Why academic unions matter

By Paul Michel Taillon

The vandals are at the gate, according to David Robinson, Senior Advisor at Education International (a trade union federation representing thirty million education employees around the world) and former Associate Executive Director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. So who are these ‘vandals’? And what ‘gate’ have they reached?

The ‘vandals’ for Robinson are those who believe in the philosophies of the free-market and have foisted then upon public tertiary education. Just a few of the negative effects are the undermining of the integrity and independence of the academy; narrower of research agendas; constrained of professional autonomy; and, attacks upon academic freedom.[i] Then there’s the impact on the academic workplace: the rise in fixed- and short-term contracts; stagnating salaries; greater levels of micromanagement; and pressure to cough up research outputs to meet the requirements of metrically-driven research funding regimes for tertiary institutions (never mind that the quality of those outputs can end up taking back-seat).

And do these developments help academic staff produce an educated critical-thinking citizenry, equipped to deal with the economic, ethical, social, and factual complexities of contemporary life? Despite lip service to the importance of teaching, there are few incentives to devote oneself to teaching well (a 1990s study of US universities found that staff commitment to teaching was negatively correlated with compensation).[ii] Overall, academic citizenship—academic freedom, the responsibility to participate in the governance of the institution, and the social and the moral obligation to serve various communities (from students to the wider public)—has diminished over the past three decades because tertiary education institutions have been turned into large markets and required to act as private corporations.[iii]

I’d say the vandals are not just at the gate—they have breeched the walls.

All of the negative effects David Robinson (and a host of others) talk about should sound familiar to anyone who has paid attention to tertiary education in New Zealand over the past decade. The vandals have ravaged public access, public funding, and public governance of tertiary institutions. So what’s to be done? My answer: organise and unionise.

As I see it, academic unions are the best (perhaps only) hope to reverse the spread of heavy-handed corporate style micro management, defend academic freedom, reinvigorate academic citizenship, and address the spread and condition of contingent teaching staff.[iv] If attacks upon academic freedom, the undermining of academic self-governance, and the erosion of university working conditions are the result of a ‘more market’ philosophy running rampant, then it follows that unions, as entities historically dedicated to ameliorating the pitiless effects of market forces, can be effective counters to these management practices.

If university senates have become marginalised and withered as effective means of representing the views of staff, and vice-chancellors operate more as CEOs than as members of communities of scholars, then unions, which are set up to engage with senior management, must take up the challenge of not just bargaining for decent wages and working conditions but also advocating for meaningful staff participation in university governance.

Such an agenda must begin with resisting the trend to fixed-term, casual employment. Unions can also negotiate for participation clauses in collective agreements that require the university to include the union in discussions around policy changes that may affect conditions of employment. More fundamentally, unions can argue for promotion policy criteria and workload norms that not only allow for staff to engage in service – to their students, their disciplines, their workplaces, and their communities.

Unions must also play a key role in revitalizing academic citizenship. To flourish, academic citizenship needs space in the workplace, and unions are best placed to deliver it. Union members can demonstrate academic citizenship through example (in my experience, they tend to be the most active and collegially-minded members of staff) and unions can nurture academic citizenship by reminding members of the responsibilities they bear as academic citizens.

Universities are not-for-profit entities.[v]  Of course, their purpose is to make doctors, engineers and the like. However, they must also create citizens, fully-developed human beings who can tackle the social, economic, and ethical dilemmas facing our world. The market may value the former but has little use for the latter. By defending the conditions necessary to academic citizenship, unions can help universities fulfill this vital function.

One place to start this defense is by highlighting just what has happened to public education in New Zealand. David Robinson’s lectures, organised by the Tertiary Education Union, will help spark debate about the world the vandals armed with corporate ideals and market philosophies are leaving in their wake.