Guest Post: The Tertiary Education Union is losing its way

A guest post by Carl Cerecke of NMIT | Te Pūkenga:

The TEU is losing its understanding of what its purpose is. In a time of university cuts and Te Pūkenga shambolics, the TEU is spreading its focus to social and ideological issues that, while arguably important, have the capacity to dilute and weaken the union’s core focus on advancing the industrial and professional rights of members, advocating for members with their employers, and upholding academic freedom. While the current TEU president stated in 2022 that “Industrial matters are the heart of any union”, the changes voted in at the May national conference (and at previous conferences) are crowding out that heart with side issues.

The two most controversial changes are a move to a co-governance and an expanded set of purposes beyond industrial relations: Co-governance will be with a large 24-member (12 Māori, 2 Pasifika, 10 non-racially-specified) council.  The purposes are collected under 5 headings: Mana Tiriti, Mana Mahi, Mana Taurite, Mana Mātauranga, and Mana Taiao. Let us consider the changes to the purposes first and the changes to the governance second.

As well as the standard purposes expected of a union in the tertiary education sector, the new purposes also include these statements: “The Union shall advocate for a tertiary education system that is accessible to all; acknowledges, values, and validates Mātauranga Māori and cultural provision” and “The Union will take action to transform the relationship of the Union and the tertiary education sector with Te Taiao (Papatūānuku and Ranginui) by supporting climate justice, just transitions and kaitiakitanga of the natural environment”. Note that I’m not arguing against these ideas here (for some ideas it is not even clear what the union means), I’m only arguing that these should not be part of the core purpose of a union.

Here are some reasons to reject the broadening of the purpose of the union:

The Conflicting Purposes argument: Having many purposes means that situations will arise where the purposes are in conflict. Perhaps a university wants to ban cars over a certain age from parking in the car park in order to lower the university’s carbon footprint. This then would have the effect of discriminating against some staff by preventing them from parking on campus. Would the union side with the staff member or with “climate justice”? How does the union decide how to prioritise the purposes when those purposes are in conflict? The more purposes we have, the more likely they are to be in conflict, and the more arguments there will be about how to resolve those conflicts. See also the Division argument.

The Dilution argument: More purposes mean a wider range of possible actions to fulfil those purposes. With finite resources, the union may find itself under-resourced in dealing with many areas rather than being adequately resourced for the core union purpose. If a member needs help with an unjustified dismissal but can’t get adequate help because resources were instead spent on planting trees, then no matter how much we all love trees, that member has not been adequately served by the union.

The Division argument: More purposes mean more disagreement amongst members about what those purposes mean, how to actively pursue those purposes and how to prioritise those purposes. It’s not enough to say that the council will decide these issues; the more purposes you have, the more opportunity for disagreement with what the council decides. Unity is an idea at the very heart of a union (it’s in the name!). To promote purposes that will stoke division is counterproductive and weakening.

The Hypocrisy (or Power) argument: Unions help counteract the natural power imbalance between employer and employee. By expanding the purpose of a union too far, the very overreach of power that we wish to curtail in employers is the same sort of overreach in power that the union leadership seems to be striving for.

The Academic Freedom argument: One aspect of academic freedom in Aotearoa is “to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions”. This academic freedom could come into direct conflict with some of the proposed purposes. Perhaps an academic sees little value in an element of Mātauranga Māori. If the academic is then discriminated against for their unpopular opinion, would the TEU support that academic against discrimination? Or would they instead support the proposed purpose to value Mātauranga Māori? There will be similar academic freedom issues with the slippery neologism “climate justice”, along with other aspects of the proposed purposes. See also the Conflicting Purposes argument.

The Boomerang argument: In a conflict situation with an employer, the employer could use the union purposes against us. Perhaps an organisation fires 10% of its workforce, and claims reducing its carbon footprint in the name of climate justice as one of the motivations. The organisation could legitimately point out that the purposes of the union support its action to some degree, weakening the position of the union. See also the Conflicting Purposes argument.

The Boundary argument: There is no clear boundary between causes that are in the proposed purposes, and those without. There are many worthwhile causes in the world. What qualifies (or disqualifies) a cause to becoming a purpose of the union? What idea unifies the proposed purposes? I have seen no justification for why the current proposed purposes have been chosen over other possible purposes. I was told that climate justice is important to the union because we can’t teach on a dead planet. Well, we can’t teach in a country wrecked by war either, but world peace isn’t a purpose of the union.

The Legal argument: Section 14(1)(c)(i) of the Employment Relations Act 2000 requires a union’s rules to be “not unreasonable”. Given the preceding arguments, perhaps a case could be made that the proposed purposes are unreasonable and as a result legally disqualify the TEU from being a union.

And now on to co-governance.

The co-government arrangement is a rather large 24-member council (up from 17) which is split into two sets of 12. There are 12 titles from president on down, and for the most part, each title has a Māori position and a Tangata Tiriti (non-Māori) position. It’s not specified in any way how the council will run with two presidents.

In order to justify co-governance in the union, there must be a clear line of reasoning from Te Tiriti to the council makeup of the TEU. Perhaps we might disagree with the reasons, but the line of reasoning should at least be there. But it is not. There are some attempts on the TEU YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@NZTEU) but these range from uselessly vague to embarrassingly weak. We are warned that if we don’t like it then we are racists: “if you’re uncomfortable, there’s a really nasty reason why you might be feeling uncomfortable” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXHWoErPCBQ). While I’m not uncomfortable with a Te Tiriti led union, I just don’t see any reasonable justification for it. In the same video, the union’s description of kāwanatanga from Te Tiriti article one is dismissed as “administrative governance, so pretty much just looking after things” whereas tino rangatiratanga in article two is described as “ultimate sovereignty over the land”. This unbalanced view of Te Tiriti is not a solid foundation on which to build an argument for co-governance.

Another video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Na04ykJsKM) declares that kāwanatanga in the first article is about Hapū granting the British the right to govern the non Māori people. This seems like a bizarre claim for the meaning of kāwanatanga; it doesn’t seem to fit with article three, and I’ve not seen any evidence in support of this interpretation. Again, not a solid foundation on which to build an argument for co-governance.

Even if you support these positions, it’s still a long way to go from a treaty between the Crown and Māori to co-governance of the TEU. The TEU is not a Crown agency; why should co-governance apply? This question is briefly raised in another video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSXZ7ryJl44) but is answered with mush about how we should “embrace the learnings and the opportunity of that relationship and that covenant. It’s about including people and it’s not about one on top of the other. It’s about doing it together.” That may well be true of Te Tiriti, but unless I’m missing something, it still doesn’t explain why we should set aside half of the TEU council seats for Māori.

Now I’m not necessarily against co-governance in principle. Perhaps a good case can be made for certain governance situations, but I don’t see a case for the TEU.

The sad fact is that the TEU doesn’t trust its members to make the right decisions. Here’s another gem from the video: “The other thing with the rules too is that they are often reinforced by democracy, so if the majority is all of one gender, one ethnicity, one way of thinking, then they are the one that get that major voice, so it doesn’t reflect the rest, so yes they really do need to be changed so they do reflect all of the membership of the TEU, now and in the future”. Even though the TEU has arguably the best educated members out of any union in NZ, the TEU leadership doesn’t trust them with a vote because they see members of each of these groups as thinking the same way! This is ridiculous considering that if you have 3 academics in a room, you probably have 4 different points of view. It’s even more sinister though: what do you do as leadership once you’ve convinced yourself that democracy is not good enough? Well then, we’ll just make the “right” decisions for you, you slavish group-thinkers. And if you’re uncomfortable with that then you’re racist.

The social activists are taking over and don’t want to be challenged: “we’re not just interested in our pay, in our working conditions. We’re interested in the world, and where we can advance issues of racial justice” (Dr. Heather Came). Solve the world’s problems in your own time with your own resources and refocus the TEU on our pay and working conditions.

There’s a legal point here too: Section 14(1)(c)(iii) of the Employment Relations Act 2000 states that the society’s rules are “not unfairly discriminatory or unfairly prejudicial”. I’m no lawyer but it seems to me that a case could be made that the racial segregation of setting aside half of the council seats for Māori is not compatible with that law.

All is not lost. There’s still time.

Our national president (https://teu.ac.nz/news/proud-but-plenty-more-to-do/) assures us that “Through all these changes the industrial work of the union has not changed. Our role as an industrial union is to fight for the rights of workers, represent workers’ interests, and work to improve the wages and conditions for all our members. This will always be our core work.” This is comforting to read, but this sentiment of having a core purpose to a union is unfortunately not reflected in the stated purposes of the union. What will the union look like 5-10 years from now? The thin end of the wedge is firmly in place; with repeated small taps we could end up having so many areas competing for attention that we forget why we exist in the first place.

It seems unreasonable to complain about the union losing its way without making some suggestions about how it can find its way again. And to be clear, I don’t think the union has lost its way; it has just got distracted by other social issues that many in the leadership also care about. I have two suggestions for union leadership: 1. Create an online member’s discussion forum, and 2. Let members vote for these sorts of important changes directly.

First, the forum: Currently any TEU news is strictly controlled by the TEU leadership. Providing a forum facility for member discussion of each piece of union news as well would provide a voice to the ordinary union membership. And not just about TEU news, but member-initiated articles as well. There are plenty of software solutions that can enable this in a member’s only portion of the website. Let’s give a voice to the common members.

Second, voting: The union already has facilities in place for member-wide voting. Why not use that for these sorts of decisions. When I have informed local union members that climate justice is part of the purpose of the union, they have responded with wide eyed incredulity. And climate justice made it into the purposes at a previous national meeting, not this year’s! How is it that our members have been so poorly informed that they don’t know this? If adding climate justice to the union’s purpose was put to a member-wide vote, and they had a forum to discuss it first, would it have made it in? Perhaps the TEU leadership doesn’t trust its members to make the Right Decision.

These two suggestions would give some power back to the union members. Surely that is sentiment is compatible with a union. Let us not let the union become like the very organisations it fights against.

Finally, I have come to see that the more I learn, the more vastly my ignorance outweighs my knowledge. As such the opinions herein, while firmly expressed, are lightly held. If I’ve got it wrong somewhere I’m open to discussion.