Merger results in world's largest academic union

A new post-school education union of over 110,000 members is created by the merger of the NATFHE and AUT lecturers’ unions on 1 June.

The University and College Union (UCU) will represent academic-related staff, such as librarians and administrators, as well as lecturers and researchers, and will be the largest union for such staff in the world.

The new union will be run by a transitional national executive committee, made up of the two unions’ executives, until the end of the first UCU congress in May 2007. The joint general secretaries until then will be Paul Mackney, formerly of NATFHE, and Sally Hunt from the AUT, and an election for a new UCU general secretary will be held in time for the winner to take up the position before the congress.

The two unions have been comparing policies to “explore areas of similarity and conflict and identify gaps”, and advice has been prepared on bringing together their branches in the same institutions.