Jo Grady was an outsider, elected as a change candidate when she became just the second ever general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU) five years ago.

After a reign dominated by almost constant industrial strife, her best chance of being re-elected in the union’s poll that runs from 25 January to 1 March is perhaps now as the face of continuity, overseeing a rebuild of the union after a bruising couple of months. She told ̽����Ƶ last month that the union under her leadership was in “reflective” mode, celebrating a “historic, landmark win” on securing lower contributions to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension fund, yet finding the going tougher on persuading employers to improve their pay offers.

While Dr Grady remains the candidate with the highest profile in the election, the three standing against her all pose varying challenges to the incumbent.

“I have been in this union a long time and I know it very well and I know when things are going wrong,” said one of those challengers, Vicky Blake, a past president of UCU.

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She has emphasised a positive, conciliatory approach, stressing the need to shift away from “social media and hyperbolic messaging” and return to a “focus on short- and long-term organising as that is what is going to improve members’ conditions and pay”.

Like Ms Blake, Saira Weiner, a former schoolteacher and branch secretary at Liverpool John Moores University, has also been at the heart of union decision-making for several years, albeit as a representative of the influential – yet controversial – UCU Left group that has pushed for ever more radical action including indefinite strikes.

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Ms Weiner said she didn’t understand why the group provokes such strong opinions. “We talk about things together, have discussions and arguments and come up with a plan. I think that is a strength, not a weakness. We have a clear agenda; people will know how we will vote. We are very transparent about it,” she said.

Seen by some as the second choice for UCU Left members, Ms Blake has stressed her independence but also her willingness to work with all sides.

“I’m interested in making progress on the issues for members. I don’t believe you can do that if you vilify other people or refuse to work with people. That’s not what a union is about,” she said.

Unlike Ms Weiner and Ms Blake, the fourth candidate, Ewan McGaughey, a law professor at King’s College London, has not held a position within the central bureaucracy.

Instead, he has emphasised the deal negotiated with King’s when he was branch president that handed staff an extra £800 in London weighting as well as more generous parental leave.

Professor McGaughey said local progress like this should be combined with sectoral bargaining and what he called “pattern bargaining”, involving attempts to roll out common policies across similar institutions.

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King’s is one of the union’s strongest branches and its members have also benefited from the restoration of USS pensions, whereas Ms Weiner said the view from the post-92 universities outside the scheme was that “we feel we have won absolutely nothing at all in the year of strike action we took”.

“You bargain for what you can bargain for, but the strength of the UCU is in its collective,” she added. “We’re a national union, we can’t leave anyone behind in this. We shouldn’t be fighting these things one by one.”

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Ms Blake said what employers were offering on pay and working conditions last year was “less than what we had on the table when I was leading negotiations in 2019”.

She has backed the idea of a “discontinuous indefinite strike” whereby staff only work on one, revolving day every week.

“Members don’t want to be in permanent strike mode. But I do think they are ready to take the action that is necessary to get the movement from employers. What they need is reassurance it is being done in a really well thought through way,” she said.

Professor McGaughey said there was a place for strikes but has also pressed for UCU to use the legal system more on issues such as dismissals and wage deductions.

“We don’t negotiate over workers’ rights, we need to enforce them. We don’t need to be doing strike ballots when there is a possibility to get a resolution in court,” he said.

One of the main organisers of a campaign that took USS directors to court over changes to pensions, his critics say the outcome of this case – which lost at the Court of Appeal – shows the risks of such a strategy; that the union becomes embroiled in expensive legal cases it can barely afford to lose.

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Professor McGaughey said the USS case was lost for procedural reasons, but argued that it helped win the battle outside court.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com