Congress 2016 – A Time of Danger, a Time of Opportunity

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Liverpool ArenaLiverpool Echo Arena and BT Convention Centre (El Pollock) / CC BY-SA 2.0

Download Wednesday’s  copy of broadcast here
Congress is meeting at a time when the Conservative government is clearly experiencing a whole range of crises – something that means both dangers and opportunities for the trade union movement, the UCU included.

Dangers, because the Trade Union Act, despite concessions still sets out to weaken our movement, dangers also for UCU members in FE, because of the area reviews and mergers being rolled out. And dangers for HE members in the Green Paper/ White paper proposals.

But there are opportunities too, because the government is in crisis as shown by the dearth of new ‘big ideas’ in the recent Queen’s Speech, and even in the concessions forced within the anti-TU Bill.

All these, and more, show that the government is weak and that means opportunities for the TU movement, but only by working in a strategic way to overcoming our weaknesses.

In today’s Broadcast read Joanna de Groot’s opinion piece on the importance of implementing our policies in a way that involves members,  plus ‘A view from Scotland’ by UCUS President Douglas Chalmers, plus ‘Northern Ireland at the Crossroads’ – an opinion piece from Mike Larkin,  NEC member for HE in Northern Ireland.

As well as that, you’ll also find the IBL network’s general ‘take’ on some of the issues to come up today. Let us know what you think – unionadmin@ucuagenda.com