Great report from Grant.

Technocrats on the right of the union/leadership once again undermining democracy and transparency.

Join a union, and be an active member

Join NATO so that like Denmark you too can have one member publicly threatening to invade and annexe your sovereign territory, while another refuses to even state that doing so is wrong.

I am genuinely tempted to add something like "This email was written by me, for you to read. I do not and will not use LLM AI in any of my work." to my office signature.

album titled 'inside birds outside', a person on all fours is pushing and gathering seeds with their face

album titled 'outside birds inside', a small pile of sorted seeds, the number 5, circled in charcoal

I've uploaded two new albums to bandcamp. Recordings of performance art and noise, exchanging roles of lead voice and atmosphere/environment.
nicolnicolnicol.bandcamp.com
(I like them!)

LMAO Noam Chomsky doesn’t surprise me one bit. Integrity isn’t exactly a trait for someone who picks and chooses his genocides and genocide denialisms.

Cafe Oto | Sun 7 December 2025

Playing new music for guitar by Thanos Chrysakis, Tim Hodgkinson, and David Ryan . . . and old music by Feldman, Takemitsu, and Wolff . . . alongside Jason Alder and Atsuko Kamura.

Tickets: bit.ly/49A4lVa

This is fascism.

Claim: Mamdani is a communist. False: Any real communist will happily spend six hours explaining why this isn’t true.

Fact-Checking Claims About Zohran Mamdani theonion.com/fact-checking-claims-abo...

AI is not sentient. It doesn't have a survival instinct. What's happened is that corporations have decided that we'll all obey capital if it can pretend to talk.

We are the University It's time to remind bosses and politicians: We are the University.

Members, together, will get wins in spite of our leadership; we will take what is ours.

www.ucu.org.uk/WeAreTheUniv...

(end)

Ballot papers for upcoming industrial action will be delivered to members across the country next week, and I will be organising and campaigning across my two branches for a YES vote, and encourage all members to do the same in their branches. Militant industrial action is the only strategy. (cont…)

colleagues.

We cannot allow them a single inch more than they’ve already got their grubby, hoodwinking mitts on.

Personally, I am done with being patient and playing nice. For the sake of all our members and their jobs, all our students, and all the sector, the gloves are now off. (cont…)

endlessly pandering to VCs in the hope for some scraps in return. Otherwise, their primary functions seems to be to behave as sycophants for the most deceptive and egotistical members of our senior leadership, and act in their own self-interest rather than fight to protect our sector and (cont…)

she needs to remember to keep her own house in check.

Many parts of our union are trying to address these concerns, but factions such as UCU Commons & Campaign for UCU Democracy seem happy with the status quo. In truth, their industrial strategy appears to amount to little more than (cont…)

she is capable of leading us into nationwide industrial action. To this end, she has launched a campaign to ‘expose’ UK Vice Chancellors, but her own leadership and treatment of her staff copies and employs some of the UK VCs’ very worst tactics. As her support among the membership wanes, (cont…)

motions from branches, and emails from lay members imploring her to resolve it. Her/UCU’s treatment of these workers, on whom the running of our union relies, is bringing disgrace upon UCU and the trade union movement as a whole. However, Jo simultaneously believes (publicly at least) that (cont…)

upcoming strike ballot, and the aforementioned wing of the union have been busy publicly undermining and attempting to scupper it.

Hanging over all of this is the ongoing Unite UCU dispute, and Jo Grady continues to ignore letters signed by hundreds of members, pressure from our NEC, (cont…)

🧵
The last month or so in UCU world has left me feeling very concerned.

I’m not a member or fan of any faction, but the recent NEC elections have given the hard-right of the union a majority on our highest council.

Meanwhile, our senior leadership appear to be half heartedly launching our (cont…)

“something something genuine concerns”…..?

This treatment of staff by a trade union employer (or any!) is despicable.

Jo Grady must resign (in shame). She is not fit to have her name associated with the trade union movement.

@drjogrady.bsky.social, you need to demonstrate the change you want to see. You cannot go after our Vice Chancellors while you’re yourself employing some of their worst practices.

Remember what you said, “a fairer future for all”. FOR ALL.

Jo is intentionally omitting key details here. General Secretary, be transparent with your members for once, the ballot is on 3 issues:

1. Pay uplift = at least RPI+3.5% or £2,500, on all pay points

2. Protection of national agreements on T&C's

3. A national agreement to protect jobs & subjects

There is no trade-off between pay and jobs. Don't let the employers fool you otherwise. This dispute is on three things:

1.Pay uplift = at least RPI+3.5% or £2,500, on all pay points
2.Protection of national agreements on T&C's
3.A national agreement to protect jobs & subjects

#WeAreTheUniversity

Same folks who seem unbothered by the mistreatment of our UCU Staff…what do you expect? Undermining the ballot before it’s even started is a great strategy . . . . . . .

Looking forward to speaking at ‘Thinking Through Sound’ @ Sheffield Uni tomorrow!

Can a ‘muddy’ episteme resist capitalist and colonialist conceptions of clarity, convenience, and knowledge production, and can new ways of thinking with/through sound mess up, or ‘muddy‘ the waters, of the academy?

UCU: Fighting punitive ASOS deductions Motion from UCU Congress 2022-2023: Fighting punitive ASOS deductions

UCU policy: “To work with the TUC and other TUs to campaign for a change to the law to prevent such deductions, including lobbying government and opposition parties”

Maybe while @drjogrady.bsky.social is at @tuc.org.uk in Brighton she can work on thi… oh!

policy.web.ucu.org.uk/motion-infor...

Jo Grady finds new ways to undermine UCU every week.

TUC attendees should let her know their views.

Oh, and where is the outcome from HEC @drjogrady.bsky.social?

That would require a) humility, and b) morals . . . Neither of which these people have.