A comrade, Osito, who works in Higher Education, has sent us this article on the
blight of managerialism. ---- UK Higher Education: managerialist[i]mismanagementand conscientious workers ---- That stay safe mantra didn't last very long, didit? We're still in the middle of a pandemic, but the sector's self-replicating‘senior leadership' continues - no offence intended - to have its senior moments.How else to explain the constant pressure, exerted on the rank and file, to:undertake unnecessary face-to-face teaching; pursue needless revalidation,restructuring or periodic review; abandon the precariously employed; relegate anyresearch that isn't ‘entrepreneurial' to the status of an eccentric hobby; andmove towards the imposition of inferior contracts.All this on top of a fresh round of redundancies. In one institution, managementdescribed voluntary (cough) severance as ‘a lifestyle choice'! In another, anentire union branch was decimated at the same time that new staff were hired toreplicate the usual nonsense about business practices and Public Relations.Puns on seniority aside, there's a more serious explanation for the plight ofHEIs. Besides all the talk about the marketisation of UK Higher Education, andthe ‘neoliberal' values that drive research and teaching, it's the granulardetail of the daily grind (our collective experience over time) that reinforcesthe suspicion that the sector's brutal overseers - Executive Boards, VCs, ‘GoldSilver Bronze Commands', Chief Executive Officers, Faculty Managers, and DeputyAssociate PVC Idiots - are leading us down a blind alley.A Command EconomyThe fundamental problem in universities is the relentless adherence by executivesand their operatives, to a ‘command economy' and the rigid hierarchies thatsupport it. The goal here is to satisfy the demands of creditors, Governments,the Office for Students, obscure but influential think-tanks, and rating agencies(Moody's, Standard and Poor's, Fitch, etc), by jostling for position in theleague tables, reducing staff costs, manipulating student opinion, undercuttingweaker institutions, and maintaining a ‘healthy surplus' (which is then.Immediately wasted on consultants and favoured suppliers). This is themuch-vaunted ‘reality' for which jobs are being sacrificed.Universities operate, therefore, in a top-down, ‘genetically-engineered'marketplace, subject to the whims of right-wing politicians and moniedpatriarchs: yet, despite the occasional row between the big players, HE leadersdo not contest the logic of command. Instead, they absorb this principle, andreplicate the same oppressive practices within their own institutions,reproducing the joyless atmosphere with which we have all become familiar. It'sas though some in the sector's leadership know they're in the wrong. The worstelements take pleasure in oppressing their subordinates, while other groupssimply don't have the skills or imagination to steer a different course.This toxic mix of authoritarianism, zealous surveillance, negligence andstupidity manifests itself in many contradictory forms. ‘Microaggressions' (realenough in many places, and directed at particular groups) are frowned upon,while ‘major-aggressions', openly displayed by some managers, seem to betolerated or encouraged. Therefore, despite their occasional protestations, thosewho run the system do not believe in decent behaviour or equality - they valueobedience and seek to recruit those who can reproduce this culture. They arebuilding an authoritarian system within the wider fiction of democracy.This doesn't mean that executives don't buy into some supposedly progressivetrends - references to concepts like sustainability and inclusion (for example)help create an external impression of a ‘caring/sharing' community, while themistreatment of staff continues apace (it's a bit like being nice to theneighbours, then going indoors and treating your actual family with contempt).Some notions, like ‘diversity', are used as a blunt instrument against educationworkers: the point for us is not to weaponise individual identity orcircumstances, but to mobilise a revolutionary intersectionality.It's worth noting that calls for a radical, uncompromising mindset are so oftenconfused with simply running amok and being destructive: the point of taking arevolutionary stance is to stand on principle and refuse to compromise, exactlywhat's needed when faced with issues (like the sacrifice of an entire planet tocorporate whims). Meanwhile, events like the yearly international women's strikeon 8 March, for example, show how a class politics of conscience can bereinvigorated (as Gago argues, in her 2020 book Feminist International).Control FreaksMeanwhile, in order to exert institutional control, executives have invented theproblem of compliance. To them, the labour force is distinguished by itspotentially unruly character. Other forms of capital, or sources of income, maypose challenges - a computer might crash, a course can fail to recruit, and abuilding may need renovation. So-called ‘human resources', however, candemonstrate their autonomy. Hence the disciplinary measures enacted in whatshould be centres of untrammelled thought and debate.The managerial imperative, to control and direct, explains the random attacksthat keep occurring: these new ‘initiatives' may not be particularly well thoughtout, but that is almost to an executive's advantage. Aggressive managers want tocatch staff on the back foot, make them work harder and, above all, sabotage theimpulse to create and enact forms of solidarity.The individual arrogance of executive A or operational leader B, stems from themanagerialist belief in the ability of the upper echelon to run any public orprivate enterprise, without needing a particular form of knowledge or expertise(other than how to manipulate, blindside, buy off, ignore or bully theirsubordinates). This is not, of course, universal, but it seems to be the dominantmode of executive behaviour.Invasion of the Body SnatchersThe increasingly material separation (financial and physical) of the people atthe top, from the bulk of staff, has been accelerated by the pandemic, butrepresents a step beyond the usual forms of gatekeeping used to keepuncomfortable issues at bay. Those who control these hierarchies are re-modellingtheir institutions as hybrid private/public enterprises, and they are doing sobehind closed doors.The increasingly rigid systems that are crushing the sector's creativity, haveexacerbated the dysfunctional relationship between those who think of themselvesas part of ‘senior leadership teams', and others who operate as ‘conscientiousworkers'. This might sound like the traditional distinction between capital andlabour, but it's both more nuanced than that, and also increasingly true.The rise of managerialism as a disciplinary practice, the complex function ofintermediary groups, massive increases in precarious labour, and the fact thatthe individuals who occupy leadership roles do not usually own a University'smaterial assets, all suggest the existence of a complex and evolving structure.This complexity should not, however, distract us from recognising the growingdivisions between workplace roles, accompanied by major assumptions about theirrelative value.This situation developed over time: UK HEIs used to be seen as ‘rational'hierarchies, in the sense that they pursued an exalted, knowledge-driven agenda,supposedly governed by the precepts of an intellectual elite. Yet theirpatriarchal, upper-middle class leadership, driven by their own misplacedself-confidence, are responsible for the current decline. It was they who openedthe door to open-sector careerists, ‘business gurus', and HR specialists, none ofwhom should ever have been allowed anywhere near the sector.Hence the appearance, in some instances at least, of an Unholy Trinity - analliance between the ‘dead wood', the ‘body snatchers' who claim some businessacumen, and those who had garnered the benefits of an elite education but did notwant younger rivals to gain the same advantage. This is a crude approximation,but the mutation over time of Academic Boards and senior teams, illustrates thisbroad trajectory.Then, when ‘market conditions' began to tighten their grip on universities, theOld Guard had served its purpose. It was replaced by the new managerialists, whowere often people who had never taught a class, or set up an assessment board, orworked in admin, or cleaned a corridor, or presented an academic paper, or set upthe desks for an exam, or run a conference, or published a book. They had theirown particular skills.They were, in essence, experts in the (mis)management of people, and themaintenance of the interface between the university and its ‘stakeholders'. Thedifference between all the activities listed above, and the executive role, isthe stark fact that the latter is unnecessary - or rather, it is only madenecessary by the fact that the people holding things together at the grassrootsare kept out of the loop.In ConclusionIn so many institutions recently, staff have been made redundant: driven by‘restructuring', job losses are given a positive spin as efficiencies, which inturn are linked to student expectation, and the mantra of ‘playing to ourstrengths'. These fictions are particularly laughable when you remember thateducation workers (technical support staff, academics, professional servicesworkers, cleaners, lecturers in ‘precarious' roles, colleagues in estates, etc)were not to blame for the endless waste of resource on consultancy firms,overseas franchises, executive pay, and remodelled (and now depopulated) campuses.We have to be quite clear about identifying those managers who are currentlymaking things worse. Of course, those who took a hard line on an unsafe return tothe workplace, or who acted as compliant, cheerful messengers for the top dogs,have revealed their true character, and it's going to be hard for them todisguise this fact. For our part, we shouldn't let them off the hook. They mayaddress the academics in the workforce as ‘colleagues', and use their firstnames, but it's clear that the two groups have little in common.While it's still worth appealing to the more decent people who might be able toexert some influence on the direction of travel, the real challenge isstructural. Let's be clear, as the politicians say: the rigid division between‘leaders and led' is not of our making. The executive ‘class' as a whole hasdeliberately separated itself from the common order of experience, whileprotecting itself from the consequences of its actions.It's a vicious circle. Lack of empathy emerges from, and then reinforces,hierarchical behaviour. As long as we are locked into this abusive relationshipwith various ‘leaders' and Line Managers, we shouldn't be surprised if theconscientious workers described above, realise that their loyalty lies with theirown kind.The task of reconstructing the modern university falls, as ever, to those whoderive the least material benefit from its survival. Yet, in the last analysis,they are the ones who joined the sector with the best intentions, and they havethe skills to create a new and equitable system. Unity with student activists istherefore crucial. As to those who continue to lord it over their colleagues,they would do well to take a long, hard look at their own behaviour andmotivations. It's not too late for them to abandon the (ultimately) empty pursuitof status and power, and follow this moral imperative - that we unite in defenceof public education, while making the most robust critique of its dangerous enemies.‘Osito', December 2021[i]When we use the term ‘managerialist', we are referring to unresponsivestructures and ideologically-driven behaviours, as opposed to a function thatcould be shared by all (as in ‘self-management'). There's an obvious difference,for instance, between zealots who demand deference, and those managers who try todefend the interests of staff and students.AuthordannylarougePosted on21st Dec 2021Tagsbody snatchers, HE, managerialism, market conditions, mismanagement, stay safeLeave a commenton Invasion of the Body Snatchershttps://educationworker.wordpress.com/2021/12/21/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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