🎓Law Professor @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social, CBR, Cambridge + @granthamlse.bsky.social
🌹Labour law, enterprise law, pensions, corporations, human rights
🌍Cares about stopping inequality, climate damage + war
🕸️ https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/ewan-mcgaughey ..
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🎓Law Professor @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social, CBR, Cambridge + @granthamlse.bsky.social
🌹Labour law, enterprise law, pensions, corporations, human rights
🌍Cares about stopping inequality, climate damage + war
🕸️ https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/ewan-mcgaughey
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey
63.3% of voters are prepared to take IA consisting of a strike action, and 75.6% are prepared to take ASOS. Return rate was 53.1%, comfortably clear of the Tory anti-trade union minimum.
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey
It's an uphill battle + taken nearly 2 years for the union watchdog to hold a hearing. Grady's using union money to hire a pricey KC, so the odds are against us. But we will fight to win for our colleagues.
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/jo-grad...
📉over 10% real pay cuts, for lecturers, senior lecturers
🔻union membership+density plummet over 5%
✊UCU staff doing 4 strike ballots
🏳️failure to protect branches+job security
So we need change.
![Press release: Complaint lodged over 2024 UCU General Secretary election
The General Secretary of the UK’s largest post-16 education union, Dr Jo Grady, will face a hearing by the independent Certification Officer after whistleblowers gave evidence that she used union resources, staff and software to rig her own re-election in 2024.
The election result, reported on 1 March 2024, put Grady ahead by a margin of 182 votes in final preferences out of 114,310 members (0.157% of the vote), on a turnout of 15.1%. UCU did not permit a recount or the presence of candidates at the count.
Two candidates in the election, Vicky Blake (Leeds) and Professor Ewan McGaughey (King’s College London), have applied to the Certification Officer to rule that the 2024 election breached union rules and should be re-run. They seek an order that Grady must vacate her office if breaches are found. The hearing is 10 February, and can be joined by emailing the Certification Officer.
UCU rules 7 and 8 expressly prohibited the use of union resources, including staff, social media, and email lists “for campaigning”. However since the election, whistleblowers from within UCU came forward to the applicants with evidence that is now before the Certification Officer. The key complaints include that:
• Grady instructed UCU’s senior management WhatsApp group that “every single decision we make/thing we do has to be seen through the… lens… Re-elect GS”, and is seen saying she would “destroy” people in the union who opposed her (captured in WhatsApp screenshots below);
• according to witnesses, staff were repeatedly told by Grady and senior managers that their work should focus on re-electing Grady and that jobs were at risk if she lost. In her initial witness statement to the Certification Officer, before WhatsApp screenshots came to light, Grady “vehemently den[ied]” these allegations;](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:oaolac3s2bwfnitagj4lf4us/bafkreicob2z2s7fusfnyru3lw2nl44si4xamykvl4qbjumvoih2htx7mu4@jpeg)
![Vicky Blake said:
“This case is about the basic principle that union elections must be run fairly and in line with the rules that apply to everyone. Members need to be confident that union resources are not used to give any candidate an unfair advantage, and that staff who raise concerns are protected, not punished.”
Ewan McGaughey said:
“We are bringing this case because UCU members have a right to a union that works for them, not a union used by an incumbent to enrich herself. We are members of trade unions to improve each other’s working lives, and transform society, with fair pay, equality and democracy. The WhatsApp messages showing Grady ordering UCU staff in the middle of a dispute to get herself re-elected shows how far we must go to rebuild universities and further education for good.”
For further information, or to share relevant evidence in confidence about the conduct of the 2024 election, please contact ewan.mcgaughey@kcl.ac.uk and v.blake@leeds.ac.uk.
Notes for editors:
1. These are copies of the screenshots of the WhatsApp group chat, on 11 January 2023. This included three members of the UCU senior management team. Their names have been redacted, but are known to the Certification Officer, as well as UCU. A senior management member is seen replying: “And has been, hopefully” [the case] that the union had been working to get Grady re-elected.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:oaolac3s2bwfnitagj4lf4us/bafkreicvf6creii5xty2rmryrj5dg4wod4ndkoups7s5igq4syuoitcuim@jpeg)
Our press summary is here...
In secret, Grady ordered UCU managers to "Re-elect GS" +said she'd "destroy" her opponents...
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey
www.timeshighereducation.com/news/jo-grad...
/1
We need to shift to modern, accountable public ownership.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpuA...
🤦It's missing the problem, that privatised water will cost £22bn in the next 5 years in returns to foreign shareholders + banks. Replacing the regulator doesn't change its current duty to secure profits.
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey
- James Wallace, CEO of River Action, on BBC Radio 4 this morning. 🔽 #WhitePaper #rescuebritainsrivers
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey
Reposted by Tom Griffin, Ewan McGaughey
The US can boil in Venezuelan oil. We're investing in energy you don't need to invade other nations to obtain
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
And why should they be a *lot* lower? (The ECB is on 2%, and BoE expected to go to just 3.75% today.)
Here's my talk on banking law on YouTube - including history, finance + governance: www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_iE...
The inquiry will be led by top civil servant Philip Rycroft who has been given licence to "go wherever he wants to go".
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey
The inquiry will be led by top civil servant Philip Rycroft who has been given licence to "go wherever he wants to go".
Farage and Reform would have this guy deported: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey, Tommaso Jucker
The Government refused to release maps of these groundbreaking projects to restore nature
So I had a go at mapping them myself
1/
whoownsengland.org/2025/12/10/m...
My paper in the Industrial Law Journal tackles this question - and I've put it on YouTube.
Basic answer: tech creates redundancies, not unemployment, which entirely depends on private and public investment.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTUw...
👉 www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted by Ewan McGaughey
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
* making users "verified" (blue tick) when X doesn't verify at all (it takes money), a "deceptive" practice
* refusing to keep a transparent repository of ads
* refusing to give data to researchers
Nothing on spreading hate though.
ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
💡A: Because they've put bills up by 23%! They're appealing for bills to go up by 44%.
🤷♀️Where will those profits go? Since 1989 they paid over £13bn to shareholders, £10bn to banks + left £23bn in repair costs.
Me on BBC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hTS...