UCU: Race, intersectionality and redundancies

Motion

Motion text: Conference notes escalating redundancies across HE and clear evidence that Black staff are disproportionately concentrated in precarious, fixed-term, migrant and lower-graded roles most vulnerable to job loss.

Conference believes race is not incidental but structural in determining who is casualised, under-promoted and rendered expendable. Structural racism operates intersectionally: Black women, disabled Black staff, migrant staff, and those on visa-dependent or insecure contracts face compounded risk where race intersects with gender, disability, migration status, age and contract precarity. Redundancy processes that ignore these dynamics reproduce inequality. Failure to conduct robust, intersectional racial equality analysis may amount to indirect race discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 and breach consultation duties under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

Conference resolves to:
1. Back collective grievances and strategic litigation challenging discriminatory selection criteria.
2. Demand publication of fully disaggregated redundancy data.
3. Publicly name institutions where Black staff are disproportionately affected.