'So it was close run and Sally Hunt has been appointed with only 52% of votes after a recount when Peter Jones' votes were redistributed.The three candidates were apparently not allowed to be present during the count... It is unclear why not? In whose interests would it be for them not to be present?
The 52% indicates that members are not convinced about Sally being the leader of the only union that academics can turn to when they are bullied.
We have a leader who refused to engage with issues of work place bullying. Who did not engage with issues on her blog and publish any comments that were posted up. Who does not have a strong mandate for leadership...
However as leader she has an awesome responsibility and will maybe explain to those of us who are targets of bullying why, although she seemed to like stories, she did not want to engage with our story. We are in your hands Sally Hunt...'
From anonymous post to this blog.
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Also:
'Sally Hunt is elected first general secretary of UCU - Sally Hunt has been elected as the first general secretary of the University and College Union.
The union was formed on 1 June 2006 following a merger between the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE).
Ms Hunt secured just over 52% of the vote after the second round of counting and was duly declared UCU general secretary by the returning officers this morning. She will take up the post on 1 June 2007. The other candidates were Peter Jones, UCU member and Roger Kline UCU head of equality and employment rights. The turnout was just under 14% (13.95%)...
From: UCU web site
So here are some more figures: AUT + NATFHE = UCU, i.e. a combined membership of well over 100.000 union members. From the scrutineers report we read the following:
Number of ballot papers despatched: 116,512
Number of ballot papers returned: 16,715
Number of invalid papers: 465
Therefore number of valid votes counted: 16,250
Sally Hunt, after distribution of votes has a total of: 8463 votes, compared to second placed Roger Kline on 7117.
Draw your own conclusions but one of them may be that the pre-election campaigns were hardly exciting and relevant to some of us. None of the three candidates made workplace bullying in academia a significant part of their pre-election agenda. We will never know how many of the 465 invalid papers had something written on them against workplace bullying. A new era for our union in the fight against workplace bullying in academia?
1 comment:
I am sorely disappointed that only 14 per cent of the combined membership to whom 116,512 ballot papers were sent managed to return them - six in every seven did not.
People historically show far more interest in pay rises, or even on-campus parking.
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