Lucy Burke

Deaf and Disabled People Against Fascism Join our accessible bloc! Assemble from 11.30am 28th March 12pm main Bloc Meets Outside: Intercontinental Hotel, 1 hamilton Place, W1j 7QJ Short route meets outside: Waterstones, The Grand Building, Traflagar Square, WC2N 5EJ March Together. For Love. For Hope. For Unity. 28 March London BSL Stewards

Together Against Fascism - Join the Accessible Bloc!

📅Saturday 28th March
🕛12 noon
📍Central London

Disabled people must have our voices heard and resist the systematic rise of the far-right

More detail on @dis-ppl-protest.bsky.social's website 👇
dpac.uk.net/2026/03/acce...

AI cameras are everywhere — and people are paying the price for their mistakes Flock Safety's license plate readers are used by police in thousands of communities. When the cameras make mistakes, the consequences can be severe.

There has been a lot of reporting on facial recognition systems leading to false arrests, almost entirely of Black people.

Now we're seeing reports of automated license plate readers like Flock leading to the same thing.

Surveillance supercharges racism.

www.businessinsider.com/flock-safety...

Talking about the Hess family guestbooks at the Willi Münzenberg Forum & learning about other guestbooks. It’s been brilliant

Sunrise over Mitte in East Berlin. There is a high rise building on the left and a church steeple positioned quite close to it in the centre of the photo. The sky is a deep orange fading out to grey blue.

Sunrise over Mitte in East Berlin. There is a high rise building on the left and a high rise block and church steeple positioned quite close to it in the centre of the photo. The sky is a deep orange fading out to grey blue. The rising sun is visible to the left of the high rise block and steeple.

Sunrise over Mitte. It has been great to be back in Berlin. #Mitte #Berlin

Workers don’t vote for 5 consecutive bouts of industrial action with a 75% turnout unless something is seriously wrong. Solidarity with all in Unite UCU ✊🔥

🚨 FIFTH consecutive vote for industrial action 🚨

🔥 Two week ballot window
🔥 75% turnout
🔥 73% YES to strike action
🔥 81% YES to ASOS

Our members will not tolerate victimisation and won’t be intimidated.

UCU staff are not the enemy. It’s beyond time for the GS to talk to us.

#HandsOffMarie

An alarming and enlightening thread on the lack of democracy at UCU HQ: silencing & threatening those who dissent/call for accountability, as well as attempting to shut down solidarity from branches. We need to put an end to this

Solidarity with Marie. Everything I've heard around the Unite dispute and the treatment of its members in UCU is absolutely shocking and disgraceful behaviour for a union.

Poster for the event. On the left half, a tarot-like imagery is featured, in black and white, of pirate carers by the sea. On the right side, it reads 'please join us on March 3rd, 2026 at 7pm (UTC+0) online for a discussion of the book Pirate Care: Acts Against the Criminalisation of Solidarity with the authors and with contributors to a new critical forum on the book that appears in the Postdigital Science and Education Journal. To register, visit vagabonds.xyz

Hope and Refusal in an Era of Criminalised Care: Responses to Pirate Care
7 – 8pm GMT, Tuesday 3rd of March 2026 (online)

Register:
lakeheadu.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

The Book Review Symposium publication can be found here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

More info: vagabonds.xyz
#Anticapitalism

People with learning difficulties ‘could be collateral damage’ if assisted dying bill becomes law A disabled peer has raised fears that people with learning difficulties could be “collateral damage” if a controversial assisted suicide bill becomes law. The terminally ill adults (end of life) bi…

A disabled peer has raised fears that people with learning difficulties could be “collateral damage” if a controversial assisted suicide bill becomes law.
#AssistedSuicide #AssistedDying
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/people-with-...

“Universities Are On Fire”: Staff Strike at MMU Over Pay YouTube video by The Northern Rose

This is a fab explainer of many of the issues HE is facing. Solidarity to our @unisonmmu.bsky.social colleagues who are fighting for us all. Brilliant to see the student support and solidarity too.
youtu.be/uIqntto9TdY?...

Insightful & alarming thread.

Our branch is deliberately not aligned with any union faction. However it gets spun, this isn’t a factional issue, this is an issue of democracy and trade union rights, both under strain in our very own union.

#HandsOffMarie & solidarity with @uniteucu.bsky.social

What is happening within UCU is disgraceful - solidarity with @uniteucu.bsky.social

My branch is the same - we are not factional and we are not divided but we are committed to a set of principles that don’t bend with the wind and we are committed to democracy, trade union rights, and listening to criticism.

Every word of @lucyburkemcr.bsky.social thread + this point especially. Why is our own union behaving like this in its capacity as an employer? Why are elected democratic bodies prevented from having the basic discussions about solidarity we ask of everyone else when our members are threatened?

This situation is damaging our organising capacity & the united front we need to win, handing ammunition to employers by not practicing what we preach. We deserve a democratic union in which critical voices are heard & we need the dispute with @uniteucu.bsky.social to be resolved. #HandsOffMarie

Right now, silencing dissent, prohibiting speech on core issues in our movement, demanding we put the feelings of people in positions of power before those without it, happens routinely. I have no idea why some members think this is okay, none of us would accept this in our workplaces 11/12

People voted for Jo on a platform of greater democracy, outraged at the decision to deny members the right to challenge the leadership, to have difficult discussions. Instead it feels as if our democracy has been hollowed out from within. 10/12

But it didn’t happen. The meeting was closed immediately by the regional official leaving items of business unaddressed. It reminded me of Congress 2018 on the back of which the current GS was elected. 9/12

Hearing difficult things & being criticised is difficult but also a characteristic of a functioning democracy and part of making things better. Anyway, the chair’s ruling was challenged at our regional committee. The meeting voted to hear the motion in support of Marie. 8/12

Stay silent about the issues reported by members of @uniteucu.bsky.social, to turn our back on people sharing experiences of workplace racism, an unsafe and toxic workplace, because other staff, implicitly those with the power in that workplace, feel unsafe being confronted with those voices 7/12

provided by Democratic Services whose role seems increasingly to be policing the speech of members, silencing dissent. We’ve been told that speaking about Marie, and speaking about workplace racism in UCU makes some staff feel unsafe. It means basically that we are instructed to 6/12

Other branches feel the same. At our regional committee last week, there was a motion from another branch in support of Marie and the disrepute into which we believe this situation brings our trade union. The chair of regional committee read out a statement prohibiting this motion. It was 5/12

Every rep at MMU knows that Marie is great at her job. So we have wanted to support her & say to #UCU management stop threatening Marie’s job, her livelihood, the wellbeing of the children she supports 4/12

encounter the misuse of capabilities processes to justify dismissal, ending people’s careers, threatening their ability to pay their mortgage, keep their car, put food on the table for their kids. And these processes have devastating impacts on confidence, health & wellbeing. 3/12

Health and Safety rep. She identified multiple failings on the part of UCU & the Health and Safety Executive agreed with her. Then suddenly after 17 years she found herself facing capabilities proceedings. She is also @manmetucu.bsky.social’s RSO and we love her. Union reps in every workplace 2/12

This is a thread about UCU & what it has become over the last few years. But the first thing I want to say is I didn’t join a union to stay silent or turn my back on a single parent of three facing dismissal on the basis of their trade union activities. Marie Monaghan is the Unite UCU 1/12

Campaign as ONE is about standing together on issues that matter — like NHS staffing levels.

Understaffing is affecting patient care, workloads and wellbeing. This Frontline article explains what’s happening, actions happening nationally, and how members can campaign locally: https://bit.ly/4bGubb3

UK and US sink to new lows in global index of corruption Countries’ drop in scores in annual table comes amid ‘worrying trend’ of backsliding in established democracies

“The UK and US have sunk to new lows in a global index of corruption, amid a “worrying trend” of democratic institutions being eroded by political donations, cash for access and state targeting of campaigners and journalists.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Astonishing thread/blog on the rotten state of the @ucu.org.uk - a trade union of all things.

I resent every pound of my membership that's spent on subverting democracy, bullying staff, and covering-up wrongdoing.