In his speech at Davos last week, Mark Carney offered a blunt diagnosis of our current moment:

“We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

He was speaking about global politics and economics at the World Economic Forum, but his words land uncomfortably close to home for many of us working in universities — and particularly for members of University and College Union at Bournemouth University.

Carney’s most quoted line —

“If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu”
— resonates strongly with what staff are currently experiencing across the sector.

A rupture, not a transition

Universities often describe what we are living through as change, modernisation, or necessary transition. But that language masks what many staff recognise as something more severe: a rupture in trust, voice, and shared governance.

At BU, staff are being asked to absorb restructures, workload intensification, job insecurity, and consultation processes that feel procedural rather than relational. The assumption seems to be that compliance will lead to safety — that if staff stay reasonable, flexible, and quiet, stability will follow.

Carney directly challenges this logic. In his speech, he rejected the idea that compliance buys protection, arguing instead that it often leaves people and institutions more exposed.

For UCU members, this rings true. Many colleagues report that:

• workloads expand even when concerns are raised
• consultation happens after decisions are already framed
• “listening” does not translate into influence

This is not transition. It is rupture.

Voice, power, and being “at the table”

Carney’s call for “middle powers” to act together is instructive for trade unions. Universities are complex organisations, and individual staff — even senior ones — rarely hold meaningful power alone. But collectively, staff do.

Being “at the table” is not about optics or attendance. It is about:

• genuine negotiation rather than information-sharing
• shared authorship of decisions, not retrospective endorsement
• recognising staff expertise as central, not incidental, to institutional sustainability

UCU exists precisely because individual voices are easily sidelined, while collective ones are harder to ignore.

Naming reality matters

Another striking aspect of Carney’s speech was his insistence on naming reality honestly. He warned against polite language that obscures power and avoids discomfort.

At BU, UCU members have consistently tried to do this:

• naming the gap between wellbeing rhetoric and lived experience
• highlighting when workload models do not reflect actual labour
• questioning narratives of financial recovery that coexist with job losses and intensified work

This is not negativity. It is organisational care.

Learning from Davos — locally

Carney’s speech was not a call for nostalgia or for preserving old systems at all costs. It was a call to build something new, collectively, and with clarity about power.

For UCU at BU, the lesson is not that universities are nation states — but that the same principles apply:

• silence does not protect us
• compliance does not equal safety
• collective action is not obstruction, but participation

If staff are not genuinely involved in shaping the future of the institution, they will bear the costs of decisions they did not make.

And if we are not at the table, we already know what happens next.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

In solidarity,
BU UCU