Continued from Sussex Stories 6
More time
I've always felt on the borders of mainstream capitalist and bureaucratic society, able to have one foot inside but unable to avoid one foot outside too. I've never felt comfortable in or out, with the balance more in participation than exclusion. But as universities became more neoliberal and authoritarian and there was more and more complicity in this, the balance changed. I could not fight, or passively accept, or a mix of the two, the way universities were on a day to day basis without getting depressed and angry too much of the time. The latter was the way it was going. The only option was partial withdrawal.
In 2014 I had gone down to three days a week. Then in 2018, the department appointed a new member of staff but also wanted to appoint the second choice candidate. I had paid off my mortgage, my kids had left home, and I had lived a very austere life. I had, consequently, got into a reasonable position financially, as much through luck, lifestyle, and planning as privilege. I could afford to work even less and I saw my chance. I said I could change to being just an hourly paid tutor teaching just two classes a week and free up funds to pay for the extra member of staff. The head of department took me up on my offer.
However, the unions had just negotiated that such roles should be properly salaried at a fractional rate. Unions make a difference. So the job would have to be a 0.2 FTE teaching fellow role, two half days a week. I said I would, then, need to have some things written into my contract. I should just teach two final year courses I had designed - The Death of Socialism? and Alternative Societies. I would not have any admin roles or be required to attend meetings. Essentially, I would just be teaching a lecture and a seminar a week. It was still, nevertheless, a slide way down the scales from where I had been. Initially, the HR rep had trouble dealing with this. She said she had never come across someone applying for demotion before, let alone one so far down.
I got sent the contract but someone senior in HR got wind of it and contacted me to say it was not possible, otherwise everyone would want a contract like this. I quickly signed and returned it. There was no going back on it now. The other candidate for the Sociology post was appointed.
From this point on I had minimal involvement in the university. I don't like to report too much on things I observed mainly from a distance and was not involved in. So, this final part of the story will be brief. I enjoyed teaching my modules. With more time, I read lots of books. I looked after my grandson one day a week and later, when he went to nursery and school, picked him up twice a week and we hung out at my house. I continue to do this, with a day a week looking after my baby granddaughter now added in.
New Dawn Fades: Tickell 2016-22
In 2016 Michael Farthing ended his term of office as VC (Vice-Chancellor, the university CEO). I hope he felt proud of his achievements. He had been earning a quarter of a million pounds a year. He got a £230,000 payoff when he left. During one period of his tenure, such was the strength of feeling about his actions that he had to be escorted around campus by security. The next two vice-chancellors indicated they were not too convinced about changes he had made, or the way he had gone about them.
Adam Tickell, coming from Birmingham, was appointed to replace Farthing. He wore open-necked shirts and said he didn't agree with restructuring for the sake of it. At an early meeting with staff in my school I asked him about staff survey results that showed alienation from the previous management. He said he was aware that staff had been troubled by the management style of Michael Farthing, and that he had spotted the distrust of management that came over in staff surveys during the Farthing era (the surveys were generally positive other than on the issue of senior management in that period). He questioned the outsourcing that had happened and said he could not see the case for it. He seemed to be a man who would take things in another direction. There was soon a high turnover of senior management posts, with many of Farthing's sidekicks leaving and being replaced. Early signs were seen by some as promising. Later signs were less so.
We got long emails from Tickell, sometimes mentioning his holidays and activities such as swimming in the sea and recommending we did such things. These messages must have taken some time to write. Tickell was also employed on a quarter of a million pounds a year. I was told by some who knew him better than me that, as time went on, he seemed confused and hurt that he was not well-liked by everyone.
Slaying the neoliberal beast: pensions disputes
In an interview with a student journalist covering the ongoing pensions disputes, Tickell said that strikes don't work. Sustained industrial action over the next few years showed the opposite. Many staff were radicalised during the pensions dispute which ultimately led to significant gains for university staff. Tickell was on the employers' side on the pensions Joint Negotiating Committee of employers and unions. The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) had put forward totally implausibly based proposals for reform of the pension scheme that would have hugely deleterious effects on staff. Tickell said there was no choice, universities could not afford the current pensions arrangements. What USS and the employers did not reckon with was a membership packed full of people with expertise on pensions and professional researchers able to expose the flimsy case the employers put forward. Even the Financial Times sympathised with the staff strikes that followed.
In a 1995 academic paper Tickell, a critical geographer, had used the phrase 'Slay the neoliberal beast'. It was seen to have not been adhered to by him when he became a senior manager. The slogan appeared on ironic banners in protests against the pensions reforms. His national role in the pensions negotiations led the neoliberal quip to appear on billboards well beyond Sussex. He was not the only critical geographer to go into management and show another side. Nigel Thrift, VC at Warwick, waded in, instigating forceful suppression of student occupiers.
After years of action that were very disruptive to students and borne by them through understandably gritted teeth, alongside the disruption they also had to endure through COVID, the union won major concessions. It was that cliché: a hard-won victory.
The USS disputes had actually been going on since I was UCU (University and College Union) President between 2010-12 and we took industrial action over it then. One time in that period the Director of Finance, Allan Spencer, called the three campus unions in to discuss proposed changes to the pensions scheme. I went for UCU. He said 'I don't want a to and fro over this' and then went on to give the employer case, ie the 'to', while having ruled out the 'fro', ie our response. Obviously, we had heard everything he went on to say representing the employers' side. We were union reps. We were well briefed. I wondered what the point was. I said we were aware of the case he had set out but that we had been kept informed by our side and did not buy his case. He looked blank. A Unite rep made a very pertinent point about the widely ridiculed assumptions that the pensions reforms were based on. Spencer did not respond. I really don't know if he was so lacking in respect for us that he had no idea we already were well aware of the arguments on both sides. Or he knew we were, but had been told to use our precious time by going through the motions of telling us what we already knew. Either way, it was a waste of everyone's time. Spencer was involved at a national level in the proposed pensions changes.
Which side are you on: left-wing and right-wing students
Some staff in Global Studies organised a meeting they described as being on how to deal with right-wing students. Trumpism and racism were on the rise and they meant far-right students. But the vaguely chosen words caused controversy, especially as Sussex has long been deemed a left-wing university. A poster for the meeting was shared on Twitter by a member of staff and the media got hold of it. They hounded staff associated with the meeting, causing great distress. A debate ensued at Sussex about the silencing of right-wing students at Sussex
Universities tend to be more left-wing than the population as a whole and Sussex more left than most universities. I have been conscious on my sociology and politics courses that most of my students are left-wing and some can occasionally be quite strident when confronted with right-wing arguments. There have always been fewer right than left voices in my seminars. But I have always encouraged and defended those on the right speaking out and have tried to hold back (rare) hostility in tone to them.
My interest in socialism has been less about socialist critiques of capitalism and more about what a socialist society should be like, taking into account that people who attempted socialism (but did not achieve it) have tended to end up repressive and intolerant. In that context, I have always argued that socialism needs to be pluralist and liberal. So I have encouraged liberal and pluralist views, alongside socialist ones.
There are plenty of right-wing students at Sussex. Right-wing arguments are expressed on my courses and if they are not I make sure I voice them. One year student feedback on an MA course complained about the dogmatic neoliberal views of their tutor (me). I had worked hard to make sure neoliberal views (with which I disagree) got heard. It seems I had been very convincing. One right-wing student recently thanked me for protecting him in seminars even though he said he knew I disagreed with him. The Politics staff at Sussex have long struck me as mostly a very un-socialist and conservative bunch.
One year when I was outlining the case for open borders a student complained that I was making assumptions about the views held in the group; that I assumed the students were for open borders and pro-immigration. In fact, he was making assumptions about me making assumptions. I have always thought that students, even on my courses, are not in favour of open borders and supportive of, in varying degrees, immigration restrictions. I have always assumed there are right-wing students in my seminars and more than there may appear to be.
Seen in a wider context, there is no shortage of right-wing views in society. Universities are not bubbles and our students are constantly exposed to right-wing opinions, which is one reason they are passionate about confronting these in seminars. They are not in left-wing silos where they get exposed to only left-wing views. In this broader context, university is a safe haven for some, where they are freer to express the left-wing perspectives that get battered in society as whole. Just look at how Jeremy Corbyn, with his exceedingly modest programme, got treated.
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