Congress motions

Motion

Motion title

Developing Pro-Labour Movement Media

Session

2023-2024

Meeting link

Annual Congress

Meeting date

29 May 2024

Status

Passed

Motion

21

Motion text

Conference notes:
1. The current UK media ecosystem is dominated by a handful of powerful corporations.
2. It therefore not only fails to serve the interests of working people, but actively undermines them.
Conference believes:
a. Unions could do far more to collectively build an interconnected system of communication assets.
b. This could take the form of low-budget, low-risk formats like podcasts and YouTube channels, hosted on a cooperatively owned version of subscription-based content hosting platforms like Patreon, enabling successful projects to pay for themselves and fund new projects rather than draining union resources.
c. A set of popular media assets with loyal audiences would be a powerful tool to proactively reshape mass opinion and intervene strategically at key moments to protect members' interests and degrade anti-union attacks.
d. Democratic ownership and accountability can ensure that our media content matches the ethos of the campaigning work that our members, branches, regions and nations are engaged in.
e. Our democratic structures were not designed for the social media era.
Conference resolves:
i. UCU should initiate discussions with other unions to collectively allocate resources to building the kind of interconnected system of communication assets described above.
ii. Congress instructs the NEC to explore a mechanism of democratic oversight of UCU media projects, led by lay-elected representatives from either the NEC or wider UCU membership.
Nothing in this motion (21) can be interpreted as affecting the roles, responsibilities, or reporting structures of UCU staff.

Proposing body

University of Essex

Amended

Yes

Allocated to

Strategy and finance committee (SFC)

Notes