Michael Abberton 🇺🇦🇸🇩

As well as having a significant mandate in favour of Industrial Action. We also have over 100 new members since we last took strike action in 2023. Our strike dates have not yet been determined, but will probably be coordinated with other unions.

The insulting 1.4% pay offer from the universities on top of years of sub-inflation pay rises has led our members to vote for strike action in the 2025-26 pay round. The results are as follows:

Turnout: 54.39%
Yes: 83.16%
Against: 16.84%

We now have mandate for strike action!

University of Sheffield staff 'intimidated' by pay forfeit warning University of Sheffield to withhold pay if staff do not make up for teaching missed while striking.

“Union-Busting Tactic”

The University of Sheffield argues staff who do not replace missed teaching due to strike action are in breach of contract, and so should forfeit an *additional* two weeks of pay.

#UKHE #AcademicSky

May we get the MPs for Southend, @bayoalaba.bsky.social & @davidbsampson.bsky.social, on the line please? And may they raise some urgent questions in parliament about how their community is allowed to be decimated like this?

The foot traffic, the spending, the salaries: all about to disappear.

Solidarity with Derby @ucu.org.uk members on strike against compulsory redundancies this week.

#LboroUCU branch is with you as you stand up to your catastrophic management!

#DerbyUCU #WeAreTheUniversity

Industrial Action Ballot Result Statement UCU Commons members are disappointed in the outcome of the ballot; a failed ballot is not a result that any of us wanted. However, we know that many members have lost faith in our union’s elected comm...

I support this statement- after consulting members in branch and region, the consultative ballot and participating in the debate, I supported these motions and voted against rushing to a ballot. Now we need to refocus and LISTEN to members #CampusTradeUnions #UCU ucucommons.org/r/33528fa5?m...

It’s important that we always identify these policies and actions with the Labour Party as a whole and not individual ministers. If you are a Labour member, direct or affiliated, if you vote Labour THIS is your party. #lbcnews #r4today

The Labour Party’s attack on the right to a jury trial is nothing to do with justice or the backlog. It’s the next step in the suppression of the right to protest. #r4today #lbcnews

Utterly devastating. Sending solidarity to @ucuessex.bsky.social. Managers keep flouting all the legislation about consulting staff and trade unions and keep getting away with it. It's mindnumbing but shouldn't stop us from standing up for staff and students and for what we know university to be

UCU strike ballot fails after 60 per cent of members don’t vote UK’s biggest academic union unable to pursue national industrial action over pay and job cuts after it fails to meet minimum turnout threshold

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ucu-str...

Well done to everyone across HE who worked on GTVO

UCU national industrial action ballot only had a turnout of 39%. This doesn’t mean the campaign to protect higher education stops here. We need to focus on the existential threat to the sector, on the thousands of jobs at risk and a reform of the funding model. We need to listen to members.

Wes Streeting calls striking doctors ‘the grinch’.

Doctors being forced to sacrifice a large proportion of their xmas pay packet by striking means their family xmas will be affected.
But who is the grinch here, if we are to reduce this debate into the childishly absurd? #r4today #lbcnews

what Labour government?

Northumbria Pay and Pension Petition: Stop the Steal! If Northumbria does this, other universities will too.  These cuts will harm thousands of people, their students, families, and their local communities now and into the future.

Please share and sign: www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/no...

😔💔😢Please read and share these harrowing testimonials from people terrified about plans from @northumbriauni.bsky.social senior management to freeze pay to force through pension changes: ucu-unn.org.uk/news/315-tes... @ucu.org.uk

If this was happening in any other sector of the economy there would be uproar (and rightly so).

The phrase "managed decline" comes to mind.

Starmer’s Labour Party continues its war on disabled people #budget2025

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNRex3wuc/

we’re being told that unless employers can unfairly dismiss workers they won’t hire any.
Would you want to work for any employer that considers that to be reasonable? #r4today #lbcnews

Trump has his ‘burning of the Reichstag’. Massively increasing the illegal deployment of troops and a pogrom against all Afghan refugees. The move to nazism is complete. #r4today #lbcnews

“alliteration alliteration, soundbite, 3 part list, alliteration….” #budget2025

the Chancellor’s speech was either written by a teenage SPAD or Chat GPT #budget2025

Lammy’s ending of jury trials is just the next step in removing the right to protest. #r4today #lbcnews

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Digital tools are increasingly used to stalk, harass, and sexually exploit women and girls. AI amplifies the abuse. Action is needed from tech companies, governments and society.

There is #NoExcuse for online abuse.

Mansion tax?
With a housing crisis we need to be seizing unoccupied properties.

This government will do anything it can to avoid taxing the rich. Can’t afford to go abroad on holiday? We’ll tax your weekend at the seaside. Can’t afford bus fares or car parking for your commute? We’ll target your bike to work scheme. #r4today #r4today

This government must be removed as soon as legally possible. It simply cannot be allowed to continue. And the ministers must face criminal investigation. Corruption and war crimes. Two lords found guilty of corruption yet neither will lose their peerages or be prosecuted.

Context - I’ve gone on holiday by mistake

I don’t have a TV so had forgotten how bad the BBC was. Watching #BBCLaurak they just did a vox pop and they were all lower-middle class inc a student and “ a scientist” who said nothing about the HE crisis?