University and College Union

The UCU represents workers across UK post-school education. Its stated constituencies include academics, lecturers, trainers, instructors, researchers, managers, administrators, computer staff, librarians, technicians, other professional staff and postgraduates. Its settings include universities, colleges, prisons, adult education and training organisations.[1] It also performs conventional trade-union functions: higher-education unions represent staff in workplace matters such as pay, pensions and working conditions, and provide workplace representation through elected local and national structures.[5]

Membership totals should be treated as dated reports rather than a single consistent series. The union’s history page gives a combined membership of about 120,000 at its formation in 2006.[2] A 2008 article described approximately 120,000 teachers at universities, colleges and other higher-education organisations.[6] Other reports gave 120,000 in 2007 and 160,000 in 2008.[4][7] A 2017 report gave 110,000.[8]

The union’s own current-facing pages also differ in their published figures. Its About page says it represents over 120,000 people, while a Glasgow UCU page says over 130,000; neither page explains the difference.[1][9] A breakdown reported by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs described 50,000 former AUT academics in 80 universities and 70,000 former NATFHE members in 620 other UK further- and higher-education institutions. That is a historical account of the union’s composition, not a present-day distribution.[10]

UCU’s annual congress is its supreme policy-making body. Further- and higher-education sector conferences decide policy for their respective areas, while Scotland and Wales also hold congresses for devolved policy. Members generally belong to a workplace-based branch or local association and elect local officers. They also elect representatives to the national executive committee (NEC), which conducts union business between congress meetings.[3]

The general secretary is the union’s most senior official. The UCU structures page identifies Jo Grady as general secretary and states that her term runs to the end of May 2029.[3]

The UCU was formed on 1 June 2006 through the amalgamation of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE). Their organisational histories reach back to the early twentieth century: 200 technical teachers formed the London-based Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes (ATTI) in 1904, and university lecturers established an association in 1917 that became the AUT in 1919. ATTI later became part of the institutional history that led to NATFHE, which was established in 1976.[2]

The two unions’ conferences voted in 2004 to explore unification. In 2005, 79.2% of AUT members and 95.7% of NATFHE members who voted supported the merger. The combined organisation began with a reported membership of about 120,000.[2] The merger brought together staff working across university and further education, and created a union whose remit extended beyond university lecturers to a broad range of workers in post-school education.[1]

The merger took place amid disagreements over predecessor-union policies on Israel. In April 2005, the AUT asked members to avoid academic or cultural cooperation with the universities of Haifa and Bar-Ilan. The cited reporting gave different stated grounds for the two targets: Haifa was accused of disciplining a lecturer who supported a student researching attacks on Palestinians during Israel’s founding, while Bar-Ilan was targeted over courses it ran at colleges in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria. The AUT said the action followed a request from Palestinian academics, and the boycott was not compulsory.[11]

About a month later, AUT representatives voted by a “very large majority” to end the boycott, following an international campaign involving the universities and Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Reactions had differed sharply: Jewish figures in London criticized the initial decision, while Palestinian Authority figures had welcomed it and hoped other international organisations would exert pressure on Israel.[12]

NATFHE adopted a separate boycott resolution in 2006. One contemporaneous report said it called for a boycott of Israeli higher-education institutions that did not disavow what the motion termed an “apartheid policy.” The resolution was removed in connection with the merger, which reporting described as involving AUT opposition and a threat of legal action if the clause remained.[13] A U.S. House resolution later stated that the AUT’s 2005 boycott resolution had been overturned in a revote and NATFHE’s 2006 resolution was voided when the organisations merged.[14] The UCU’s formation therefore did not simply carry forward either predecessor’s earlier boycott proposals as operative union policy.

The union’s policy debates over Israel became prominent at its first congress in Bournemouth in May 2007. Delegates passed Motion 30 by 158 votes to 99, with 17 abstentions according to one report. It called on branches to discuss an academic boycott of Israel and asked members to consider the moral implications of links with Israeli academic institutions; it did not itself impose a boycott.[4] Other accounts describe the motion as calling for discussion of a comprehensive boycott and report that the debate considered refusing research collaboration with Israeli academics, including work with Israeli academic journals.[6]

The motion followed several hours of debate. A report described about 250 participants but listed vote totals of 158 in favour, 99 against and eight abstentions, a set of figures that does not add up to the approximate attendance stated in that account.[15] The motion also called on the European Union to consider ending funding for academic research and development programmes in Israel, citing the situation in the territories.[15] The Congressional Record reproduces a House resolution describing the UCU leadership’s May 30 vote as a decision to consider a boycott at branch level; the resolution urged UCU members to reject the leadership’s call and urged educators, governments and scholarly organisations to oppose academic boycotts of Israel.[14]

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt distinguished discussion from implementation. She said branches had a responsibility to consult members, but that she did not believe a boycott was supported by most members or was a priority for the union.[4] In a separate account, Hunt characterised the motion as a call for discussion rather than a decision to carry out a boycott, and reiterated that she did not think most members supported one.[6] A report also quoted David Newman, a Ben-Gurion University professor who attended the meeting, describing the atmosphere as hostile and saying criticism of Israel dominated the discussion. The same report said lecturers from Oxford and Cambridge were among the opponents. Israel’s education minister Yuli Tamir called the motion “outrageous,” while Israel’s ambassador to Britain understood it as a call to consider a boycott rather than a boycott itself, but expressed concern that campus discussion could be driven by more extreme voices.[15]

The U.S. House of Representatives passed H. Res. 467 on July 11, 2007, by 414 votes to none, with two members voting present. The measure condemned the UCU leadership’s vote to consider a branch-level boycott of Israeli academics and institutions.[16] A 2008 U.S. State Department report described two separate UCU resolutions from May 2007 as proposals requiring members to support a Palestinian call for a boycott and endorsing restrictions on collaborative research with Israeli scholars. Its account also characterised some debate as involving anti-Semitic demonisation of Israel and stated that the call for a boycott was later called off.[17]

On September 28, 2007, UCU said legal advice indicated that an academic boycott of Israel risked infringing UK discrimination legislation and could not be implemented. The reported advice distinguished discussion and resolutions criticising Israeli government policy—which it treated as permissible—from a union call for, or implementation of, a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.[10] Another account described the union as ending its involvement in plans for an academic boycott at the end of September, citing legal advice that such action would be unlawful under British law.[6]

The debate continued in 2008. At its annual conference in May, UCU voted to circulate the testimonies of a union delegation to Palestine and use them to promote discussion of continuing educational links with Israeli academic institutions. The motion also called for Ariel College in the West Bank to be investigated under the union’s formal Greylisting Procedure.[18] A report said that, after two UCU members threatened legal action, the national executive decided not to implement the resolution as planned.[18] Another account described the motion as asking members to consider the moral and political implications of links with Israeli institutions and to discuss the occupation, including with Israeli colleagues; it said UCU intended to pursue non-boycott elements after receiving legal advice that an academic boycott would be unlawful and could not be implemented.[7]

Reports on the 2009 congress described further changes to boycott-related motions. One motion supporting an academic boycott was declared “void and of no effect.” Another was amended, after legal advice, to urge branches to discuss the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) before the next congress rather than affirm support for a boycott. The union also supported holding a trade-union conference to investigate lawful ways of implementing action, including possible institutional boycotts.[19]

The UCU’s Israel-related policy developed beyond the early congress discussions. A 2010 Institute for National Security Studies publication reported that the union had voted that year to support the BDS campaign against Israel and to sever ties with the Histadrut. It also said that on June 5, 2011, UCU decided to propose at its annual conference a resolution calling for a full academic and cultural boycott of Israel. The 2011 passage describes a proposed resolution, not a vote adopting it.[20]

A 2010 article archived by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research likewise reported that UCU voted in early June to support BDS, sever links with the Histadrut, encourage other unions and organisations to follow suit, and begin a process aimed at boycotting Ariel University College. The author said legal obstacles prevented concrete action; that is the article’s account of the resolutions and their implementation.[21] Fine and Spencer report that in 2011 the union voted to dissociate itself from the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s working definition of antisemitism.[22]

UCU’s own stated position distinguishes support for BDS from a call for an academic boycott. The union says its longstanding policy supports BDS within the constraints of existing law, but that it has received legal advice that it cannot call for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions because such a call would be unlawful and outside the union’s powers and aims.[23] This is the union’s description of its policy and legal advice, rather than an independent legal ruling in that source.

In its Israel–Palestine campaign material, UCU says it joined calls for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, unrestricted humanitarian aid and the lifting of the siege of Gaza. The union also states that it is affiliated with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and that congress has determined its policy supporting the right to protest in solidarity with Palestinians.[23] These positions sit alongside the union’s declared opposition to discrimination, including antisemitism, and have been central to arguments about how it draws boundaries between political advocacy, academic freedom and the treatment of Jewish members.[24]

A Parliamentary Taskforce on Antisemitism in Higher Education reported that Jewish academics it interviewed raised UCU on many occasions. Some interviewees said Jewish staff did not feel safe or accepted in the union, particularly during discussions of Israel and Palestine. One recently hired Jewish staff member said they would not join UCU after hearing about a negative environment for Jews; other interviewees expressed disappointment and distrust about whether the union would support members facing antisemitism.[5] The report summarised interview testimony and did not present it as a finding about every UCU branch or member.[5]

The Taskforce also criticised a December 2022 UCU resource on religious inclusion. Its example described a Muslim activist uncomfortable with Friday-night pub meetings but did not note that Friday night is the start of the Jewish Sabbath, so such meetings could also exclude Jewish staff. The report concluded that UCU needed to develop a more inclusive culture for all members, including Jewish academics, while cautioning that concerns about one union should not be generalised to all unions.[5]

In 2019, UCU apologised after an initial circular for Holocaust Memorial Day omitted Jews from its list of Nazi victims while naming Roma, Sinti, disabled people, LGBT+ people, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others. The union said an incomplete version had been sent by mistake and that it amended the copy after the error was identified. A later memo acknowledged the systematic murder of six million Jews in Europe.[25]

In June 2026, UK Lawyers for Israel said it had written to UCU seeking withdrawal of a lanyard bearing the slogan “Stand with Palestine” and an inverted red triangle. The organisation characterised the symbol as associated with Hamas and argued that wearing it could distress Jewish staff and students and raise legal concerns. The cited report does not establish UCU’s response or the lanyard’s subsequent status, and its claims about the symbol are UKLFI’s.[26]

The relationship between UCU’s positions on Israel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism has been a recurring and contested subject. Fine and Spencer’s 2017 book identifies UCU as the successor to the AUT and says it passed repeated resolutions calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions while rejecting the characterisation of those resolutions as antisemitic. The authors report UCU resolutions in 2006, 2007 and 2008 concerning criticism of Israel and antisemitism, and say that in 2011 the union voted to dissociate itself from the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s working definition of antisemitism.[22]

A scholarly paper on disputes over definitions of antisemitism treats UCU as a case study in arguments about whether hostility to Israel and support for boycotts may be related to antisemitism. It describes the union’s 2011 congress as explicitly disavowing the EUMC definition. The paper says UCU’s structures, an Employment Tribunal in UCU v Fraser, and the 2016 Chakrabarti Inquiry into antisemitism and other racisms in the Labour Party rejected claims that hostility to Israel in those cases manifested antisemitism or that institutional antisemitism could be identified in UCU or the Labour Party. The paper’s author also questions whether those rejections may themselves be implicated in contemporary antisemitism.[27] These are competing interpretations of the meaning and effects of the union’s positions, not a single agreed conclusion.

In 2017, UCU Congress passed a motion distancing itself from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. A report said the union rejected the definition on the grounds that it “conflates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel.” Representatives of the Jewish Leadership Council and Board of Deputies criticised the motion and argued that UCU should not define antisemitism on behalf of Jewish people.[8] The union’s 2024 congress minutes record a carried motion stating, among other things, that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism and calling for opposition to employer attempts to conflate them. The minutes also record UCU support for BDS and opposition to the IHRA definition.[28]

A legal case brought by freelance mathematics lecturer Ronnie Fraser became another prominent part of the debate. Fraser alleged that UCU’s anti-Zionist activity, including votes on academic boycotts, amounted to harassment and made the union institutionally antisemitic. The case was heard over 20 days in late 2012, with 10,000 documents presented and 29 witnesses testifying for Fraser. The tribunal rejected his claim; its judges described the proceedings as “an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means” and ruled that Zionist beliefs or attachment to Israel were not intrinsically part of Jewishness. Fraser later disputed the tribunal’s understanding of antisemitism.[29]

A UCU account of the same tribunal dispute says the tribunal dismissed all ten harassment complaints brought by a union member who opposed its Palestine policy. The union quoted the tribunal as dismissing the proceedings “in their totality” and said the claimant remained free to challenge UCU. The same UCU account said the union remained opposed to discrimination, including antisemitism.[24] The Times of Israel report focuses on Fraser’s allegations and later response, while UCU’s account emphasises the dismissal of the complaints and the union’s anti-discrimination position.

UCU’s Israel-related motions and policy positions have drawn sharply different assessments. Supporters and union materials have framed debate, BDS and criticism of Israeli policy as political activity distinct from antisemitism; critics have argued that boycott proposals and the union’s approach to antisemitism can marginalise Jewish academics or contribute to antisemitism. The sources document these positions and disputes but do not establish that every union member, branch or policy discussion reflects one uniform view.[22][27][5]

The 2007 episode also involved distinct stages that should not be conflated: a congress motion called for discussion and member consultation; the union later cited legal advice against implementing an academic boycott; and subsequent congresses considered or amended further motions. Different reports describe different motions and points in that sequence, while UCU’s own current account says it supports BDS subject to law but cannot call for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.[4][10][19][23]

The union’s approach to the IHRA definition and the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism remains contested. UCU congress decisions record the union’s own positions, while Jewish organisations, scholars and other commentators have offered differing assessments of their implications. The available accounts should therefore be read as evidence of an ongoing institutional and public dispute, rather than as a settled determination of the relationship between criticism of Israel, anti-Zionism and antisemitism.[8][27][28]