The Chronicle News Blog: Seams Show as Newly Merged Faculty Union in Britain Elects New Chief
Members of Britain’s recently created main faculty union, the University and College Union, have elected Sally Hunt as their first general secretary. Ms. Hunt had led the Association of University Teachers, which merged last June with the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, known as Natfhe, to form the new union, and she was instrumental in the creation of the new body.
Ms. Hunt won a little more than 52 percent of the vote, just over the 50-percent tally necessary for a victory under the union’s rules. Less than 14 percent of the union’s 116,000 members voted in the election. Roger Kline, a former Natfhe official who is the new union’s head of equality and employment rights, came in second.
Ms. Hunt’s former union represented faculty members at Britain’s older, more established universities, while Natfhe members were drawn largely from the former vocationally oriented polytechnics and further-education colleges. Differences of approach between the two groups became evident last year during a grading boycott related to a pay dispute. Members of the Association of University Teachers refused to administer examinations, while Natfhe members administered them but refused to grade them.
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