Emma Rees (University of Chester)

Election address

The fracture lines in the HE sector I've worked in for more than two decades (I'm professor of Gender Studies at the University of Chester) are deeper than ever. Colleagues are broken, too, by excessive workloads, low pay, and job insecurity. I'm standing as women members' rep because I can't not stand. Add a global pandemic, and the last two years have been devastating.

The pandemic (it's something of a truism, but truisms contain truths to be reiterated) threw into sharp relief the intersecting matrices of oppression that affect our most vulnerable colleagues and students. Even for those with relative privilege, the competing demands (home-schooling; the second shift; self-care; lecturing) of working in the COVID context took their toll.

At my own institution, our 'reward' for having kept the university open, and our students motivated, in the face of unfamiliar learning tech and global existential dread, was to be served with 'at risk' redundancy letters. I've been a UCU (and NATFHE) member for over 20 years. When the redundancy process began I became one of the branch's chief negotiators. I faced repeated attempts to belittle my union and to intimidate me. Not only were all 86 proposed compulsory redundancies eventually rescinded, but the trauma revivified the branch, culminating in a massive (and unprecedented - for us) 62% turnout in the Four Fights ballot.

If I'm elected, I'll carry onto the national stage the successful strategies we used together as a branch to halt our senior management's vandalism. As an intersectional, inclusive feminist at a post-'92 university, I want to create space for - and cede space to - my marginalised colleagues. I want to continue to work to develop effective policies that will close the insidious pay gaps that characterise the sector. Working on a campus sexual assault project has strengthened my resolve to roll out streamlined incident reporting systems for staff and students who should be able to come forward secure in the knowledge that their wellbeing is more important than an institution's reputation. Finally - for now - I want to continue to work for and with trans and queer colleagues in the face of bigotry, racism, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny.

There is cause for optimism, as the creativity and insight of my www.ucucommons.org colleagues who are also up for election demonstrate. I want to play a part in repairing the sector's fractures - but I want kintsugi, not superglue - healing, not forgetting. The UCU's like a family - idiosyncratic, divided, and sometimes dysfunctional. But it's the only UCU we've got. I'll fight for it when I need to, and I'll attempt to mediate between its members when I must, because without it we're really screwed.

Twitter: @EMMAREES