Dr Eurig Scandrett (Queen Margaret University)

Election address

Senior Lecturer in Public Sociology, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

As our members across Britain strike for pay, security, equality and sustainable workloads, I am asking you to re-elect me to the UCU Scotland Executive Committee and ensure post-92 institutions are well represented.

I have been part of the leadership of QMU branch for more than fifteen years, during which time we negotiated recognition for UCU, doubled in size, prevented compulsory redundancies and used health and safety legislation to address spiralling workload. I have been Branch President, Vice President, Health and Safety Representative, Workload Representative, Sustainability Representative, Negotiator and Caseworker.

In UCU Scotland I have been Vice-President and Executive member, active in the education committee, the post-92 working group and the health and safety reps network. I participated in the Transforming UCU course and Jane McAlevey's Strike School. I have represented UCU Scotland on the Just Transition Partnership since its inception and have a long-standing involvement with Scottish Hazards campaign. With over 30 years of experience as an activist in the environmental and peace movements and international solidarity, I led a trade union delegation to Bhopal in solidarity with the survivors of the industrial disaster, and currently chair the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. I am a pro-feminist man and support women's sex-based rights. I am a member of the Jimmy Reid Foundation project board. I also sing bass in a political choir, which is an asset on the picket line!

The end of the lockdown has exposed the unsustainability of Scottish Higher Education, dependent on excessive workloads, casualisation, metrics-driven performance and managerialism. Inadequate public funding is used as an excuse for pushing education as a public good towards private revenue generation. Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, many universities are abandoning protection measures, putting vulnerable staff at particular risk. The only lessons learned by universities from lockdown have been to turn education increasingly into an online commodity.

Meanwhile it is the staff, our members, who have kept HE alive, supported our students and generated the research, and it is we who are being exploited more than ever. We are at breaking point and we are saying enough!

We need a different model for HE in Scotland, one based on cooperation and collegiality, strong working conditions and accountable governance, academic freedom and social responsibility, critical thought and active engagement, and as partners in the just transition to the post-fossil economy. With union-organised university workers in the leadership, we can build that vision.