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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Richard Hull
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Why did so few CMS folk apparently take so little part in the industrial dispute in the UK in 2006? This was an extremely bitter dispute, with management displaying some astonishingly nasty tactics, and some equally bitter infighting within and between the two unions, NATFHE and AUT, who merged during the course of the dispute. I say “apparently”. My evidence is only the AUT activists’ email list (not sure how many folk on this, but I think around 500), upon which I saw precisely one person from a management school, and they did not identify as a CMS person at all. Maybe CMS folk were out there, working hard for their colleagues, engaged in local negotiations, putting up posters, holding meetings, getting their colleagues to join the action, doing all the usual or not so usual union activist sort of things. But I didn’t hear anything about it. When I said as much on the CMS email list I did get replies from two other folk who’d been locally active, but that was it. The AUT activists’ list, on the other hand, became, I felt, an immensely important source of information on the progress of the action, new ideas for action, and lengthy and learned discussions about the series of statements from national university-side negotiators and local management, and our national officers and negotiators acknowledged the value of these discussions. Exactly the sort of arena where CMS expertise and interventions could have been so useful. I would genuinely like to know how CMS folk in UK universities felt and reacted during the dispute – despair, hopelessness, ‘seen it all before’, ‘the union is no good so I can’t be bothered’?? Or maybe you felt the union were doing fine without you and really didn’t need your help? Or maybe it was ‘oh no, got this really important CMS paper to write for an important journal so that I can keep my RAE rating high’? Maybe it was ‘oh, I wrote about all this years ago but I’ve moved on now’? Maybe it was ‘sorry, I just don’t have the confidence to get involved with the union – they all seem to know what they’re doing whereas I can see all these other angles and I just can’t decide what’s for the best in the long term’? Maybe even ‘umm, I’m actually management now, head of department you know, so I couldn’t possibly get involved’. I see my contribution here as being to begin a dialogue within CMS to explore these issues – I might do a quick & dirty survey of conference delegates – as well as an opportunity to look back on the conduct of the dispute from a CMS angle. On the latter point there are numerous aspects of the dispute that deserve attention – what sorts of identities do we construct for ourselves, as critical academics; does CMS have anything at all to offer our own union, on forms of organising, consciousness-raising, deconstruction of university financial statements, etc;
Author(s): Hull R
Editor(s): Cooke, B; Grugulis, I; Hassard, J; Hodgson, D; Hyde, P; McCann, L; O'Doherty, D
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Unknown
Conference Name: Reconnecting Critical Management: The Fifth International Critical Management Studies Conference
Year of Conference: 2007
URL: http://homepages.3-c.coop/richard/CMS%20AT%20SLEEP%20IN%20THE%20ACADEMY.doc
