Not done yet....

Well some might say it is finished. The students and professors are about to head back to the classrooms. No more picketing and confrontation at the gates. It is time to prep for class and proceed to graduation.

I am not finished though. I think there are a couple of post mortem-like dissections that still need to be done. I think there is a lot to be learned, and more importantly, a lot yet to do to manage the out come of this little power play.

When you look back at the process of the past three weeks what you see are two interwoven power dynamics being played as one. There is the first one in which the students have been refused the ability to have classes in an attempt to influence the Management of the colleges to agree to hire more full time faculty. Then there is the second one in which the faculty were kept out of their jobs by refusing to offer anything that would be accepted so that the Ontario Government - Mr Bentley and Mr. McGuinty – would agree to greater government funding to the college system as a whole.

The faculty association did not see that coming. They did not anticipate that the Management would see within the faculty strike the opportunity to use public backlash to create power on the two parties that cause them grief – the faculty and the government. They have played it well. They have played the “poor me.” They have positioned themselves in this as the passive victim. Caught between unreasonable faculty asking for the moon and a provincial funding system that has collapsed over ten years and left them unable to provide quality educations.

Management – like the union – could have played the press more aggressively. They could have played public opinion in a more effective way. Management could have spoken out publicly about the chronic under-funding of the system and that the money they had been allocated by the province was not enough after so many years of neglect. Rather than say that the “teachers” were asking for more than they deserved, they could have said that the faculty are right. The system needs this. However, our government won’t fund it.

They could have used power over the Province by putting the Minister and the Premier on the spot. They could have used their ability to impact the public’s opinion of the politicians as a power dynamic against them and tried to influence the Province’s choice to allocate more funding. This may have been especially effective given a pending budget announcement.

However to do that would have been to forget one important aspect of power…

Power destroys trust.

To understand why the Management did not play it out against the Province in a public forum we need to see the very close working relations that exist between the Colleges and the Ministry. Colleges are a form of government. They are distinguished one from another by the existence of a corporate structure and a corporate form of governance that keeps them distinct. But you cannot think that an institution that gets 70- 80% of its funding from one source does not have a closely knit relationship with that source. They work together on everything.

There is very little a college can do on its own. Most decisions of any importance must go through the Ministry both before and after they are made. One of a college president’s most pressing jobs is as a lobbyist. Both as a group and as individuals, the College Presidents attend to the Ministry lobbying and negotiating and building relationships with Deputy Ministers and Assistant Deputy Ministers.

Although the Minister may change every couple of years the senior bureaucrats remain the same. The last thing a College President wants to do is be at odds with the Minister or their deputies and personnel.

Just as the faculty are the ones who see students every day and are the ones who truly answer to the relationship, the College Management works with the Province everyday and they answer to that relationship.

So the faculty worked on their relations with the students as the strike progressed and Management did the same with the Province.

Faculty did it in the classroom before the strike, on the line as the strike continued and will be up to their chins in it next week.

One of the things my strike teammates noticed was how many of the students crossing the lines were mine. How many of them stayed to just to chat with me. How many of them took the time to read this blog. And I suppose most significantly was how we are still talking as friends.

You all know where my allegiance lies. I am not here to change the college system. I am not here to become a senior manager. I am not here to get somewhere else. I am here because I love teaching you. You know I am here because talking to you about stuff like power is rewarding to me. So you know I am no happier about being out on strike than you are.

You know how I feel about power, so you know I wouldn’t use it to get something from you.

Faculty will be working their relationships with students next week - calming concerns, revising course plans and making graduation and passing possible. In that effort will come a happy and successful end to this semester. It will save the relationships faculty have with their students. It is important because any one who knows about teaching knows that relationship is critical.

That’s the faculty side.

However Management did it in a crafty, power-based way.

It was accomplished by letting the faculty take the heat. By creating a public impression that faculty were asking for unreasonable things and were already being overpaid. Management built public support by suggesting that they had made worthwhile offers. Although those inside knew these to actually be lies, because the union was not anticipating a strike, the union was not prepared to respond to the press with truth.

The idea of without prejudice talks is that bargaining teams can speak frankly and find middle ground without compromising their position. The idea that we have closed door negotiation is to give us a chance to find compromise without having other people looking over our shoulder and second guessing us. The union was not prepared for the manipulation of media blackouts followed by spin doctoring by the Management. Management’s press releases were dangerously close to false. There was enough spun truth in them to prevent a black eye. However at all times the Union bargaining team was unwilling to make those accusations because of the power within them and future importance of trust in the negotiations.

The frustration showed however in the public allegation of bad faith bargaining, which only came when it was clear that no settlement or further talks were possible.

All the while Management worked quietly behind the scenes. They exploited the opportunities which arose when the Minister called them into his office and when the Premier said it was time to end the strike.

Did you see how the Management let the Province make the first move each time there was progress? The Minster called the parties into his office privately. It was then that the Management could say that there simply was not the money to give the faculty what they wanted. They could also let the Minister know that they thought, in fairness, that the faculty may have the right idea if we are to increase the quality of education.

They could let the Faculty go into the Minister’s office and do the ranting about how the Premier made these promises and all they are trying to do is get the college Management to implement what the Premier said he wanted and the Rae Report said we needed.

Then they played the all or nothing card again by saying, we can’t afford to give you these things so we have to do an “all-or-nothing” arbitration. We can’t saw it down the middle because if we agreed to that we would have to find the money to pay for it. All this work to get the province to agree to pay for it would be lost if they agreed to simple binding arbitration.

So they stonewalled. They stonewalled an untenable position. They stonewalled a dangerous position. They stonewalled a position that anyone would say is ridiculous if they were looking on with even a hint of reasonability.

But it worked.

They got Mr. McGuinty to make a public statement about the end of the strike and the return to classes Monday. But they held on until he followed that up with a quiet phone call telling them to accept binding arbitration.

Now this strike is his problem.

Now the outcome of the arbitration and its costs will be easily laid at the door step of the Ministry and the Premier. After all, the Management would never have agreed to those demands and the strike would have continued if not for the Minister and the Premier wanting the students back in class.

The Management conducted power as masters. They did not once embarrass the province. They kept the business between the Management and the Province behind closed doors. By protecting the public image of the government, they did not alienate the person they were actually working against.

Sometimes we use power on those who are working with us.

The Management had the ability to pass the buck and impact the public persona of the Minister and the Premier. They had the ability to hurt the way the public saw them. They did not use it. By refusing to use that ability to hurt the politicians, they helped them. They used their ability to influence the way the Province chose to solve this impasse.

They used their ability to embarrass the politicians by not using it. They let the students and the faculty and the public and the official opposition and the press direct their attention to the Minister and the Premier. They let the power pass over them and into another.

They created a strike and let all of the power in it pass over them and into the politicians. They did not let up until the politicians stepped up and took the heat.

Don’t think that the province didn’t recognize this and exploit it for their purposes also.

Did you see the slight of hand of the province announcing the increase in tuition at a time when the hatred of that move could be focused on the faculty not the government? Also it was delivered at a time when students were out of class. They were at home awaiting a resolution of the strike. Could you imagine the size of the protest that may have taken place had they made that announcement when students were at their respective colleges and able to organize a proper response?

What do you think would happen to a politician if they cave into to a request for more education spending at a time when they are one of the only two provinces to have a budget deficit? What would the right wing say to the public when that spending comes as a result of a strike?

So now the budget goes through. A little more money will flow down to the classrooms. It will come from arbitration and so it will not be a public announcement subject to criticism.

There are no stupid people here.

So let’s hope the faculty can learn from the great power artistry of the Management and exploit our ability to keep our allies close. Let’s give the students the best education we can over the next few weeks. Let’s draw the students groups closer and see how we can get them involved in the arbitration process. Let’s speak to the public about how we were on strike for the system not for our pockets. We were fighting for the quality of education. Let’s keep asking the public to write to Bentley and McGuinty demanding the money to make the classroom better. Let’s tell the parents not to worry. We will get their kids through successfully.

In the end we have the opportunity to be the hero that got the Goliath of the system to give in. We can thank the students for their sacrifice. They took one for the future of college students everywhere. Together with the students, we can be the heroes here if we want to take that position. But we will have to start using the media.

Let’s expose this whole thing and then use our compassion to make it better.

In the end Mr. McGuinty wants to fund education. In the end the management wants the Ontario college system to be the best in the country. In the end faculty want to be the best educators they can be. In the end the students want to learn and understand. In the end we all agree – we need more faculty to deliver a better college education.

Let’s use that for our mutual success.