Walking the Picket Line.... again...
Some thoughts on trade union organizing and popular education
Here we go again. Striking at York University (in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is almost as dependable as the seasons. This is the third strike for which I've been a union member and I was involved in two before that (though did not have a union job at that time). That's a lot of strikes for one institution. But it reflects the contempt and belligerence of the University as an employer as well as the collective smarts and will of the union membership. CUPE3903, my local, is certainly one of the best informed and most militant in Canada. And our collective agreement is one of the best of any Canadian post-secondary institution.
A few details: because of a law that our Conservative government passed after our last strike, our wage increases were limited to no more than 1% per year. That law is now being repealed after being found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Still the university is doing everything it can to give us as little as possible and ignoring the cost-of-living that has gone up every year. We know from the Ontario Auditor General’s December 2023 Value-for-Money audit of York University, that the University "Between 2018/19 and 2022/23... the size of the senior administration team increased by 37% and the amount of related compensation (salary, benefits, bonuses and stipends) increased by 47%." (p.3) Further, "salaries paid to Vice-Presidents increased by 48%," and "to Associate/Assistant Vice-Presidents increased by 73%." The report also "...concluded that York focused on capital expansion while neglecting a growing deferred maintenance backlog, which totalled over $1 billion by the end of 2022/23." This maintenance backlog has a negative daily impact on everyone who uses the campus. One last point I found interesting: according to the report "In 2022/23, international students represented 18% of the student population at York and accounted for 49% of the university’s tuition revenue." (p. 4). This last point suggests that both universities and the governments that fund our public universities are partners in extracting wealth from the needful. It is a model of educational funding that is exploitative. There is, of course, more to the story. But these few pieces of context might give you some idea of the contradictions of negotiating with an employer who is claiming that they cannot afford a decent wage for the 3000 employees who do over 50% of the teaching.
This is an old struggle, of course. One we've seen for well over a few centuries between the owners of capital and the workers who deserve decent work and decent wages. It is unfortunate that we have allowed our post-secondary institutions to become virtual big businesses practicing neo-liberal economics. But that is a bigger issue than I can address here. Suffice to say that the struggle continues and, today, the front line includes the picket line at which I spent several hours today. Many irate drivers were turned away from being able to enter campus, many drivers drove by honking their horns in solidarity, and we had two very entitled young men demanding to be allowed through our picket. One was rather shouty but eventually drove off after shouting rude insults. The other was rather more concerning as well as threatening. Once he had pulled up to the picket, he refused to move his car, claimed to be calling the police, filmed me claiming that I would regret this, and eventually moved his car to block the road we were using to allow vehicles to leave campus. He then got out of his car and tried to use his body to physically block vehicles from leaving campus. Since he'd used his car inadvertently to reinforce our picket lines, I thanked him. He did not appreciate the thanks. Go figure.
So, what’s this got to do with popular education?
When I first encountered popular education in the late 70s, it was a revelation, a true epiphany. And, as an evangelist's fervour, I thought i had discovered the one-true-way. Paulo Freire's critique of dominant education, as typified with his use of the "Banking Model" described convincingly the characteristic authoritarian, linear, and oppressive structures and processes of teaching and learning (though learning was clearly less of a priority) of which I had had my fill through primary and secondary catholic schools in Quebec which, though denominational, were nonetheless public schools. My schooling was exactly as Freire and others (e.g. Jonathan Kozol) described. Long story short, as I journeyed into the depths and breadths of popular education, a praxis that i thought could do no wrong, I encountered again and again other practices of education, other theories, and, perhaps most importantly, other contexts. My conceptual geography went from being a rather Manichean "popular education = good; everything else = bad" to a rich and diverse archipelago of practices and theories of learning and teaching. I learned that popular education had its flaws. And, more importantly, I learned that i carried a huge amount of baggage as a white male from a colonial culture that had gained supremacy through global conquest and genocide. Thus humbled (an ongoing project) I learned of feminist pedagogy, queer pedagogy, anti-racist education, critical pedagogy, indigenous ways of knowing, anarchist pedagogy, global/development education, direct action and activist education, labour education, and more. There was much overlap, of course, amongst these practices. And I learned to view popular education as something that existed in dialogue with all of these practices and more.
I am, of course, thinking a lot about labour education today. Something i've come to respect deeply. Though i learned a lot of labour education was based on a rather authoritarian (i.e. expert-driven) pedagogy. Many trade union educators would agree with this. But there is, of course, more to the picture. My work over the past 40 years has included developing curriculum for many of the largest trade unions in Canada (both public and private sector unions). And I've been hired almost always to share popular education methods and explore integrating them with trade union methods. I plan on sharing some of the things I and colleagues have developed. Please stay tuned.
For now, I want to reiterate a point about popular education I made at the outset of this newsletter project. I am developing a new theory of popular education, though "developing" implies more agency on my part than I deserve. It's perhaps more accurate to say that I am doing an ethnography of popular education. Or perhaps "mapping" is still better. But it is all also theory. The key inspiration that propelled me into doing a PhD was recognizing (thus the value of ethnography) that the vast terrain of radical pedagogies being practiced around the world includes practices that are 'popular education IN NAME' and 'popular education IN PRINCIPLE.' Having spent almost 45 years in the field of popular education, I am most closely associated with the practice of popular education in name. And I have an extensive knowledge of practices that can be described as popular education in principle. Nor am I trying to slap a "Popular Education Seal of Approval" on all those 'in principle' practices. Nobody needs my approval. Rather, I am most interested in what connects all the practices I have learned about. And just what is the nature of the dialogue in which all of these practices are engaged.
Here are some timely resources that are worth checking out.
On OPEN BARGAINING:
CUPE3903 has practiced "open bargaining" for as long as i can remember. It is a remarkably powerful form of bargaining that is a form of both organizing (i.e. putting pressure on management) and educating (i.e. giving rank and file members the opportunity to see what bargaining really looks like. Here's a great 2018 piece from Briarpatch Magazine (a Canadian magazine of politics and culture - left, well-written, good sense of humour) that talks about open bargaining:
JANE MCALEVEY On ORGANIZING AND EDUCATION:
Jane McAlevey is an educator and trade union organizer who is injecting tremendous creativity into trade union education and bargaining practices. She was an educator-in-residence a few years ago at Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee. Highlander is a major center of popular education practice and has deep roots in trade union and civil rights organizing. Jane has done some excellent interviews on Jacobin Magazine's podcast THE DIG. She talks about open bargaining in the first interview linked below.
The DIG Interview: How to Build a Fighting Labor Movement w/ Jane McAlevey
Jacobin Article: Organizing to Win a Green New Deal by Jane McAlevey
A Must-Read Book: Rules to Win By by Jane McAlevey
Excellent 2018 article: The Strike as the Ultimate Structure Test by Jane McAlevey
New Yorker Profile: https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/how-jane-mcalevey-transformed-the-labor-movement
A GREAT MOVIE TO WATCH:
Matewan is a 1987 film by John Sayles that looks at the 1920 coal miners' strike in Matewan, West Virginia. It is one of the best movies about trade union struggle I've ever seen. You can watch it free on the Internet Archive here:
SOME MORE GOOD BOOKS AND TALKS AND HISTORY:
Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber
The 2023 CBC Massey Lectures: Astra Taylor: The Age of Insecurity (Astra Taylor is awesome, so you should listen to these. She also founded the Debt Collective in the US).
Some really inspiring Black labour history: Black sleeping car porters: The struggle for Black labour rights on Canada’s railways By Travis Tomchuk
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Persuasions and Designs is a free weekly newsletter/blog from chris cavanagh about popular education and other radical pedagogies, storytelling, and activism (for social and environmental justice and a world free of capitalist domination and war). I share research and resources that I have amassed from my 45 years of learning and practicing popular education in Canada and abroad. I do not like using paywalls to coerce donations as this newsletter is a political and pedagogical project that I want to keep accessible to everyone. The knowledge and resources that I have to share are the result of tremendous generosity from countless people as well as the work I have done over the decades. All posts are available regardless of ability or inclination to pay. However, if you value this research and find the resources I share useful in your work and life and, especially, if you share with me the goal of sharing these ideas and resources as widely as possible, then please consider supporting this newsletter with whatever you can afford.
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