Michael McKrell (University of Central Lancashire)

post-92

Election address

• Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Media.
• Branch Committee since 2007
• Branch Chair since 2011
• NW HE Secretary: 2016- 17
• NEC: 2015-17 (Chair of Legal Support Review Panel, 2016-17)

What are our Universities for? Given the obsession with brand-promotion, league-table position, gleaming new estates and enhancing their presence in the 'global HE marketplace', you'd be forgiven for thinking that their primary purpose was to generate financial surpluses through ever more stringent business efficiencies and the 'streamlining' of curriculum delivery. 'Success' - in these terms - is measured via a panoply of surveys, metrics (NSS, REF, TEF) and other measures of 'customer satisfaction'. This corporate thinking and behaviour drives decision-making at every level - from how institutions are governed to imposing a sterile uniformity on everything from curriculum design to the wording of email autoreplies.  All of which diminishes of our universities as public assets rooted in our regional and local communities.

UCU members have been bearing the cost of these grandiose visions through threats of redundancy, increasing workloads (further exacerbated by the Coronavirus crisis), the continued squeeze on pay, attacks on pensions, and a pervasive managerialist culture that deprofessionalizes staff, turning them into managers of lower-graded colleagues on casualised contracts.

As we slowly emerge from the Covid crisis and confront the urgent challenges ahead - not least the climate emergency - the role of universities in society is again being contested. It is time to reclaim Higher Education and wrest it from the self-styled, excessively remunerated 'captains of industry' that Vice Chancellors have become. It is time to reassert one of the founding principles of our union - the defence of the idea of the University - and to reaffirm our commitment to a secular, humanist, transformative Higher Education sector accessible to all.   

Branches across the sector - including mine - are fighting back in defence of jobs, against casualisation and on health and safety. But we can only build their effectiveness if we build our branches - and workplace power - by engaging with, and involving, as many members as possible, not just seasoned activists. As an experienced branch officer, negotiator and campaigner I know that a strong and united union can successfully resist threats to jobs, defend members' terms and conditions and win greater security for casualised staff. And we do this first by understanding and gauging members' views, then motivating, organising and mobilising them in order to fight and win tangible improvements that build confidence in our union.

Branches are the heart and soul of UCU. It is to the strengthening of branches - and their capacity to resist the worst excesses of marketisation - that the union's resources must primarily be devoted. If you agree, please lend me your vote.