Thread by @claire_marris

I learned something today that has made me so angry that I am coming out of my Twitter holiday to share it. #NECcoup

The #UCU faction that lost March's UCU National Executive Committee elections are organising an #NECcoup so that they can keep their control of #UCU's most powerful committees, and are using the #covid19 pandemic to justify it.

The motion posted below is being submitted to #NEC meeting to be held next Friday. It proposes that “NEC is extended to include current and incoming elected members” & that ‘Current NEC members will have full speaking and voting rights on the NEC’.

Normally, current NEC members who no longer have a seat - because they have reached their 3 term limit, or been voted off in elections - would leave at the end of May and newly elected ones take their place.

Under this motion the ‘old’ NEC members would stay. Indefinitely.

I think this is worth repeating because it is so outrageous: People who have been sitting as members of the most important decision making body of UCU but who have NOT been re-elected would stay on. Indefinitely.
#NECcoup

NEC members who have not been re-elected would normally stand down at the annual #UCU Congress, held in May. Congress has had to be postponed due to #coronavirus but it has already been agreed that members who were newly elected in March would take their seats in May as normal.

In the absence of Congress (which can't meet because of #Covid_19) the NEC is UCU’s supreme elected body, with more power than any other including the GS. They make decisions about UCU policy, industrial ballots, strike action, the budget,...

Members of the NEC are elected for a 2 year term by the full UCU membership. Elections are held every year, and half the seats are up for election each time. So there is always some continuity. Members can only be elected 3 times, so the maximum mandate is 6 years.

UCU Left lost badly in this year's elections. They’ll no longer have their majority on the new NEC or its subcommittees like the Higher Education Committee. But if this motion passes, they could keep that majority - against the will of UCU members.

I am one of the new NEC members, elected in March. One of my motivations for standing for election was to disturb the power balance on these committees, that have been dominated for far two long by 2 established factions.

From my calculations at least 6 current NEC members stood for re-election and lost. This motion would keep them in their seats with an equal vote to the candidates who beat them.

The motion came from UCU’s Women Members’ committee, which has a big UCU Left majority and a UCU Left Chair and Vice Chair (who I believe are both SWP members too). It has been submitted to Friday's meeting of the NEC by Vicky Blake and Elaine White, a member of UCU Left.

They've tried to do all this under cover. As a newly elected member of the incoming NEC, I wouldn't have known about this motion until after it was passed, unless someone had tipped me off. Motions submitted to NEC aren't published, they are only given to current NEC members.

UCU Left are organising a shameful anti-democratic manoeuvre. The motion says it's from the Women's Committee but the proposer is Vicky Blake, who says she isn't in UCU Left. What was she thinking?