The UK lecturers' union has abandoned attempts to boycott Israeli universities after years of international controversy, opponents of the policy said today. In the face of legal threats, the leadership of the University and College Union has quietly dropped plans to implement a conference motion that instructed members to "consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues".The union was asked to "widely disseminate" testimony from Palestinians and union delegations to Palestine. This too was shelved by the national executive at a meeting last month. The union's director of legal services, Michael Scott, has written to lawyers representing...

Local launch of CALLCommunity groups, students, teachers and a wide range of local people from Hackney, Tottenham and Islington in north east London came together on Thursday of last week to a local launch meeting of CALL (Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning). Around 120 people packed into the meeting.The platform speakers were Paul Mackney, founder member of CALL, Hatice Guden from the Hackney Refugee Association, Sean Vernell of the UCU union and Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North.Paul Mackney spoke about the devastating effect of the withdrawal of funding from adult and community education. CALL have called a lobby of parliament for 25 February next year....

Those in Central London on Wednesday afternoon who cannot make it to the lobby of Barnet Council against the “Future Shape” plans to privatise an entire local authority can join the protest in support of a living wage at Birkbeck College.A protest rally outside Birkbeck College’s Governors meeting on Wednesday December 3rd at 5pm is planned to publicise the plight of the college’s poorly paid cleaners & catering staff. Birkbeck trade unions Unison, Unite, UCU and the students Union have been lobbying the college’s management for over a year now to pay the London Living Wage (LLW).This follows on from the successes of the living wage campaign at SOAS. It’s good that London Citizens are coordinating these campaigns. UNISON’s Greater London Region could be doing more.The...

BBC News Wednesday, 12 November 2008.More support is needed for part-time students and contracts for academic staff must also be more flexible.A study on part-time study by Christine King, vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University, said the distinction between full-time and part-time study was becoming blurred.It noted that the traditional academic calendar was unhelpful to part-time students who work while studying.Mr Denham declined to say how many of the recommendations would be taken on board.Views of academic staff 'ignored'The University and College Union (UCU) said the government had not invited a "genuine critique of policy".UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "There will always be different points of view and it is imperative that the government takes them all on board."We...

CALL, Event: Stop the Cuts to Adult Education (London)Local CALL activists have arranged an evening campaign meeting in Hackney on Thursday 27 November.Speakers include: Jeremy Corbyn, MP Islington North; Paul Mackney, Associate Director of NIACE, Hatice Guden, Hackney Refugee Cultural Association; Sean Vernell, NEC UCU.The meeting is at the Refugee Workers Cultural Association, 2nd Floor, 3-19 Victorian Grove, Hackney, N16 8EN (google map) on Thursday 27 November at 7.00pm.For full details please download the events leaflet (pdf,...

UCU: Research proves adult education vital during credit crunch. New research proves adult education is more vital than ever, says the University and College Union (UCU), as statistics show the credit crunch is motivating millions to upgrade their skills.The research, commissioned by the Association of Colleges, has found that more than 8 million adults in England are preparing to ‘skill up’ over the next year. One in five (21%) have pledged to gain new qualifications over the next 12 months with a third of these (31%) wishing to upgrade their skills during the economic downturn.The national adult education budget has been increasingly targeted at employer-led training taking choice away from individual learners.Flagship employer training programme, Train to Gain, will see its budget...

In June I posted the text of a letter from Mishcon de Reya to UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt. It mooted the possibility of a follow-up letter threatening legal proceedings. Such a letter has now been sent:On September 26, Mishcon de Reya wrote to Hunt warning her that unless UCU accepted within 14 days that the latest conference resolution was "ultra vires" - beyond its powers - a group of unnamed members would take it to court.(Via...

The University and College Union website has the complete story on the ELQ fiasco, going right back to September 2007. In case you've only just started to follow this story, you can find most of the important documents and links within the UCU site, including government debates and all links to the challenges to the...

UNISON have agreed to go to arbitration in the Local Government pay dispute.   This has just been confrmed by UNISONs NJC committee. (not sure of voting numbers yet) There is a dispute in infomation on whether or not Unite have agreed to go to arbitration as well, one source says they have and another says they decide tomorrow.   (The cynic in me would think that perhaps the paid officials have decided they will and will just get it sanctioned by lay members tomorrow - in the same way that news had reached me this morning before the NJC committee had even met that UNISON had agreed to go to arbitration - all those pesky democracy hurdles eh! :/)   Moving to arbitration at this early stage of the dispute lets down all those members that voted for and took strike...

ore about Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning (CALL) on the University and College Union (UCU) website We have founded CALL, the Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning because we believe that affordable access to the life changing opportunities provided by education is the hallmark of a civilised society.You can also join up from there.Here's a link to register forOur founding conference which will take place at 27 Britannia St, London, WC1X9JP on 30 September 2008 at 5.00pm.Discussion will focus on a new manifesto for the expansion life long learning. You are welcome to attend or send a delegate....

Readers of my occasional postings at normblog might be forgiven for forming the view that the main locus of concern about liberal/left anti-Semitism in this country is the University and College Union (UCU). Sadly this is not the case: some other organizations are giving as much cause for concern, most notably at the moment the Green Party. Some members of the Green Party have become increasingly disturbed about what they see as its failure to take anti-Semitism, in its own structures and debates, at all seriously. This lack of serious concern is manifested in a variety of ways: for a start, although the Party has an explicit policy of giving no platform to racists, and hence would not join in campaigns with the BNP, nonetheless it is ready to do so with overtly anti-Semitic...

Harry' s Place disappeared, Guido asked them what happened:Last Friday, Harry's Place republished an email sent to the Universities and Colleges Union activists email list by a Sheffield based academic, Jenna Delich. In that email, she linked to the website of the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke and recommended an article by the racist conspiricy theorist Joe Quinn, on the Israel/Palestine conflict.As a result, LSE academic, Mike Cushman recommended that Ms Delich contact the DNS service providers of Harry's Place, to complain that the article was defamatory. The complaint was made and the DNS address was taken down by the gutless Daily.co.uk.The attempt to censor Harry's Place has failed. Harry's Place's DNS service has moved to a more ballsy ISP: the Positive...

The fallout over Harry’s Place and Jenna Delich’s leaked email is apparent across various left wing blogs, the discussion at Socialist Unity sums it up pretty well. Put simply, from what I can see some (including me) took it to be important to oppose sites being taken down however dreadful the site might be (within reason, I would not waste time on the BNP for example), others said the site was so bad and its effect so invidious that it did not warrant their support. I won’t attempt to square that circle as both have valid points expressed sincerely and passionately, but I hate to see further recriminations and division among people who have so much in common (even if it’s just arguing). So I have a proposal for what it’s worth- I’m sure Ms. Delich...

Will these people never learn? I don't tend to read Harry's Place very often. In fact, you could probably count the times I've visited it in the past year on one hand. This means that their post on "Sheffield-based UCU member" Jenna Delich linking to "the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader" would normally have passed me by. However, apparently following...

UCU activist shuts down Harry’s Place. I’m not a reader of Harry’s Place, but it appears to have been shut down (there’s no DNS entry for the domain at present) after a complaint from a University and College Union activist from Sheffield complained to their web hosts about an article claiming that she linked to and...

... it will be for the reason that you can still read about at Harry's Place itself: a complaint has been sent to the company hosting HP's domain name - they think because they pointed out someone's having linked from the UCU activists list to a far-right...

On behalf of UCU, its general secretary Sally Hunt has a letter to the Sunday Times today professing a commitment to 'community cohesion'. She might try imaginatively extending that in other directions than the one her letter...

Tim Crane is Professor of Philosophy at Univesity College London, and Director of the Institute of Philosophy in the School of Advanced Study, University of London. The following communication is posted with his permission:Dear Eve I've just become aware through reading the THE that the UCU is up to its unpleasant anti-Israel thing again, and this led me, through the internet, to your excellent letter of resignation from the UCU on the normblog. So I wanted to congratulate you on that letter, and to show solidarity! The UCU's obsession with the vilification of Israel and its attempts to undermine relations between UK and Israeli academics is disgraceful and it is an embarrassment to UK higher education. I myself resigned from the AUT some years ago in an apparently hopeless protest...

Not to repeat myself or anything, since I have already posted about this issue at length, but Engage today reproduce a letter sent by Howard Moss to the THE, purporting to say why resignation from the UCU is the wrong approach. He writes:The way to deal with this is not to vilify or campaign against the union as Deech is doing or to resign from it as Eve Garrard, mentioned in the same article, has done... The real solution is for enough people (and it would not take many), to come forward from the rank-and-file membership, which overwhelmingly opposes UCU official policy on Israel, to get themselves nominated at local level and to vote appropriately at national level.The membership do not, however, need the resigners there to do what Howard Moss says they ought now to do. So let them do...

The boycotters of UCU obtain a richly deserved reward for their efforts as Gordon Brown agrees a new academic exchange programme with Israel. For further discussion see here and...

Further to this post, I see (via Engage) that Baroness Deech has called, in the House of Lords, for universities to withdraw recognition from UCU. She said:These efforts to boycott, or to come as close as possible to a boycott, are contrary to race relations legislation and ultra vires the powers of the union... The UCU has created an atmosphere hostile to Jewish academics and to quality academic research and freedom in this country.From the same report readers will have the pleasure of learning that Sally Hunt has not been silent on the matter. She is quoted as follows:The UCU has endorsed, and contributed to, the Universities UK guidance to the sector on good relations on campus, which sets out broad policy on racism, including anti-Semitism. The union also works closely with the...

[This post is jointly written by Eve Garrard and Norman Geras.] Nine days ago Eve Garrard sent her letter of resignation from UCU to Sally Hunt, the union's general secretary. Two days later, she received the following reply, which she has sought and obtained permission to make public:Thank you for your email to Sally Hunt: I have been asked to send the reply below to you. 'UCU delegates at our congress had the opportunity to debate and set policy for the union on a host of issues. The Palestine motion does not call for a boycott. It does call for a wider debate about what is happening and members initiated that debate, as is their right, at congress. [I]t is for the NEC to consider the actions it will take regarding the motion. UCU believes that academic freedom includes the right to...

Last week I posted Eve Garrard's resignation letter, in which she set out her reasons for leaving the University and College Union (UCU). A couple of days later I put up a post by Jon Pike that explained why he disagreed with Eve. Here I present a few thoughts of my own, prompted by Jon's response to Eve. Some background. The issue of resignation from the union has not arisen personally for me, because when I retired in late 2003 I allowed my membership of the (then) AUT to lapse. However, in New York at the time of the first academic boycott (of Israel) resolution, I stated that, had I still been a member of the union, I would now be resigning from it (see also these follow-up posts) - as I would have done without so much as a moment's hesitation. If I'd still been in post at the time...

[Cross-posted at Engage] I'm saddened and disturbed by Eve's decision to resign from the UCU. It is a decision taken by a friend and a professional colleague that I understand and respect. A lengthening list of colleagues and friends - Norman Geras, Shalom Lappin, Jonathan Ginsburg, Eric Heinze - have taken the decision to resign or to allow their membership to lapse. Nationally, I understand that hundreds more have torn up their union cards, or allowed their membership to lapse from the UCU and its predecessor unions since we started to indulge the obsession with excluding Israelis from the academic community. These people are a great loss to the union, individually and collectively. But (unsurprisingly) I don't agree, and I want to outline why - in doing so I don't simply want to...

So what's happening about motion 25? First it was to be referred to UCU's national executive commitee; then to the strategy and finance committee. And now? Well, the said committee 'does not appear to have decided to say anything publicly about its decision'. You'd better read Jon Pike. You've heard of poetry in motion. This is motion 25 in a dark...

Another resignation from UCU:It is particularly frustrating that members of the UCU have been denied a simple vote on this issue.(Via...

here is Eve Garrard's resignation letter from the UCU, university lecturers' union. I heard her speak once and she was very good. If you are a member of this union then I would urge you either to resign or campaign hard to get this racist policy changed. If you are a student I would urge you to refuse to be taught by any member of this union unless they can convince you othat they are campaigning to get the policy (of condemning Jews for being Jews) changed. That is what I believe. Is racism wrong unless it is against Jewish...

Dear Sally Hunt In spite of my longstanding commitment to Union membership, the recent actions of the UCU are finally driving me out of it. I find that I cannot remain in an institution which sets out to discriminate against its Jewish members. The passing of Motion 25 at the June Congress is the central, though by no means the only, example of this discrimination. It was clear to anyone who watched the vote take place that the Union delegates, and the National Executive, were determined to punish Israel. They felt that it was not sufficient for them to criticise it - as was, in their view, appropriate for countries like Sudan, Burma and Zimbabwe. Nothing but punishment would do for the Jewish state, and hence it, and it alone, must be the target of a boycott motion. It has been...

A cause for grave concern for all union members The UCU's adoption of Motion 25 at Congress on May 28th 2008, and the NEC's subsequent decision of June 13th to refer the question of its implementation to a Union committee, notwithstanding specialist legal advice that it breaches anti-discrimination legislation and Union rules, is further evidence of the UCU's continuing and relentless obsession with the academic boycott of Israel; an obsession which the newly formed Union began when it adopted Motion 30 at its inaugural Congress in May 2007. The UCU's behaviour with respect to Motions 30 and 25 inevitably raises questions which are of grave concern to all UCU members. Firstly, there is the question of the UCU Executive's deception. Evidence for this can be found, inter alia, in: (a)...

Here is the UCU comment on the Governments response to the Select Committee report.The government's response to a highly critical parliamentary committee report on cuts in funding for second-time higher education students was arrogant and contradictory, UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said today.UCU condemned the refusal of the government to back down.'the wholesale opposition to the measure was reflected in the select committee report'.The issue, said the union, was not whether money should be spent on increasing numbers of first-time students but about denying other students making absolutely rational choices about the courses they needed to reskill or improve their life chances and give them the opportunity to do so.UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: 'The government has chosen not...