent vice-presidential candidate Rhiannon Lockley.

Their intervention came as Times Higher Education reported staff complaints that employees leaving UCU had been asked to accept confidentiality clauses, despite the union¡¯s railing against universities¡¯ use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). UCU said that its ¡°warranties¡± to ¡°avoid criticism and derogatory comments¡± were not NDAs, adding that two such agreements had been arranged since September 2023.

Unite has also complained that out-of-office emails referencing the strike have been amended to remove any mention of the industrial action.

Unite members held a rally outside UCU¡¯s Camden offices on 1 May, coinciding with staff at the 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ of East Anglia and Birmingham City 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ taking strike action against job cuts.

¡°Silencing dissenting voices is a luxury afforded to those in power. It erodes trust, good faith and democracy and makes already bad situations much worse,¡± the NEC members¡¯ statement said.

¡°This crisis in our union demands leadership ¨C and a leadership prepared to listen and engage constructively with staff concerns.

¡°The dispute needs to be resolved and our union must model the behaviour and approach to industrial relations we demand of our employers.¡±

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HEC vice-chair Burke, a principal lecturer of English at Manchester Metropolitan 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ, said that this year¡¯s UCU congress would occur ¡°in the shadow¡± of the dispute, and that the union¡¯s handling of it had ¡°eroded a lot of trust¡±.?

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She said more NEC members had added their support or committed to boycotting the NEC meeting following the publication of the statement.

¡°I think it¡¯s incredibly, incredibly disturbing that it¡¯s gone this far, and it¡¯s gone this far during a period of absolute crisis where lots of people [in universities] are losing their jobs,¡± Burke said.

¡°I very much wish that UCU would take advantage of the opportunity to speak to the union. I think that desperately needs to happen. And I think the ramping up [of UCU¡¯s position] has created a lot of damage that could be avoided.¡±

A UCU spokesperson said that the position set out by a ¡°clear minority¡± of NEC members was ¡°completely untrue¡±.

¡°No other union allows their national executive to cast judgement on staffing matters and rightly so. We have a duty to protect our staff from the politics of the union.¡±

The spokesperson added: ¡°This ongoing dispute is reckless and unjustified. We have tabled fair solutions to every single issue raised by the Unite UCU branch, and we have communicated multiple times that we will resume Acas discussions with them when they call off industrial action, sign up to their own action plan, and cease an ongoing pattern of expanding their dispute. Unite have not agreed to do these basic things. The number of staff leaving the branch demonstrates there is a growing unease amongst our employees at the way Unite have handled this situation.?

¡°Five years on after Covid, they are still refusing to reach an agreement on hybrid working ¨C something the TUC and most major unions did many years ago.?

¡°We respect our staff. We reward them. We value them. At the same time, we must also ensure our staffing strategies fully serve UCU members who are under more and more pressure from their employers every day. We are hopeful that the end of the current bout of strike action will offer an opportunity to deliver a much-needed end to the dispute.¡±

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juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com