Bee Hughes (they/them)
@beehughes.bsky.social
Senior lecturer, UCU branch secretary. Media, cultural studies, queer & gender things. Arts & crafts when I have time! 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇵🇸
Thank you for joining us as our guest speaker!
Fiona Johnstone@drfijohnstone.bsky.social · last yr.An appropriately gothic setting for the “Blood, Myth and Media” symposium today at Liverpool John Moores, convened by @beehughes.bsky.social and Stella Gaynor. Some great interdisciplinary papers on blood in horror, health, forensics, fashion and more.
Way passed the threshold, #LincolnUCU members have smashed it! Unless #LincolnUniversity rule out #compulsoryredundancies, we will strike!
COME AND JOIN US in the FIGHT FOR HE! 11 JUNE
University and College Union (UCU)@ucu.org.uk · last yr.📢 National Demo Announced at Newcastle University UCU members from across the UK will descend on Newcastle on Wednesday 11 June for a national demonstration against job cuts. ✊ Join us and make your voice heard www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...
📢 National Demo Announced at Newcastle University UCU members from across the UK will descend on Newcastle on Wednesday 11 June for a national demonstration against job cuts. ✊ Join us and make your voice heard www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...
Newcastle University academics to strike for 30 more days
Industrial action among academics at Newcastle University has been extended again, alongside a national demonstration in Newcastle next week
chroniclelive.co.uk
🚨🚨CALL TO ACTION🚨🚨 The new EHRC chair candidate, Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, has a history of transphobic actions. MPs *must* scrutinze her. Sign the open letter and use the template to email the WEC to demand MPs protect trans rights! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Letter to member of the Women and Equalities Committee, June 2025
Please fill out the form below by Friday, 20 June 2025, to add your signature to this letter. Share this form widely to anyone who might be interested. The author, Anna Langley, is doing this to help...
docs.google.com
🏳️⚧️🚨🏳️⚧️Please share! Here is the guidance from @transactualuk.bsky.social @scottishtrans.bsky.social and #Mermaids on the EHRC Code of Practice consultation. Overview: transactual.org.uk/equality-act... Guidance: transactual.org.uk/equality-act... **Please excuse temporary typos!** We're on it 😅
Solidarity to all of you @ducuuo.bsky.social!
Dundee UCU@ducuuo.bsky.social · last yr.Our industrial action is at the University of Dundee due to start on Monday 24th February. Our members can find out more about our upcoming strike action here. Find out how to go on strike and how this will affect you. sites.dundee.ac.uk/ducu/crisis-...
Thank you Rhiannon - you’ve been an inspiration since I got active in UCU. Thanks for all you do and I know you will be a VP/President all UCU can be proud of. If you haven’t posted your ballot you’ve got a few days! Please vote Rhiannon for VP
Rhiannon Lockley (she/her)@illdoitanyway.bsky.social · last yr.. @beehughes.bsky.social is one of the very best UCU examples of how to build our equality work outwards, and widely respected for this across our union. I am really grateful to them for this endorsement rhiannonforucuvp.wordpress.com/2025/02/21/e...
Sending all the solidarity to our sibling branch at UoL - and all of you facing these horrific cuts. Staff, students and the future of academic thought all suffer at the hands of poor leadership
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last yr.Grimmer and grimmer. Voluntary Leavers Scheme opens at Liverpool with July departure date for an unspecified number of staff. 'Academics have also been told there is no money to attend conferences'. 1/2
Excellent piece by @illdoitanyway.bsky.social in @timeshighered.bsky.social outlining a strategy for unions to defend jobs and HE www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/only... @ducuuo.bsky.social @uculeft.bsky.social @ucuscotland.bsky.social #elections2025 #HigherEducation #UCU
Only a nationwide strike can stem the carnage in UK higher education
Limiting industrial action to defensive branch battles on redundancy is not enough. We need to politically challenge the HE funding model, says Rhiannon Lockley
timeshighereducation.com
In midst of heavy redundancies, with branch reps working into night & weekends, it’s v difficult to see how this q doesn’t: - position union members as passive consumers right when we need action - treat unpaid work of volunteers as something to be performance managed Is this trade unionism?
🚨 UCU hustings uploaded🚨 The union is going to the polls while the HE sector is in crisis. Watch me and Deepa Govindarajan Driver making the case for left & independent candidates & the fightback here: www.ucu.org.uk/article/1389...
UCU election hustings 2025
Watch the official UCU hustings with UCU vice-president (HE) and honorary treasurer candidates, which took place online on Wednesday 5 February 2025, 16:30-18:00.
ucu.org.uk
Sorry to have missed the UK-wide UCU VP and Treasurer hustings today, but I hear @illdoitanyway.bsky.social and Deepa Driver were articulate, and had concrete plans on how to move forward. Read more about Rhiannon here: rhiannonforucuvp.wordpress.com
Rhiannon for UCU VP (Higher Education)
Vote Rhiannon Lockley (she/her) for UCU Vice President (Higher Education): ballots are live 27th January till 3rd March 2025
rhiannonforucuvp.wordpress.com
Chaos & heartbreak. The HE funding model is broken beyond repair. Solidarity with all the individual UCU branches who are fighting heroically to defend the sector. The leverage to push Labour on from the rotten ideology causing cuts - now & still coming - demands full union mobilisation.
Quarter of leading UK universities cutting staff due to budget shortfalls
Up to 10,000 redundancies or job losses feared as institutes undergo restructuring
theguardian.com
It’s been *a month* at work, so I’m a bit behind in sharing my candidacy in the upcoming UCU NEC elections, I’m standing for 2 seats in the UCU nec elections, and though I can’t do both, if elected to either position I will do my best to represent and support our members.
A big thank you to Elizabeth Lawrence, former President UCU. I first met Liz in the freezing cold at Sheffield station when she welcomed our branch campaign against TU victimisation to Yorks with strike funds & a list of solidarity visits booked. rhiannonforucuvp.wordpress.com/2024/12/17/e...
Endorsement from Elizabeth Lawrence, former President of UCU
Image shows Liz Lawrence taking part in a demonstration, carrying a placard which reads “defend jobs, defend education, NO CUTS” I have known Rhiannon for over a decade as a union …
rhiannonforucuvp.wordpress.com
I'm not a member of @uculeft.bsky.social but fully endorse this as an accurate account of yesterday's HEC meeting uculeft.org/hec-votes-fo... Members deserve to be told the whole story.
HEC votes for a ballot – and a campaign to save the sector
The fight is on to save Higher Education. UCU’s Higher Education Committee (HEC) met on Thursday 12 December to consider what the union should do in the light of the financial crisis hitting our se…
uculeft.org
📣Tell Wes Streeting: 🏳️⚧️Lift the ban on Puberty blockers, trans healthcare now, protect trans kids 🗓️5pm, Monday 16th December 📍Wes Streeting’s constituency office, 12a Highview Parade, Woodford Avenue, Ilford, IG4 5EP Organised by local community activists and trade unionists #TransRight
The callousness of the puberty blocker ban for trans young people (not cis kids) is hard to process. We must organise in every space we can to overturn it. Solidarity with all my trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming siblings & adults supporting trans kids #PubertyBlockersSaveLives #TransRights
Oh rats. As mentioned in our @ducu.bsky.social GM on Friday -- this is what we feared *could* happen 😱 www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Many unable to access eVisas to prove right to be in UK, Home Office admits
Campaigners say problems with digital transfer could affect hundreds of thousands of people on ‘10-year route’ visas
theguardian.com
Today marks UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. We reiterate the demands for an immediate ceasefire, the immediate & unconditional release of all hostages, unrestricted access to humanitarian aid, & the lifting of the siege of Gaza. Find out more👇 un.org/en/observanc...
Solidarity with @neunion.bsky.social members on strike today ✊ Staff at Sixth Form Colleges making a stand on pay and defending national collective bargaining. #PayUp24
We should not be in this position as a union. Pause the restructure and engage urgently in negotiations. Solidarity.
Unite UCU@uniteucu.bsky.social · 2y ago🚨 THREE DAY WALKOUT CALLED 🚨 Our members will take strike action from 9-11 December after our employer further breached our long-running dispute & failed to prioritise finding a resolution. We take action reluctantly & are sorry to impact @ucu.org.uk members: uniteucu.wordpress.com/2024/11/26/s...
Get involved tomorrow! Lovely to see comrades from my branch (LJMU UCU) + UoL branch from our last day of action on the cover of the vid! Join in the Liverpool #Workplaces4Palestine action 1pm at university square
University and College Union (UCU)@ucu.org.uk · 2y agoTomorrow is #Workplaces4Palestine day of action ⏰ Get involved ✊ Organise: 👉 a lunchtime walkout 👉 a teach in 👉 gather outside your workplace for a photo, share on social media. Tag us! Find out more 👉 ucu.org.uk/CeasefireNow youtu.be/f6ruyqCaZik
Having jumped ship from the bird website maybe 18 months ago (and enjoying not being quite so online tbh!) it’s nice to re-connect with folks from the UCU-sphere over here! Hope to see some of you at Equality Conference over the next few days ✊🏼
It’s shortsighted that gov & VCs don’t see cuts in context of local/regional economies AND recognise impact on staff + families - careers will be ended & knowledge & experience lost. The damage from slashing jobs, +/ unis allowed to fold will ripple out. HE funding needs fixing now.
QM_UCU@qmucu.bsky.social · 2y agoWith Leeds Trinity and Loughborough we're now actually at 83, or exactly half of the 166 universities @timeshighered.bsky.social counts. HALF OF OUR UNIVERSITIES ARE SHEDDING STAFF. In a normal timeline, politicians would care about this and try to do *something*, *anything*, right?
