The moral issue for UCU can be opened with only a question: what is the salary of the UCU general secretary? I gathered some news with regard to the employment of regional reps and the salaries were quite interesting. They reflected those paid to middle management in private companies. I was a little bit disillusioned in looking at the advert for a regional rep in UCU to say what I felt. Disillusioned perhaps, because I was still anchored to my romantic idea of what a union rep should be and do. I was looking for some particular attributes within the words of the advert; adjectives I used to label such individuals as those always busy talking to people and sharing their cause; always worried if that man was going to get that job or if that woman was going to get the contribution paid for her pension. People for whom time to talk to people before the election promising this or that reform was never enough. People who would have the patience to help fill out the form for the pension of the old man with shaky hands during lunch break. Time well gone; different places, different nations. One thing really struck me: the advert resembled one written for hunting an individual with the characteristics of a middle manager.
UCU Plc is on the way, I thought.
Here was an up-and-coming corporation, out to impress, to attract the cream of the crop. If performativity had a smell, UCU would make it seep through computers using the latest ‘smellyvision’ technology. Perhaps then, somebody drunk from the intoxicating fumes of ambition, wide-eyed at the prospect of all the likely perks, would send off an application. He or she would perhaps include a question in the covering letter: 'would I also get a prestige car with the ‘company’ logo printed on the side?'.
Perhaps many would realize that they could never apply for such a position. They simply would not be qualified for such a corporativist role and would risk being purged as extremists; they would however save themselves from very bad smells.
This was a message from the UCU top brass, a call for people to coordinate and manage, to make the union bigger and stronger, to sell the benefits of union membership to ensure the stability of the structure and status quo.
Worrying in this, was the lack of call to representation of the workers. Sure enough, the term representation seemed to have taken on a new meaning in this union; one of sales and marketing reps able to recruit ‘customers’ and drum up ‘business’ for the organization.
The fundamental contradiction of the attributes being sought from salt-of-the-earth activists, was well hidden within the gloss of the advert. Ironic enough then, to remind ourselves that it is those activists; unpaid, committed, faithful to the solidarity of worker rights and socially responsible, who make the difference in a union. This is the base where you really need genuine and responsible people. In fact if you were to try to transform this day-to-day work into paid profession, you might find that the union wouldn’t be a union anymore. However it is those in this base who get the sack if complaints are raised with employers.
For UCU, activism is in giving out leaflets and receiving the regular newsletter, holding a uniform, preconceived banner along with a handful of others on the strike day that has taken months to deliberate over. They are not paid, but relied upon to keep the UCU message out there; from the top-(firmly)centre directorate to the email in-boxes of expectant workers.
In all honesty I began to get confused. Perhaps all these years of academic endeavor living under the umbrella of pseudo-democracy had begun to affect me. So I embarked on a small investigation on the web, TV (satellite from abroad actually) and foreign press.
I searched for shadows of this monstrous union elsewhere. Any signs of similarity with the normal and dignified faces of other European unions. My search was in vain. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I was looking in the wrong direction and I asked myself: will UCU employ David Tidmarsh next to re-brand the new professional association. The new biggest provider of insurance, services and cutting edge courses paid for by Further and Higher Education workers. Is UCU becoming like a stock corporation wherein you can find the following cast of “Key People”:
Executives:
CEO – Sally Hunt
Director of operations – Roger Kline
Chief finance officer – Linda Newman
Regional operations:
Wolverhampton branch manager
I’ll leave you to complete your own list.
Of course, in this direction we must question who are the stakeholders who control the shares of Wonderland Plc?
Perhaps the next step will be to sell mortgages to university workers to enable them to meet the cost of attending courses. Would this too be of benefit in helping the ‘union’ to get bigger and better?
Maybe what we need is a dialogue and comparison with other unions in Europe. A comparison with others who make important choices based not on what the government says but on what their members want. On what matters to university workers. Leaders who have no fear to make the public aware that their salaries fall below those of the average British academic.
It Italy for example, moral questions with regard to the amount of money earned by politicians and their respective contributions to the democracy and ideologies, are being put under question. But avoid the usual suspect; this is a genuine debate. Such questions have been raised legitimately under discussion on the table of democracy because the postmodern movement is at its dead‑end. People cannot live anymore in the paradox of believing that politicians are or can be managers or that governing a nation means only administration and economy. In the same way, union management and the pay-offs of their leadership are continuously subject to scrutiny. They are not immune to criticism and do not represent a special elite caste of people.
It is not a question of are they worth all that money?, but of ‘should they really get all that money?’ Certainly, in Britain there is need for such open talking about the alienation of worker rights and their political representation, without fear of questioning all whose interests are implicated.
But up to now I have only been playing with words without bringing out anything to do with ideology, politics or private interests of this or that party. Is it noticeable?
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