The Daily Novel

There is a well-established practice at City University of management talking to trade union branch representatives on campus to attempt to resolve any disagreements before they escalate. This includes policy and practice. It also includes personal cases where a member of staff feels unjustly treated.

Management and academic union reps used to meet regularly three times a year in a formal body called the Joint Negotiating Committee. This stopped meeting two or three years ago for reasons I do not fully understand. But why it fell into disuse does not matter. The important thing is that it is being revived and will meet later this term. So when Malcolm Gillies arrives in August there will, hopefully, already be a date in his diary for the autumn meeting.

The academic union was the Association of University Teachers (AUT), to which most teachers in the ‘old’ universities belong. Last June AUT merged with the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), whose members mostly work for the former polytechnics, and further education colleges, which are the leaders in such areas as the training of school teachers. It also includes teachers in prisons.

Both unions, as you might expect from a bunch of university teachers, are as much concerned about academic freedom and standards as they are about pay and conditions of work. They oppose the new managerialism, whenever it threatens academic freedom or the effective teaching of the students.

The new union, University & College Lecturers’ Union (UCU) has just published the manifestos of the candidates for the General Secretary of the new union. AUT is the biggest union in higher education, but NATFHE has a much bigger overall membership. Whether the UCU leader is an AUT or NATFHE person is anyone’s guess. The membership may vote tribally. But it may not, because the two unions have been discussing a possible merger for well over ten years, and there have been many meetings between activists of the two unions at national and local level.

At City (and at most other universities) the academic union is much the biggest union on campus. But there is a well established practice of AUT reps meeting regularly with the reps of the unions for the technical, office staff and manual workers. So that the academic union also speaks out on behalf of the other unions.

Something needs to be said about personal cases. These has been in the increase nationally for many years, as more and more Vice Chancellors have been infected with the Thatcher and Blair belief in that private sector managers somehow know more about ‘management’ than public sector managers.

In many personal cases, both the ‘victim’ and the alleged ‘oppressor’, a head of department or a Dean, are quite often both in AUT. So the union is best placed to help to resolve such disputes without the spilling of too much blood.

I should declare my own personal position in these matters. I am a former President of AUT and was a union activist for many years. I am currently on the branch committee with the specific responsibility for equalities, which is concerned with such oppressed groups as women, ethnics, the disabled, the aged and gays.

On the latter, Malcolm Gillies, should know that the AUT was even more forward looking than City University. Last year they elected Steve Wharton as President, the first openly gay person to take the job in the history of the union. Steve has stayed on for an extra year as joint President to help with the work of harmonising the practices of the two constituent parts of UCU.

Wharton became active in AUT as a direct result of what he suffered himself when in his first job in 1994. He was openly gay and doing his research on gay activism, focusing on the LGBT (Lesbians, Gays, Bi-sexuals, and Transgenders). At the end of his probationary period his teaching contract was not renewed. When the decision went to Senate to be ratified, a petition was presented signed by all but two of his colleagues.. His third year students also got together and signed a unanimous letter of support. Wharton then went through an appeal process which took eight months.

He spent eight months not knowing whether his career was in ruins. When he did get re-instated he determined to give something back to the union which had supported him. He will have a further year as vice-president working to harmonise the different parts of UCU and turn it into an effective academic standards, academic freedom and decent pay for the workers.