Suzi Toole
@suzitoole.bsky.social
UCU rep, FE teacher, mad scientist Proud Chair of the FEC, Women's committee & NW Regional committee Vice Chair of the Equality committee UCU VP (FE) Elect All opinions are my own
C'mon Clacton. You have one chance to redeem yourselves in the eyes of the nation and do something hilarious
How Farage has the brass neck to trigger a by-election for the constituency he has barely bloody set foot in since he was elected is beyond me.
Oooh suddenly the DfE have found several million quid down the back of the couch! It's welcome news for schools (except that the first 1% is coming out of their budgets) and for FE colleges however we can't keep surviving on little injections of cash here and there. We need national bargaining.
Please sign this petition - now over 9k sigs - to stop the philistinic slashing of Humanities and Social Sciences staff at Exeter. #UCU #UKHE All solidarity with my brilliant friends and colleagues at @exeterucu.bsky.social
UCU Commons@ucucommons.org · last mo.PETITION: www.change.org/p/stop-redun...
Sarah Pochin's tone deaf message for the England Men's World Cup squad 🤦♀️ Reform UK - protecting women and girls by begging a sportsball team to keep winning instead of holding perpetrators accountable.
Pride celebration day at Bolton College 🙌 Great to see staff and students getting involved. Just watched a performance by the BSL students signing This Is Me ❤️
Yes Hannah 🙌
Lyra 💕@lyra-scotland.bsky.social · 2mo agoHannah Spencer wrote to the MP and Bridgett Philipson about the EHRC Guidance and its a great letter www.instagram.com/p/DZKYZKgihy... I've added alt text to the images and will post a screenshot of the post and its text in the replies! Good work @greenpartyhan.bsky.social we 💕 the feminist greens
![Dear Keir and Bridget,
Reject the EHRC’s Code of Practice
| am writing to echo the letter written by the Interim Women and Equalities lead of the
Parliamentary Green Party, Sian Berry, to raise serious concerns over proposed guidance
from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is not fit for purpose and will
harm trans people living in the UK.
The Code of Practice for services, public functions, and associations is the culmination
of years of well-funded campaigns to drive a minority group out of British public life. It
sets out a system of segregation where trans people are excluded from services and
spaces that reflect their gender, and in some cases also excluded from services and
spaces that reflect their sex assigned at birth. Where unisex facilities exist, trans people
will be forced into them. Where they do not exist, trans people will be left with nowhere
to go.
Your own Equalities Impact Assessment [1] on the code admits there will be a significant
impact on those with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment - from forcing
trans people to out themselves by using disabled toilets to putting trans women at
greater risk of sexual violence by making them use men’s services.
The Code of Practice is both cruel and confusing. Inconsistencies between the Code of
Practice and its Equalities Impact Assessment, the Gender Recognition Act and the
European Convention on Human Rights will leave organisations and service providers at
risk of litigation from all sides. Frontline staff in spaces like cafes, gyms, and offices will
be forced to police gender, whilst the costs of creating self-contained gender neutral
facilities are estimated by your advisors as reaching £600m, which the government is
providing no funding to cover [2]. | am pleased to see associations, like the Women’s
Institute and Girlguiding, given a potential route to serving trans and cisgender women,
but this does not counteract the pain caused by the majority of the guidance.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kcuezkvhtpdlk3vurzkavnye/bafkreifbpmwimf2fd4ugbudos4c4cxw3st6m7ccxwf4642ftfynkfvfa6a)
Email your MP. I don't currently have one, hence the local circus in Makerfield but sharing this for those who do. This "guidance" on single sex spaces is ghoulish and unworkable.
Bijan Parsia@bparsia.bsky.social · 2mo agoEmail your MP! equalrecognition.eaction.org.uk/rejectthecode Here's what I wrote: "Dear Afzal Khan MP, The latest proposed guidance from the EHRC on "single sex" spaces is unworkable, unjust, and oppressive.…"
It's petty, but watching Sarah Wakefield making Rob Kenyon squirm on Question Time asking him to apologize to Carol Vorderman made my week. I could practically hear the eye rolls of the women in the audience when he said "I'm not sexist, I've got a mum and a sister" 🤮
Real FE teachers discussing their lived experiences. Much of the job is not actually teaching, it's the admin, the tracking, the prep, the marking, the pastoral care, the endless meetings and online training modules. No wonder they're burnt out. Workloads are not working. #UCU #FE #Workloads
University and College Union (UCU)@ucu.org.uk · 2mo agoHow much of your week is spent actually teaching? Turns out it’s the smallest part of the job for our further education members. The rest? Admin. Paperwork. Chasing. Reporting and everything in between. Teaching is what they trained for. It’s what students need. Workload’s not working.
New section of the UCU website dedicated to the Workload's not working campaign. Keep up to date with the campaign as it progresses and is rolled out more widely. This week, members in the first cohort of training are taking place in a week of action at their branches www.ucu.org.uk/article/1453...
ucu.org.uk
Stop the world. I want to get off please. We are going backwards as a society.
Stéphanie says… 🏴☠️🦈🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@stephaniejane.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis is horrifying. It classes disabled people as not fully human, because it is saying that they cannot ‘feel’ the same way as an able bodied person would in the same circumstances. www.mind.org.uk/news-campaig...
Section 28 all over again by stealth 🤮 People said this would happen and naysayers replied dismissively "you're overreacting". This is the tip of the iceberg. Women's rights will be next.
Totally agree with the academic boycott of University of Sheffield. Despite healthy finances they are proceeding with restructures and punitive double deductions to striking members who have refused to reschedule teaching (disruption is the point of a strike 🙄). Shameful behaviour from management!
As part of the FE Workloads are Not Working week of action we weld a lunch event in the boardroom.. encouraged staff to get away from the desks, take their full unpaid break. Played a game of Workload bingo. Lovely to have the Principal on board to support as well. #UCU #FE #WorkloadsNotWorking
This. Also: if you’re cis? Prefer not to say.
Ruth Pearce@notrightruth.bsky.social · 2mo agoIf you're trans and work for a sizable UK company or organisation, now is a great time to log into your HR portal and remove any information you can on your sex/gender, e.g. by replacing any information with "prefer not to say".
You had me at free pizza 😄🍕
UCU Commons@ucucommons.org · 2mo agoFor all attending #UCU Congress 2026! On Tuesday 26th May, 7–10pm, we are hosting an informal social event upstairs at North Bar, 2d Cheltenham Parade, Harrogate, HG1 1DA. The first few arrivals can enjoy a drink (alcoholic or otherwise) on us, and there will be pizza available (also on us). 1/2
Equality is not conditional. Dignity at work is not negotiable. The EHRC Code of Practice has been published. UCU is examining it urgently. This is a significant and unsettling moment and we will not leave branches to navigate it alone. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1451...
As cuts destroy our university... We fight back ✊🏼💜🩷💜🩷 #WeAreTheUniversity @uonucu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk
Found out today that malignant hemorrhoid Tommy Ten Names was using Bolton College's culture day to stir up hate on twitter 🤮 I think he's jealous he can't dance as well as our students.
This is so desperately sad and unnecessary. Short sighted knee jerk responses from Sheffield management 😔
Mark Pendleton@markpendleton.bsky.social · 3mo agoEast Asian Studies is being gutted at Sheffield - all staff at risk with 8.6 FTE proposed to go (a third of us). Biggest cuts in Chinese and Japanese Studies. We’ll be taking a few days to process. Solidarity to Materials and Chemistry colleagues who are also dealing with similarly bad news.
As a Lord of the Rings Fan I maintain I DA HOBIT is the best acronym for an international day
Please sign this open letter to avoid cuts at University of Nottingham physics and astronomy dept nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/...
Save Nottingham Physics and Astronomy
nottinghamphysics.github.io
So my local MP has just announced he's standing aside so Andy Burnham can mount a leadership challenge. All I can currently think about is how hard it's going to be to hang onto this clean DBS if that reptilian creep Farage comes campaigning in my area 😬
Solidarity to CCG on strike over workload this week! May you have sunny pickets and managers with listening ears 🙌
