Talk:University and College Union

Positions section
Hi all. Why do we list abortion as one of the only three positions we mention in this section? UCU's website seems to list a whole range of things they take positions on, from Brexit to academic freedom and widening participation and trans rights (indeed, they seem to have a LOT of positions!). It's going to be hard to summarise I think, but for now I will delete the abortion section for undue prominence - this doesn't seem to be a particular focus for the union, any more than other issues. StupidLookingKid (talk) 20:40, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Untitled
This article is particularly one-sided -- there are no citations supplied when contending that the Government has failed to meet this or that demand from this union.

Since there is an arbitrary scale to place university pages on, I shall give it a C, until citations are found and that other arguments are duly considered to formulate a neutral point of view.

-- Kyle Allen -- 07/02/23

Not sure why we need to know who designed the union's logo

--212.139.254.241 21:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Quite. I deleted it but it came back again! Ben Finn (talk) 14:50, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

student demonstations against the industrial action
I have some photos of students marching in the streets against the 'action short of a strike', which I took in Liverpool. They are on the web site I set up at the time with the online petition, at www.aut-boycott.co.uk - I hereby give permission for any of those photos to be used on this site if anyone sees fit. Paulfp 16:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Boycott of Israel
I cut the following out of this section: "Recently, in a meeting where the union decided to support LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) History Month and oppose security surveillance of Muslims in UK campuses, the union also decided not to take action against antisemitism." The link leads to the above meeting, however, beyond the fact that the LGBT, History, and security concerns are completely unrelated, the actual motion was withdrawn. As such it is not appropriate to draw the conclusion of "decided not to take action against antisemitism." This is an entirely unknowable conclusion, as the motion may have been withdrawn for any number of reasons.--Bookandcoffee 04:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Controversy on Israel and antisemitism
This short section does not contain background information on the court case against the UCU. I shall add in the information on the UCU's recent abandonment of the EUMC draft working definition of antisemitism, the reasons for this decision, and the criticism, and support that it has attracted. Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 12:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be good. Ideally, it would also include documentation of the wave of resignations from UCU. Goodwinsands (talk) 13:39, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

More on antisemitism...
"The UCU is regularly criticized for its repeated boycotting of Israeli academics and is subject to claims of institutional antisemitism." While I'm not denying that some people have accused the UCU of anti-Semitism and have criticised (yes, this is a British organisation so we will use British spelling), it seems a bit dodgy to have this phrase floating around in the article's introduction with nothing to qualify it whatsoever. Add an appropriate reference by all means but don't expect to see that line of text there for much longer if you can't back it up. Thanks. Footcrab (talk) 14:10, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The claim in the lede is substantiated in the article below. Goodwinsands (talk) 16:31, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Surely given an existing the criticism section, this doesn't need to be repeated at the top of the article? If you want to keep it there as-is, please give a citation for "regularly criticised", otherwise "has been criticised" is a better fit, and specifically stating by who (e.g. some academics and former members) HoboBen (talk) 00:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I corrected the spelling of "antisemitism" in the header of this paragraph. Just because MS Word's auto-correct spells it "anti-Semitism" does not make it correct. I also corrected the spelling in the main article, which had both spellings. Here is just one reference regarding the correct spelling: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism  Dori1951 (talk) 15:26, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Deleted branding section
I have deleted a section which merely says the name of the company that designed the Union's logo. This seems to serve no purpose other than advertising. The fact that it is true does not merit it worthy of inclusion (unless perhaps the article is to list all trade suppliers of the Union? With individual sections on paper manufacturers, coffee suppliers, etc.) Ben Finn (talk) 14:48, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 09:39, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

2008
I removed the 2008 section in this diff. It seems completely WP:UNDUE and, afaict, neither of the students accused by Hirsh had any official role in UCU. Neither can I find any trace of the "scandal" other than in some blogs. But feel free to revert. ImThe IP (talk) 20:33, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * No strong opinion but here are two news sources: and  BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:42, 1 September 2020 (UTC)