Every day I feel more and more like I’m living in a parallel universe, a bizarre one and not at all a nice one. It is in some ways like an Orwellian dystopia where our rulers maintain their rule by telling us that black is white, that bad is good, and, most recently and what occasions this particular post, that unpaid labour is voluntary and honorary. In a rational and reasonable universe, when a private enterprise system leads an entire hemisphere of a planet into financial crisis, plunging the large majority of its people into frightening uncertainty and many of them into appalling poverty, one might expect that the ideology and practices of that economic system would be thoroughly examined for faults, if not entirely discredited. Indeed, one might expect that politicians, those charged with protecting the interests of the people, in a democracy anyway, would look for an alternative model of future economic conduct, especially as that same economic system had repeatedly created chaos and poverty roughly every 30 years since grossly irresponsible speculation caused the South Sea Bubble crisis in 1720. (We can be fairly sure that the inquiry announced yesterday into the conduct of banks won't go as far as this, though I would love to be wrong about that.) It is true that this economic system has created unprecedented wealth, wealth that allows for the existence of large public service sectors in modern civilised countries, sectors where trained experts provide education, health care, and the needs of those who for can’t fully provide for their needs themselves (which is nearly all of us, eventually or at some point or another). But recent events prove (not at all for the first time) that the spirit of free enterprise is a dangerous beast when not reigned in. As it is not in the nature of the beast to reign itself in, governments, supposedly protectors of the interests of the people, should enforce effective regulations. The government could, for instance, force large private companies upon whom so many people depend for their livelihoods, to adopt and abide by service missions that would protect those people's livelihoods rather than endanger them. You might expect right now, in the current financial crisis, that exactly that should and would be happening.
But no. The opposite in fact is happening. Public services are being forced by governments to adopt the ethics and practices of the economic system that has so recently and destructively discredited itself. The process began some time ago, and it is not just a Tory thing, but it has recently accelerated significantly. And it's happening in all public services, but the one I work in is higher education and so that's what I can talk about best. By the way, you might well be wondering what happened to all that stuff in the title about excellent graduates being wanted to work for nothing. It's coming, it's coming, I promise. Sorry for the delay. Just let me finish this wider context bit and then I'll get to how a university expecting graduates to work for nothing (it failed, but one of them tried) is the most recent example of the effects of the ethics of private-enterprise fundamentalism creeping into the higher education sector.
As I say, it's not entirely new and it's not just a Tory thing. New Labour introduced student fees and then moved responsibility for Higher Education out of the Department for Education (where else would it be?) ... to the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills. The Business Secretary responsible for this crass machination, Peter Mandelson, referred to students as “consumers of the higher education experience,” utilising with subtle but devastating deceptiveness a language that evokes images of choice, control, value for money, happy customers, and so on--a language quite deliberately crafted to make you forget that entrepreneurs don’t seek to make profit for you, but seek to make profit from you. Indeed, this you-pays-your-money-you’re-the-boss hocus pocus was used to justify the most significant step so far made in the businessification of higher education: the raising of student fees to a maximum of £9,000—a level thought to be high enough to replace all public funding of teaching and almost all public funding of research, effectively privatising higher education (to a certain extent*). When asked about the enormity of these fees in a TV interview, a man I shall call Harry Callaghan, a member of the Browne Commission that recommended the fee hike, and Vice-Chancellor of what I shall call Bourneville Tech, said that “it puts students in charge.” For more on Harry Callaghan and Bourneville Tech, see Historian on the Edge (who first coined "Harry Callaghan" and "Bourneville Tech": http://600transformer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/more-trouble.html and http://edithorial.blogspot.fr/2012/06/birmingham-blues.html
As I say, it's not entirely new and it's not just a Tory thing. New Labour introduced student fees and then moved responsibility for Higher Education out of the Department for Education (where else would it be?) ... to the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills. The Business Secretary responsible for this crass machination, Peter Mandelson, referred to students as “consumers of the higher education experience,” utilising with subtle but devastating deceptiveness a language that evokes images of choice, control, value for money, happy customers, and so on--a language quite deliberately crafted to make you forget that entrepreneurs don’t seek to make profit for you, but seek to make profit from you. Indeed, this you-pays-your-money-you’re-the-boss hocus pocus was used to justify the most significant step so far made in the businessification of higher education: the raising of student fees to a maximum of £9,000—a level thought to be high enough to replace all public funding of teaching and almost all public funding of research, effectively privatising higher education (to a certain extent*). When asked about the enormity of these fees in a TV interview, a man I shall call Harry Callaghan, a member of the Browne Commission that recommended the fee hike, and Vice-Chancellor of what I shall call Bourneville Tech, said that “it puts students in charge.” For more on Harry Callaghan and Bourneville Tech, see Historian on the Edge (who first coined "Harry Callaghan" and "Bourneville Tech": http://600transformer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/more-trouble.html and http://edithorial.blogspot.fr/2012/06/birmingham-blues.html
As the above suggests, this creeping hegemony of business fundamentalism is aided by the co-option of individuals and institutions. Hence the significance of Peter Mandelson, who was of course a chief architect of the New Labour project that transformed the Labour Party into what is effectively the left-wing of the Conservative Party, which itself was transformed by Margaret Thatcher into the political wing of big business. Hence also the significance of the aforementioned Harry Callaghan, formerly a Professor of Social History, who once delighted in lecturing about the Chartists, and about Karl Marx, but is now the closer-downer of the more “unsustainable” sections of the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology at Bourneville Tech.** As well as helping to privatise and as well as being the hammer of archaeologists, Callaghan dislikes dissent, and is on record for effectively criminalising peaceful campus-based student protest: see here Birmingham University gets high court injunction against sit-in protesters, here Birmingham University protest ban attacked as 'aggressive and censorious', here Student protesters get evicted by universities, and here Birmingham students seek to overturn protest ban.
The latest news is that Bourneville Tech, thinking outside the box, in a dynamic, thrusting, goal-oriented move going forward, decided to try to desist from paying some of its employees—if what we mean by thinking outside the box is stealing discredited ideas recently reluctantly tipped out of a shabby old Tesco box—and if what we mean by dynamic, thrusting, goal-oriented moves going forward is the resurrection of a labour system that was outlawed in British dominions in 1833. Like Tesco and like Caribbean slaveholders before them, though, Bourneville Tech has now backed down in the face of questions about the morality and legality of its attempted actions, and has withdrawn its advert for unpaid employment (see below). Exactly what role Harry Callaghan played in the conception of this latest ill-fated innovation, I do not know. The advert was for a position in the School of Psychology, but, as he is Vice-Chancellor, one has to assume it is a major one. And he is a clever man, and good with words, despite apparently tripping over the law. And, as implied above, words are important here. There is a link below to the advertisement, if it still works. Do read it if possible (though I’ve quoted most of it below if it’s gone).
Now, it’s not that Bourneville Tech doesn’t have high standards, of a sort. The work the *successful* applicant would have been required to do is very important and requires high-level training, expertise, and sensitivity, involving as it did “conducting clinical assessments with adolescents and young adults who are seeking help for mental health issues.” “The role will also,” the advert continued, “include ongoing assessment of participants and some data entry and management...”, all of which is “aimed at understanding psychosocial, environmental and biological predictors of the onset and course of major mental illnesses (depression, bipolar and schizophrenia).” Accordingly, and rightly so, the person Bourneville aimed to *employ* was to be highly qualified. “Applications are invited,” the advert said, “from excellent graduates of Psychology or a related discipline....” Furthermore, because of the sensitive nature of the work, a “recent enhanced CRB [Criminal Records Bureau] clearance is required,” again, surely rightly so. The position was supposed to be part-time, but nevertheless would have required considerable commitment. The “minimum time commitment required”, the ad specified, “is two days per week.” Also, applicants “must have access to a motor vehicle to drive to assessments (there will be full reimbursement for mileage).” Any applicants hoping for reimbursement for their time, labour, and employment of their highly accredited skills, however, were to be disappointed. And here’s where obfuscatory language really kicks in. As the first sentence of the advert said, the post is entitled “Honorary Research Assistant.” The next sentence began as follows: “The appointee will work on a voluntary basis.” A little further down it says that “The posts are offered on a voluntary basis.” I’m not going to get into the issue here of whether what at first appeared to be one post then became two or more. My point here is that at no point did the advert say that the applicant’s work would be unpaid, except of course that it very much did.
How is unpaid labour in a semi-public institution in a free, democratic country in the 21st century justified? Harry Callaghan may well have used the advert’s line that applicants “should be keen to learn core research skills for clinical assessment.” In other words, they were to gain knowledge and skills. Yes, true, but young people used to gain knowledge and skills and still get paid properly for the time, labour, and expertise they gave to their employers. Any job anyone does enhances knowledge and skills. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paid some money for doing it--so you can buy your food and pay your rent or your mortgage and so on. I’m a historian of slavery, among other things, but no expert on modern employment legislation, yet surely British or European law has something to say about unpaid labour? If not that, then equal opportunity laws surely do? The particular point here is, if you can afford to support yourself, or your parents can afford to support you, while you do unpaid work, you can apply for the *job*. If you or your parents can’t, you can’t. In short, if you can’t afford to work for free, you can fuck off. One thing I do know, though, is that it is already clinically proven that among the “psychosocial, environmental and biological predictors of the onset and course of major mental illnesses (depression, bipolar and schizophrenia)” one can list exploitation and undervaluation in the workplace. Perhaps, then, in another spectacularly cynical linguistic subterfuge, when Bourneville Tech said it wanted an “Honorary Research Fellow,” what it was actually looking for was a guinea pig.
It does indeed appear, judging by the Times Higher story (below), that Bourneville’s plans fell foul of employment law. Yet I cannot believe that whoever came up with this plan and whoever endorsed it did not guess that there might be legal implications. It certainly didn’t take them long, less than a day indeed, to be persuaded to back down. It seems, then, that they tried it on but found this cunning plan didn't work, at least on this occasion, and they were ready for that. If so, then Harry Callaghan, like his filmic namesake, appears to see the law as an obstacle to be challenged and hopefully overcome, rather than a codification of civil rights that deserve to be respected. And, like another Machiavellian film character pushing the boundaries of legitimate behaviour, he’ll be back. And so will others like him. This little battle is won, and indeed it’s a happy thought that these battles can be won—if we choose to fight them. But we do still need to fight them. The war is still on.
Here’s the advert: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AES213/honorary-research-assistant
Here’s the story of the withdrawal of the advert, from the Times Higher: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=420451&fb_source=message
Here’s some notes clarifying the asterisked points above:
* Except that universities are not entirely privatised. Their funding base is, but the government nevertheless retains an enormous degree of bureaucratic control. The logic of marketisation, as many have said, would allow each university to charge whatever it can, which could leave them entirely free from government, and that might make them less useful as tools of the private sector, as many, probably most, professors and lecturers are old-fashioned service-oriented people, which is why they went into teaching and research in the first place.
** Of course not all academics do what they're told by the powers-that-be. Very recently, Professor Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, was, in a test of strength by the Board of Visitors, fired for refusing to cut language provision and for generally failing to ascribe to the business-based ethics and practices of private sector fundamentalists who took control of this venerable institution, and indeed for her adherence to the service ethics of a public university passed down by its founder, Thomas Jefferson. In a test of the strength of those who believe in service ethics and practices, a public campaign saw President Sullivan reinstated and the businesspeople of the Board of Visitors not only defeated but deservingly humiliated. For a brilliant account of this affair and of why the supposed “inefficiencies” of public universities (in fact, the long-term usefulness eschewed by private enterprise) are actually for the benefit of everyone—including the private sector, see Siva Vaidhyanathan, Why Our Universities Are Supposed To Be Terribly Inefficient: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/06/teresa_sullivan_reinstated_as_the_president_of_the_university_of_virginia_.html?tid=sm_tw_button_chunky
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