Everyone knows that Monty Python’s Life of Brian is really about the British left in the late 1970s (“Peoples Front of Judaea”/”splitters!”/”What have the Romans ever done for us?”), but few realise that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is about the British left in the early 1970s — and the failure of the wave of strikes at the time to roll on into a revolutionary situation. In the final scene, as Arthur is prancing about, the whole history is turned into cosplay when a cop car roars into the scene and thug Met cops jump out and shut the whole film down, with a hand going over the camera and an “alright, that’s enough”.
That’s pretty much how I feel about the NTEU, sometimes. The tertiary academics union does vital work, under tough conditions, on the very real matter of what sort of lives knowledge workers of a certain type will have: are people going to be offered decent jobs, with security, or is their love of a discipline and scholarship going to be exploited to squeeze every last signifier out of them?
And yet, the political cosplay of ancient battles, in a lethal new environment, never fully goes away. The union’s leadership and active membership are so far to the left that its old guard — accused (unfairly in my view) of complacency and siding with the university establishment — are a mix of ex-Trotskyists and general leftists. Were they to turn up for an SDA election, they’d kinda just be arrested or something, straight away. Their opponents in the recent elections, who have suggested that casual academics are getting a raw serve from the deals made in the COVID period, are a mix of new Trots, leftists and alternative lifestyle enthusiasts.
But one recent initiative has brought together old guard and vanguard (a vanguard is a device fitted by news site editors to screen out blatant labourist anti-green propaganda by columnists): a resolution, voted upon by the NTEU, to condemn the state of Israel as an apartheid entity oppressing the Palestinian people. The content of the resolution, which is long, and which I suspect some in the union would like to read out from a balcony over a square through loudspeakers, is not anything this writer would disagree with.
Part of the resolution (which I can’t find on the NTEU website) is proper: banning its members, as members, from accepting Israeli state-funded trips; opposing the adoption of policies prohibiting criticism of Israel, such as the new IHRA definition of anti-Semitism; and criticising university attempts to silence pro-Palestinian academics. But it also contains a great deal of editorialising on what Israel allegedly is, in a very specific interpretation of the Middle East.
That’s the sort of thing any militant union should be doing. Except, alas, the NTEU. Steelworkers, building workers, nurses, administrators, whatever. If its membership has substantial feelings on such an issue, the union should adopt it, even if it is not unanimous. But the NTEU, a union of academics, is a special case. It’s representing many people whose job is to have and profess opinions and judgments. Well-argued opinion, whatever that means, but opinion nonetheless. The most important thing it needs to represent, in protecting one aspect of its professional interests, is a commitment to absolute pluralism of ideas, and the protection of that in the workplace and wider society.
That pluralism is compromised if the union takes relatively rigid positions on social and political issues. The Palestine resolution came after a long struggle over a proposed resolution on trans issues, which sought to condemn a certain type of reasoning — known as “gender critical” philosophy, which argues for the relative primacy of embodied sex over notions of self-determined gender — as “transphobic”. It didn’t get voted up and hasn’t been re-presented, to the best of my knowledge, but it will likely come around again.
The NTEU’s “special case” as a union should be obvious, but doesn’t appear to be. It may appear paradoxical that the union with the most left-wing active membership should stay well away from any resolutions with political content, but it’s essential not only to its capacity to offer universal protection to its members, but also to defend unrestrained free inquiry in a society where it is under numerous petty attacks, and may one day come under sustained, disabling attack.
There is a strategic issue here, of course. You don’t want to load up a union of people who think and debate for a living with too many right-on resolutions, for the risk that it will eventually stir up an inert, middle section of the membership to form a campaign and take office-bearer positions. The union then becomes the site of an internal slugathon, simply to stop it being moved rightward altogether.
Memories of student unions — the Australian Union of Students (AUS) and the National Union of Students (NUS) — and the battles for control between political factions are fading now. But NTEU types should be aware of them, since some of them were involved, and this has been their whole life. (I know, reader, hearing this you now feel a little better about your own sad life. My gift to you.)
But that is merely strategic. At the heart of political resolutions such as the Palestine one is a form of cynical reason that presents itself as principle. By simply using a union that one has power over to push this type of content, its advocates undermine the capacity to make a strong principled argument against universities that discipline or dismiss academics who “bring the institution into disrepute”. How is one to defend an academic like former Sydney Uni political economy academic Tim Anderson, who has a degree of enthusiasm for Assad’s Syria and North Korea, and compares Israel to the Nazis?
If an academics’ union argues its right to have a set of fixed and concrete views on political matters, why should not a university argue the same? On what grounds could such an academics’ union contest it? For, in a way, the academics’ union is the university. The rest is just bricks, mortar and the insane ambitions of vice-chancellors. The university is a collection of scholars, dedicated to teaching and thought unbounded. Not only should the NTEU not have specific Palestine or transphobia resolutions, but it should even avoid the most basic resolutions that other unions might have about anti-racism and the like.
That is not because one might want to defend outright racist/racialist argument or teaching, most of which is going to fail basic tests of evidence. A university is not required to employ people doing bad, incompetent, mendacious or charlatan work. But there may be ideas and forms of argument — pro-borders, pro-monocultural, pro-nativist — which might be accused of racism in reasonable argument (that one is nevertheless not required to automatically accept). That academic deserves the full protection of their union, if they’re a member.
To be honest, I very much doubt this will convince many of those drafting these resolutions, which includes a number of stalwart leftists. As regards the possibility that it might convince some of those most exercised over gender-critical philosophy, no chance. But for those from the left, in the union, who still believe that pluralism and unbounded inquiry are central to the pursuit of truth, and to the specific left project of human liberation, it is time to unsheath the plastic sword of Australian political argument, and once more into the breach dear friends, once more. Alright, that’s enough.
The NTEU, in my view, was always a total sell out. For example, during the EBA bargaining round of 2004/2005, the union caved in to a series of demands from the management (read federal government). The proposition was that in return for a wage increase, the management would bring in a series of unspecified managerial changes. The changes turned out to be far reaching, and their implementation was very bureaucratic in nature. The numbers of non-academic staff being employed increased quite quickly.
Some of the changes included student evaluations of teaching, standardized course outlines which included such stupidities as graduate outcomes, standard marking schemes, invocations that required final student grade distributions should follow a Gaussian or normal curve, a scheme whereby academic staff were required write up annual performance planning and review documents, grossly thoughtless advice, presumably written by non-academic staff on how to do research. One memorable hint was to “search out gaps in the literature”. Teaching and learning committees became de rigeur, with the implication that there was some kind of tight association between these two things, etc.
Of course, the NTEU failed miserably to stop casualization.
I understand that things got much worse after I’d left the system.
The NTEU, in my view, was always a total sell out.
Mine too.
The grand daughter of two underground coal miners it was unthinkable me for me not to be a union member. But my last four years in university employment were spent as a non-union member. I resigned, together with six colleagues, on a matter of principle regarding the refusal of the local NTEU Branch to remove from its website a strident criticism of a colleague for one phrase extracted from a speech he had made.
As an insider I also agree. Here is a story for Guy or another journalist to pursue: how Australia’s universities have succeeded in near-complete casualisation across almost all academic levels, aided and abetted by the NTEU. Their strident militancy put off many potential members, especially from diverse backgrounds, while their insistence on salary increases at any cost merely enabled the wholesale sacrifice of working and employment conditions. Now, most academic staff are on 3 year contracts, and most depart the sector, discarding their very expensive technical expertise and research training when they go.
There has been a lot of critique – quite justified – of the SDA, but somehow the role of the NTEU in the downfall of the sector has never been told.
Meanwhile, the elevation of corporate-style managers with no expertise in anything (except filling their CVs), but lots of grandiose pipe-dreams, has created a tremendous shambles across the sector. UNE seems to be an extreme case, but the problem is far wider. How could the former VC of Adelaide get away with ongoing sexual harassment of staff or $300K in expenses, unless he was being protected internally?
Also, as Peter L says above, there are annual performance reviews of staff, but never of managers or the institution by staff, and you will never meet an auditor trying to investigate any value-for-money proposition. No scrutiny, no transparency, no accountability, and no measure of performance other than some unscientific university rankings.
Well said, that’s an actual story, not the nonsense polemics that is actually in this article.
One would suggest many of these factors, tasks etc. are or should be the domain of competent management in any related education workplace.
Another phenomenon, where NTEU for higher education is similar to other sectoral unions where there are potential workplaces and/or members being ignored, although award conditions are presumably the important work that NTEU achieved.
However, one worked with two private higher education providers for the equivalent of 3-4 academic years, but one never heard or saw anything of the NTEU inside or publicly related for advice?
Then again, anyone sessional organising related to NTEU or any union in the private higher ed sector would probably not have their sessional contract renewed……
“One would suggest many of these factors, tasks etc. are or should be the domain of competent management in any related education workplace.”
I disagree Drew. All the things I wrote about in my comment are political. Here are three examples.
In the case of SET for instance, a major presumption is that students are able to make judgements about things over which they have no knowledge or competence. They are often asked to say whether or not the course material that was covered was what the expected to be covered. That presumes prior knowledge. This fallacy was first raised by Plato!
The idea that grade distributions should follow standard normal distributions (SND) is silly. The normal distribution is rare in nature. Ask any person who lost money in the GFC. The SND arises as a consequence of the central limit theorem.
I’ve been a researcher. I’ve never found “gaps in the literature”. Certainly I have developed hunches or written critiques and refutations of research or tried to start afresh in some areas.
In general, much academic work is political in nature, because those who do it know it well, within defined areas. To interfere with them destroys academic freedom and integrity, which is a very political act.
SET is an example, first they need to be designed well, then students etc. need to be educated about evaluations and how they are used them to inform courses, admin etc. through constructive criticism; an essential soft skill for work?
Issue one has observed is evaluations being done at course end, versus around the census date i.e. 3-4 weeks in, to then act on feedback; otherwise it looks like an administrative box tick.
Higher ed and VET could learn much from the better ELICOS or English Colleges which do teacher development etc. and evaluations, but seemingly better informed by the UK CELTA/TEFL system.
One does not support the idea of normal distributions for assessments, either. However, a system of assessment resubmissions or resitting exams, but not automatic, is more useful for learning versus two lecturers in same subject giving different exams and/or assessments.
If you have never found ‘gaps in literature’ fine, but that’s anecdotal ignoring many research critiques through peer review that do? Fossil fuels producers and proponents have done this for years, employing research, to deny climate science by focusing upon ‘outliers’.
Unions can take positions on all things including political, ethical and moral matters. And they should.
It’d be nice if the NTEU was, oh I don’t know, a proper trade union that looked after its members. At my institution the EBA expired a few months ago. As a result we missed out on the 3% annual wage rise that had been factored in to the last agreement On 1 July each year. Negotiations for a new EBA are only just starting now. Do better NTEU, look after the basics of industrial agreements and conditions for your members.
I have no idea if Tim Anderson is switched on or a nutter, but when the clip of Netanyahu was aired with him claiming the original aim of Nazis was just to displace people and not to kill them, that could only suggest he wanted to soften the view of Nazis as he wanted to adopt some of their policies. Yes, utterly insane on any level. But highlights, on a political, humanitarian and ethical level, how far that part of the world has fallen. Nobody wins.
Perhaps if you had of used comparisons with De Klerk and Botha instead of Monty Python your article may have been a bit more useful.
Oh for the early days of the NTEU, when the biggest brawl was over whether to support salary-packaging or not.