Branch members who haven't been keeping an eagle eye on email over the last week or so could be forgiven for asking 'what happened?', following a stream of emails and surveys sent out by the branch committee in a short period of time. The motions were originally suggested by our members and proposed for our AGM, which took place on Wednesday 22nd May.
Motions are suggestions that are put forward by branch members, for the branch to discuss and vote on whether to accept. Motions are not the same as changes to the branch constitution, but they can affect the way branch officers are instructed to behave on matters like voting on national UCU policy, or 'no-confidence' motions that our branch has delivered to Senior Management several times in recent years. Any member can propose a motion, and we'll sharing a post here soon about the process of suggesting a motion for the branch to vote on.
We had four motions proposed in our AGM, the first of which was a relatively straightforward proposal to maintain our level of members' progressive contributions to our local hardship fund. This has been central to our ability to take successful action since 2019, as it supplements the limited hardship support available from the national UCU Fighting Fund. Some might say it helped us to win back our retirement benefits this year. After a quick discussion in our AGM, we went to a vote, and the motion passed without issue.
Motion 2 ('Expressing Branch views on International Matters'), Motion 3 ('Free Speech and the Right to Protest'), and Motion 4 ('Palestinian Solidarity') were on more sensitive issues, and they required discussion. As with any motion, we shared the proposed text with members before the AGM, and then invited responses from members during the meeting. Members were also free to propose amendments, which themselves need to be agreed by a vote before the final text of the motion can be voted upon. As the texts of these three motions were shared with a shorter notice than we might have liked, the Committee took the decision to open online voting for them in a 24 hour period following the AGM.
We will have a separate post recording the minutes from our AGM for you to catch up, but in short, there were no amendments proposed for Motion 2 during the AGM. Amendments to Motion 3 were suggested and voted upon. We had a long discussion on Motion 4, after which it was agreed that the AGM would instruct the motion's authors to 'revise and resubmit', and then the business of amending and voting on the motion would be carried out online.
This led us to three separate on-line votes:
- Voting on Motions 2 and 3
- Voting on proposed amendments on Motion 4
- Voting on Motion 4
Motion 2 results (passed):
Yes: 41 votes
No: 10 votes
Abstain: 3 votes
Motion 3 results (passed):
Yes: 49 votes
No: 2 votes
Abstain: 2 votes
Motion 4 amendments (all passed)
1. Changing notes 3: 30 for, 8 against, 6 abstentions.
2. Deleting resolves 5: 21 for, 17 against, 11 abstentions.
3. Insertion in point 3 of notes: 25 for, 6 against, 9 abstentions.
4. Revision to point 1 of resolves: 26 for, 10 against, 4 abstentions.
Motion 4 results (passed):
Yes: 75 votes
No: 16 votes
Abstain: 4 votes
These three separate motions have consequences for our behaviour as a branch. They allow for a fuller and more democratic process if, in future, any members wish the branch to represent views on international matters and if, in future, we should see any challenge to free speech or protest on our campus. The full (amended) text of all three motions follows below.
Thank you to all our members who participated in our democratic processes.
RHUL UCU Branch Committee
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