Jon Pike writes: Sally Hunt has won the election for General Secretary of the UCU. This is, I think, a piece of good news for the union. The figures are at the bottom of this piece

Sally Hunt was formerly the general secretary of the AUT, and she experienced at close hand the members’ democratic revolt in that union in 2005 which quickly overturned the boycott policy. Sally opposes an academic boycott of Israel, and is committed to finding a positive way forward for the UCU, facilitating bridge-building between Israeli and Palestinian academic trade unionists. Sally also speaks for the TUC on International affairs.

She has committed herself to offering a ballot of the membership of the UCU before any academic boycott of Israel becomes the policy of the union.

This means, in practice that a formal UCU policy of boycotting Israeli universities is increasingly unlikely. We can speculate on whether an academic boycott proposal would be defeated by 80/20 or 90/10, or (my guess) an even higher proportion. But no-one who knows UK academia will expect such proposals to pass the scrutiny of the rank and file membership of the union. The AUT leadership also acted quickly to repudiate the Natfhe “individual boycott” resolution of 2006.

Sally also has a good record on equality and diversity issues in the union.

In welcoming Sally’s election, I don’t mean to endorse everything the leadership of the union has done over the last few years, including the handling of the pay dispute in 2006. We have different opinions on that, and some people who like and work with Engage voted for Roger Kline. (Kline also opposes a boycott of Israeli Universities and academics, but he did not commit to a membership ballot on the issue).

However, the boycott issue does impact on the struggle to improve pay in the sector. It’s necessary for the success of that struggle that we are a serious, united, focussed union. The boycott circus threatens that. In particular, the biggest threat to the union in the medium term is probably the introduction of local pay bargaining – and we saw this threat to national bargaining take shape towards the end of the dispute. Several VCs made overtures to local branches, particularly in Russell Group institutions, and local pay bargaining has already been put in place at Imperial. Maintaining the membership in these sorts of institutions is essential to the success of the union. But it’s the ordinary academic membership in the institutions that actually do international research and collaboration, who are most fed up with activities of the boycotters – and most likely to resign if a boycott is introduced.

The election of Sally Hunt, then, helps to drive the boycott further off the agenda, and helps to preserve the UCU as a serious union representing staff at all UK universities and colleges.

Election for UCU-General Secretary
Date 7/3/07
Number to be elected 1
Valid votes 16250
Invalid votes 465
Quota 7790
eSTV Reg. 54096 1.49g
Election rules ERS97

Stage 2

First Exclusion of
Candidates Preferences Mr Peter Jones
Ms Sally Hunt 7605 858 8463 Elected
Mr Roger Kline 6151 966 7117
Mr Peter Jones 2494 -2494
Non-transferable 670 670
Totals 16250 16250

Jon Pike

Sally Hunt outlined her position against proposals to boycott Israeli academics here:

Key points

A boycott of Israel is likely to be an issue again at first UCU Congress in 2007

The issue is highly divisive and overshadows our other international work

Any final decision to boycott should be made by full membership ballot not conference alone

UCU’s international work should focus on supporting staff and students and defending academic freedom and trade union rights

UCU should adopt the AUT policy on international solidarity not the NATFHE boycott of Israel

UCU should work with Education International and other UK trade unions to promote academic freedom and equality of access to education for all