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

Mark Campbell (London Metropolitan University)

Election Address [Click (here) for election flyer]

Defence of Education
Universities are not businesses, students are not customers, and we are not the hired-help. Unfortunately, antithetical views are no longer confined to the lunatic fringe of HE management. We, the professionals that keep our institutions afloat, often in spite of management’s predilections, are too often perceived as the dinosaurs of a forgotten age standing in the way of the new dawn of a ‘pack-them-in-teach-them-cheap’ educational market place. We should champion the value of real education and stand firm against the cheap imitation currently being pushed and praised by ministers and managers.


Defending National Bargaining
The threats to national bargaining and, for post-92 colleagues, the related attack on our national contract are the most important issues facing HE members. National bargaining is essential in ensuring we negotiate based on our collective strength not on our individual weaknesses. We have to persuade all members why national bargaining is important and why we should be prepared to take industrial action to defend it. My experience in fighting to maintain the national contract and union recognition at London Met (more details here) suggests to me that we should view similar local battles as national fights that the union needs to fully and actively support.


Solidarity
UCU members hold diverse jobs within various sectors. However, all are campaigning to be treated respectfully as professionals; to have decent salaries that truly reflect the work we do; to have job security and a clear career path; to feel part of an integrated and diverse workforce where all our voices are heard; to have sufficient control over what we do and how we do it. These concerns mirror those of other public sector workers such as health professionals, school teachers and civil servants. We should stand together with these workers when their conditions of service are under attack. ‘Unity is strength’ should be a call to action not a tired cliché.


Politics
If it’s political to fight social injustice and to demand money for education not war, then our union needs to be political. It needs to think globally and act locally. We should therefore be raising the political temperature over threats to cut ELQ (Equivalent and Lower Qualifications) funding, resisting department closures, and opposing moves to privatisation such as those affecting English language provision. However, we also need to link these cuts in our sector with the wider attacks on public services. We also need to state clearly that workers such as ourselves are the victims of inflation not its cause.


Accountability
If elected as one of your NEC representatives I pledge to you that I shall keep you informed as to NEC decisions and debates and will strive to ensure as many of you as possible will be able to hold me to account. I shall circulate a monthly report to all UCU HE branches and will attend and report to UCU Regional meetings. I will also make sure I post all my reports to the UCU Left website (www.uculeft.org). I strongly believe that you deserve NEC representatives that you hear from more than just at election times, and need to elect based on their record not just their rhetoric.

Biographical information including service to the union

I am employed as a Senior Lecturer in Computing at London Metropolitan University.

I have been an active and committed trade unionist all of my working life, joining NATFHE in 1997 on becoming an hourly-paid lecturer at UEL, having previously been an elected branch secretary and national conference delegate for both MSF (Unite) and BIFU (UNIFI).

I am currently a Branch Secretary and member of the Co-ordinating Committee at London Metropolitan University as well as being the elected HE Secretary for UCU London Region and one of UCU’s representatives on SERTUC.

As a member of the co-ordinating committee at London Met for the last six years I took on the role of campaign manager / industrial action coordinator during both our successful 18-month contract dispute, and our more recent, and also successful, union recognition and compulsory redundancy dispute.

I am a member and elected officer of UCU Left.

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