OPSEU Local 560

    The problem with the tactic, of course, was that New Democratic Party supporters strategically supported Liberal candidates in a number of constituencies, but Liberal Party supporters apparently didn't feel equally compelled to support New Democrats. So, New Democrats helped elect Liberals and Liberals helped elect Liberals, with fateful consequences for the NDP.
From the outset, I opposed the tactic as being philosophically unprincipled and pragmatically dumb. Similar things have, of course, been successfully done informally in the past (as, for example, when the NDP pours resources into targeted "winnable" ridings), but never as a well advertised electoral manoeuvre, especially one that urged people to vote for a party not of their choice. Moreover, if strategic voting is to work at all for New Democrats, it must rely on the cooperation of at least temporary liberal allies. Instead, cynical Liberals, in large part, manipulated the enthusiasms of the electorally naive.

    Still, despite the plausible perception that NDP supporters were played for suckers, I retain some grudging respect for CAW leader Buzz Hargrove and his disaffection with the NDP. When CAW Workers in Oshawa abandoned the NDP in large numbers, it surely sent a message to the provincial party that trade unions were not to be taken for granted. It must, unless their heads are outrageously thicker than their skins, have reminded the New Democratic Party establishment that working people will not soon forgive or forget the mendacious "social contract." I disagreed with Hargrove and his followers, but reasonable people can disagree without abandoning common goals or succumbing to fits of personal pique.

    What is even more interesting is the reaction of many of my co-workers at King Campus (and elsewhere?) to the more recent contracts won by the CAW with Daimler-Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. In early October, Buzz Hargrove was certainly a major topic of conversation. Faculty members……              See “Politics…” page two
Politics…. From page one
 in corridors and around water coolers were very impressed with the results. Wage and benefit increases of more than 4% for each of the next three years, substantial "signing bonuses," and commitments to job security sounded pretty good to our members. They were also astonished that contracts involving complicated issues and covering many thousands of workers and many millions of dollars could be settled with some of Canada's most powerful private-sector employees in a matter of weeks.

    The essence of most comments was this. Why can't we do as well? The answer is simplicity itself. The CAW is more politically active and aware. Its members are more class-conscious. Its leadership is unafraid of offending members' professional sensitivities and self-images. Its leaders know they can rally support in difficult times. Buzz Hargrove (thanks in large measure to the work of his predecessor, Bob White, and the auto workers' leaders who went before), is working with and for people who understand both political and labour-management relationships. He communicates his ideas to members who, in turn, do not refrain from giving their opinions and ideas to their elected leaders. Sometimes there are disagreements (I'm not the only one who thought that "strategic voting" was both rueful and ridiculous), but out of the give-and- take of political debate come ideas for the present and lessons for the future.

    So, I hereby applaud both OPSEU President Casselman and Local President Montgomery. By endorsing the "strategic voting" tactic, they may have further opened up OPSEU and (for perhaps the first time) Local 560 to the possibility of explicit political discussion. Eventually, the development of strong political education and action in matters of electoral politics will follow.
I hope, at least, that those who raise such issues will not be disdained. Meantime, the answer to questions about how we can start doing as well as auto workers must involve at least the following: vigorous debate, civil discourse and, in the process, the fulsome release of the invitation: “Politics anyone?" 

    The report contends that the solution to Canada's economic ills is to provide assurances that intellectual property generated in post-secondary institutions will be made available to the private sector. It is anticipated that institutions of higher education will acquire ownership of intellectual property and dedicate themselves to commercializing the material for the private sector. The authors go on to warn that such institutions cannot expect any direct benefit from the profits of merchandising academic materials. "The main goal of the proposed actions is to increase wealth creation in Canada ... it is not primarily to produce new revenue streams for post-secondary institutions".

    Uncritically, the authors assume that the corporate sector will more likely act in the interest of Canadians; they caution that allowing academics to maintain ownership of the intellectual property they create is "tantamount to providing a vehicle for the transfer of significant amounts of valuable technology out of the country". Further suggestions regarding sweeping tax changes, long sought by leading business groups (including reductions in rates of taxation for high-income earners), round out the recommendations.

     This deeply flawed report advises that institutions of higher learning provide more incentives for faculty to engage in research that can be commercially exploited in the private realm. The implications are that faculty will be stripped of ownership of intellectual property, and that discoveries and knowledge will become the property of the private sector. The conclusions demonstrate little understanding concerning the nature of colleges and universities and their value to society. Should commercial research become a fundamental mission, post-secondary institutions will be required to serve as publicly subsidized laboratories for private business.  While encouraging private for-profit research, socially valuable research that may not be profitable will be jeopardized. These recommendations are likely to cost the federal treasury hundreds of millions of dollars each year, with no evidence of any spin-off benefits. Given the billions of dollars removed from Ontario's post-secondary education since 1995, such money ought to be invested in core funding for higher education.

    Poor working habits were distinguished from poor magic; rain dances were never  performed in the dry season, and lagoon fishing relied solely on  human effort and invention, while open-sea fishing required  "magical ritual to secure safety and good results"  (Malinowski, 1948:31). Situations which required the application of technology and work were not confused with situations where technique and tools were impotent. Where technology and human invention were not adequate and where uncertainty and risk threatened, magic was used in an  attempt to control events.

     In the present context, the techno-education promoted by  "learning-centered education" appears to be a set of rituals  (e.g. CD-ROMs) which magically solve the problems of  "educations for an unknown future". In the absence of detailed and predictable knowledge of future political,  economic and technological developments, an extensive  educational paradigm shift is either a euphemism for faculty  layoffs ("teacherless teaching”) or an unrecognized and  unintended resort to magic in an era of risk and  uncertainty. Unlike Malinowski's "natives", educational  managers in Ontario's community colleges seem to be  incorporating information technology into a set of rituals  which confuse magic with the efficient utilization of  technique. For example, in a recent convocation speech, the president of Seneca College, while reminding graduates that  computers "still cannot tell you how and when to think, and  when to exercise good, sound judgement before you act,"  went on to point out, "Today you take the computer's  benefits for granted along with an almost religious faith in  its potential for the future. Believe me, I do not think your faith is misplaced." (Update, 1996:3). Ultimately, and perhaps ideologically, the new educational technologies and  the paradigm shift can be seen as an exercise in religious  faith rather than the "possession of a considerable  store of knowledge, based on experience and fashioned by  reason" (Malinowski, 1948:26). It appears that the safety and success of the lagoons of teacher-student classrooms are being abandoned for the uncertainty and risk of surfing the open seas of computers and virtual reality.

     On the other hand, in the current college setting of Ontario, this may be the last generation of community college professors to perceive education and technology in the present tense. As the Luddites remind us: people ought to be more important than technology in any concept of educational progress. The missionaries of virtual education will, of course, deny that their proposals are going to threaten the teacher-student classroom in the interest of  corporate profits, global competition and educational  effectiveness. Nonetheless, pink slips for professors and invoices for computer hardware, software and "teacherware"  are the physical evidence of a process that begins with the  contraction of the role of professors as classroom teachers  in the name of the ideology of technological determinism  sanctified by rituals of technological adoration (e-mail),  and could end with a future within which teaching has been  replaced largely by machine-managed information. Socrates  might weep, but his tears would go unrecorded, for "Plato"  has already been turned into a computerized student testing  system widely used in computer-assisted instructional  facilities in community colleges in Ontario.

     Information technology, say its advocates, will remove any social or cultural barriers to access to the global marketplace, and will promote digital democracy because equality dominates the Internet and cannot be directly controlled by the vested interests of economic and political  elites. In a similar manner, access to the Internet seems to provide a friction-free education in which information-saturated students gain access to career opportunities.  There will be no petty confrontations with professors, class schedules and prescribed curriculum, since electronic education seems to be mysteriously absorbed by a form of digital osmosis in personalized chats by e-mail. In this process, students, unlike premodern hunters, are not guided by the spirits of animals through the mediation of magical  rituals, but are educated by the flickering images of  virtual educational technology. However, this encouragement of educational "techno-shamanism" is often reduced to simply  responding to prepackaged multiple-choice questions after  logging onto the Net. Corporate managers concerned with profits, and educational managers obsessed with cost cutting have a vested interest in the promotion of virtual technology. This promotion of innovation is not simply the consequence of the technical necessities of progressive pedagogy, but involves conscious, deliberate political  decisions that may severely "contract" the role of the  professor-student classrooms in colleges and universities in  the future.

 Malcolm Archer , Jane
Ralph Barrett, Newnham
Patricia Clark, Newnham
Ruthann Dyer, King
Howard Doughty, King
Brian Flack, Seneca@York
Dan Janjic, Newnham
Paul Matson, Newnham
Diane Meaghan, Newnham
Ted Montgomery, Eglinton
Larry Olivo
Frank Skill, Newnham
Josef Stavroff, Newnham

Please send your articles to Diane Meaghan, Chair, Communications Sub-Committee, Newnham Campus.
Office: Room  4250, Newnham Campus