The UCU Left is a national organisation of University and College Union activists. It is committed to ensuring that the new union has a democratic structure through which members can determine policy, and elected officers and professional officials can be held accountable. It seeks to defend educational equality, and to oppose the consequences of neo-liberal marketisation. It is opposed to all forms of racism, sexism, oppression and imperialism.
NEC Election 2008 - UK-Elected HE Seats

Christine Vie (Manchester Metropolitan University)

Election Address [Click (here) for election flyer]

Universities are not for sale!
Dear Colleague,

As a sitting member of the NEC, I am actively committed to building a union that is at the forefront in the fight against privatisation; a union that values and respects democratic processes; a union that understand members priorities; and a union that is not afraid to be political in its resistance to New Labour’s market based priorities.

The challenges we face, are common to us all:

  • Our terms and conditions under systematic attack;

  • The inexorable rise in staff-student ratios and our workloads;

  • Our teaching content under pressure to be standardised and anodyne;

  • Creeping privatisation of our courses. such as languages;

  • A competition driven environment where students are turned into customers;

  • A metrics based research assessment which further negates equitable institutional research funding.


What I campaign for on the NEC…

  • As universities are transformed from scholarly institutions into profit centres, UCU must resist market competition by campaigning for a HE that puts students’ education, our academic freedom and research before profit.


  • UCU needs to be political to take-on government’s spending priorities and its obsession with market-based league tables and inter-university competition, where the winners, increasingly, take more.


  • National pay bargaining is vital as it is our guarantees that all UCU members benefit and are protected.


  • This is year three of the pay settlement. We must build for a new fight over pay. Our resolve during the 2006 pay dispute demonstrated that when we take action we have real power.


  • Campaigning against universities’ sea of insecure academic and academic-related McJobs with their low pay must remain a priority after the Framework Agreement.


  • New Labour refuses to radically increase HE funding while it wastes billions on wars and weapons of mass destruction. As an activist in Stop the War and Unite Against Fascism, I believe UCU must continue to strengthen its progressive political policies.



As a member of UCU Left, I am committed to continuing to build a fighting democratic union that defends educational equality and opposes the neo-liberal marketisation of our universities.

Biographical information including service to the union

I am a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University.


UCU involvement at national and branch level:

  • I am currently a UCU NEC Member (UK HE, Post-1992) and also sit on the Recruiting, Organising and Campaigning Committee.


  • I have been the branch Casework Co-ordinator at Manchester Metropolitan University for four years. I provide support, advice and representation to members on management bullying, all forms of discrimination, workload issues, disciplinary matters, contracts, redundancy and redeployment.


  • I have been a branch negotiator since 2002 and was Vice-Chair from 2002-06. As Vice-Chair I had responsibility for liaising with MMU campus unions especially over Framework Agreement negotiations. I was a lead negotiator on the Framework Agreement where I have resolutely fought for equal treatment for hourly paid lecturers and fractionalisation of their contracts.

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