Ewan McGaughey
@ewanmg.bsky.social
🎓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
🌹Labour law, enterprise law, pensions, corporations, human rights
🌍Cares about stopping inequality, climate damage + war
🕸️ https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/ewan-mcgaughey
Check out the coverage in THE, and stay tuned.
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...
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...
Jo Grady’s UCU election win challenged over ‘unfair advantage’
Candidates who stood in 2024 poll seek rerun of campaign after claiming incumbent broke rules by using union resources
www.timeshighereducation.com
February 5, 2026 at 9:50 AM
Check out the coverage in THE, and stay tuned.
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...
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...
UCU members have a right to a free + fair election, and a working union. Under Grady, members have seen:
📉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.
📉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.
February 5, 2026 at 9:46 AM
UCU members have a right to a free + fair election, and a working union. Under Grady, members have seen:
📉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.
📉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.
Grady then used union property, contractors and software to make her campaign videos, violating UCU's own rules. She weaponised UCU's vast social media, and sent a million emails in the election, to flood comms with news about herself.
Our press summary is here...
Our press summary is here...
![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)
February 5, 2026 at 9:42 AM
Grady then used union property, contractors and software to make her campaign videos, violating UCU's own rules. She weaponised UCU's vast social media, and sent a million emails in the election, to flood comms with news about herself.
Our press summary is here...
Our press summary is here...
If the Treasury did want that it would be a big problem because the UK EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement says there should be no regression on standards by the UK on environmental protection.
January 6, 2026 at 10:24 AM
If the Treasury did want that it would be a big problem because the UK EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement says there should be no regression on standards by the UK on environmental protection.
I fear you may not have had time to read the paper/watch the video yet!
December 11, 2025 at 12:39 PM
I fear you may not have had time to read the paper/watch the video yet!