Jo Grady says UCU election being ‘continually misrepresented’

University and College Union (UCU) general secretary Jo Grady has denied any wrongdoing during her 2024 victorious leadership election campaign, saying that she has been “misquoted” and “misrepresented”.

In a lengthy hearing before the trade union watchdog which sought to establish whether she broke UCU’s election rules, Grady defended her campaign, arguing she was having to balance her responsibilities as general secretary and a candidate at the time.

Grady’s former campaign rivals, Ewan McGaughey and Vicky Blake, have sought to overturn the election result through the Certification Officer and have the campaign rerun, after they claimed Grady had “an unfair advantage” as the incumbent candidate.

McGaughey and Blake, who came second and third in the election respectively, argued that Grady’s alleged use of UCU mailing lists, resources and contractors that were not available to the other candidates paved the way for her narrow victory by 182 votes.

If the Certification Officer decides that the union has breached its rules or legal requirements, he will make a declaration and has the discretion to make an enforcement order or issue a financial penalty.

However, at the 10 February hearing Grady said that she was just “doing [her] job”, arguing that instances of her delivering speeches to local branches and attending events that other candidates were not invited to during the campaign were part of her responsibilities as general secretary and were unrelated to the election. 

She denied allegations that she had exceeded the four permitted campaign emails candidates were allowed to send to members using UCU mailing lists, and argued that other emails sent out in her name from official accounts during the election were related to her ongoing UCU work. Delegating communications to other senior members of UCU staff would have “added to their workloads”, she said, adding: “In general, emails to members about substantive issues come from the figurehead of the union.”

“I think these are entirely legitimate things that any good leader should be doing to demonstrate to their members that they want to represent them,” she said.

Blake and McGaughey argued that the emails “raised her profile”, and redirected members to her campaign, and they blurred the lines between her official and campaign responsibilities. 

WhatsApp messages produced by McGaughey and Blake sent from Grady in 2023 to a group chat which included members of the senior management team allegedly showed her saying, “From now on, every single decision we make/thing we do has to be seen through the lens: 1. win dispute, 2. re-elect GS [general secretary], 3. rid union of SWP [Socialist Workers Party]”, which they argued meant she had breached rules preventing candidates from instructing UCU staff from working on their campaigns. But Grady said these had been taken out of context. 

“Particularly the case with those WhatsApps, you are misquoting from a cherry-picked message to present an alternative account of the actual reality. You’re presenting with all these small examples the idea that there was something bigger and grander than there was, all underpinned by an instruction to staff with which you have no evidence of either,” Grady said.

She added that the WhatsApp messages were sent during a “high-pressure moment” in the UCU Rising dispute, and were part of a wider conversation about the “disruptive nature of the SWP” within the union. She added it “pains her” to have these communications out in the open, but insisted the extract came from a larger conversation about the influence of the SWP.

Blake retorted: “I find it difficult to interpret the words, ‘re-elect GS’ as anything other than what they say on the paper.”

Grady added there had been a “real overstatement” about the role social media played in her campaign success after it was claimed she used union resources as part of her social media presence, arguing that she believed that instead it is “workplace interactions that really drive turnout”.

A key point of McGaughey and Blake’s argument centred on the fact that Grady won by just 182 votes, arguing that one social media video – which was filmed in the union office, which they said was against campaign rules – gained 29,200 views, enough to sway voters, they said.

But Grady said they were “comparing apples and oranges” and “views don’t equal votes”.

When addressing allegations that Grady had used a contractor who worked as a videographer for UCU to film one of her campaign videos, she said she “wishes” she had not done so, but “it does not suggest a breach, and I don’t think it suggests that I either abused my position on that day or that, as you have said elsewhere, it suggests a pattern of doing so”.

Sarah Fraser Butlin KC, representing UCU, also claimed that guidance notes issued as part of the election, relied upon by Blake and McGaughey, were simply “guidance” rather than “mandatory”, which they strongly disputed.

McGaughey said: “The heart of this case is the question of whether trade union members have a right to a free and fair election, and whether there’s [a] right to an effective remedy for breaches of union rules.”

The case continues, and a second hearing will be organised to hear further evidence.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com