January 12, 2007

Victims [in academia] do not come forward?

We received the following email:

Dear Mrs Blackwell,

Recently we have read your comments on bulldieacademics website. You are badly mistaken about the number of cases and members who apply for assistance every year. As to nature of advice NATHFE/AUT [UCU] policy is to instruct a firm of solicitors or counsel whom they can control to get a generic advice -"Your claim has no merit or has less that 50% chances of success".

When the Tribunals heard the evidence, many of these claims were successful. Yet, no regret by the Union leadership and in-house solicitors. In the case of Dr DSilva the Tribunal found in his favour in his absence although, the Union and its counsel and solicitor thought he had no case. What a shame?


Do you have any idea what do the unions do those who come forward what do the Unions do to them. Have you looked at the union new draconian rule 4.6? Since September 2006 three Indian and one Iranian have already became victim of the above union rule. If any one dare question the competency or racism within the union would [they] not see the light of the day.

For further information contact tribunals_racialbias@yahoo.co.uk

Yours sincerely,

C Kumar, Mrs Mahadevan & AJ Graham - Coordinators
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Read related previous comment in this blog: Institutionalised Racism in Higher Education - UK [December 07, 2006, bottom of page]
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How can victims be encouraged to come forward if this is how academic unions deal with them? And what happens to those that question the union leadership and how it deals with these issues? They are branded 'union bashers' and they 'vanish' in the gulags...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One can indeed question the competence of UCU local reps. In a case where the victim became mentally ill (as a result of bullying, malice, exclusion,etc...), the whole matter was conducted with classical prejudice. The victim was described as someone who is confused. His/Her whole perception of reality was brought into question.