UCU NEC elections: 
Vote Nick Emmel for North East HE

Building a member-led union to make a difference locally, nationally and internationally

I am Professor of Social Research Methodology in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. I have been a UCU School Rep throughout my 24 years working in higher education. I was a mature student at Northumbria University. Before that I worked in the NHS and was a COHSE (which merged into UNISON) rep at Leeds General Infirmary, the Northern General and Hallamshire hospitals in Sheffield.

I am proud that all but one person in the large School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds is a member of the UCU. I’m working on recruiting that last person!

Members

I believe a union is its members. As a collective we can make a difference locally in our schools and services, in our universities, nationally and internationally.

Up to now I’ve focussed my attention on the local, building the union from the bottom-up. Like very many of you I devoted my time to a job I love, teaching and researching. My working conditions are my students learning conditions. Both have been severely eroded through the increasing demands of market-driven higher education. 

I work alongside and depend on administrators, librarians, IT experts and providers of a huge range of essential services. They too are stretched, stressed, over-worked, under-paid and under-valued for the invaluable work they do.

Universities are at a tipping point. As a member of UCU Left I believe we are right to take industrial action to confront slashing the deferred pay of pensions; ramping up workload; balancing the books through casualisation; hiding gender, disability and ethnic pay gaps through non-performative, tick-box policy documents; and diminishing pay with each successive pay-round for us while our senior managers award themselves six figure pay packages with benefits. We must look beyond our institutions and organise.

Campaign

Universities are at a tipping point. As a member of UCU Left I believe we are right to take industrial action to confront slashing the deferred pay of pensions; ramping up workload; balancing the books through casualisation; hiding gender, disability and ethnic pay gaps through non-performative, tick-box policy documents; and diminishing pay with each successive pay-round for us while our senior managers award themselves six figure pay packages with benefits. We must look beyond our institutions and organise.

Universities are places of critical learning. We must defend the right to be critical. We must also speak out and campaign against those who pedal hate and seek to perpetuate and increase inequalities of race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, disability and gender.

I believe the UCU has an important role to play:

• Our success in the Pension Dispute and the Four Fights will give other workers the confidence to organise and demand better pay and conditions.
• Our solidarity with our colleagues in other campus unions and the NUS can turn the tide of privatisation and marketization in UK Higher Education.
• Our teaching and enquiry in the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities has inherent intellectual value to address inequities and inequalities across the world. We must defend this work and build the conditions for it to flourish.