Legislated & Administrated

All in one year.  2009.

First we got legislated by the Ontario Government.  Back to work.  And now, appallingly toppled at the authoritarian knee of CUPE National, us local 3903s are getting severely administrated.

They say we’ve been bad.  Real bad.  Not just fiscally misappropriate.  Far worse.  Referring to us as dysfunctional, they brazenly accuse us of instigating “a climate of fear, harassment and bullying” against our own membership.  As if we were the corrupt exploiters.  As if we were the oppressors.  As if.  Is this how they propose to lead “an already embattled labour movement in the throes of a capitalist crisis“?  Dare they so utterly ignore how staunch and stalwart we 3903s confront — forefront — against the “neoliberal logic of the university“?

As if.  How constantly they tailed, how reliably they trailed whenever we charged into the teeth — the fangs — of neoliberalism.  Only now — when we’re provisionally laid low by the neoliberal oppressor — do they stick their administrating knife in.  Stick their knives into our backs from behind.  As if we were the corrupt oppressors.  As if we were the exploiters.  But they had better look in some mirrors lately.  Because we won’t be taking their back-stabbing administrating lying down.  They have more surprising things coming if they think we will.

What can we do about it, though?  Don’t even ask.  More surprising things.  And better believe we won’t lie down for it.  Don’t bother asking what we will do.  Consider what we have already done.

For one first thing, we constituted the “Ad Hoc Committee Against Administration” which, on October 29, 2009, began issuing “the REAL 3903 NEWS” via underground bulletins to all 3903s.  Calling our membership out to arms against administration.

And our Hocs Against Administration didn’t just issue bulletins.  Our Hocs also convened pseudo General Membership Meetings, Special General Membership Meetings, passed motions, issued challenges and pronouncements on behalf our local — and played the usual creative mis-scheduling shell-games.  Mis-scheduling such as, but not necessarily limited to declaring, in their Novermber 2, 2009 underground bulletin:

The Ad-Hoc Committee would also like to invite Lynn McDougall to attend the upcoming SGMM, in which we are proposing that she be allotted equal time to discuss her own point of view. We regret the conflict with her scheduled information meeting, however the conflict cannot be avoided…

Essentially? Our Hocs carried on as if Lynn McDougall’s administrating us were irrelevant. While simultaneously demanding she justify her administrating.  While simultaneously interfering her scheduling in some if not just any event.  It nearly turned into an absurd game of sorts.  A high-profile game of I can’t see you so you can’t see me.  But their almost-game couldn’t last — and our Hocs couldn’t possibly win.  Since Ms. McDougall couldn’t see our Hocs far better than our Hocs couldn’t see her.  And thus, on November 15, 2009, by the CUPE National authority vested in her, merely by mentioning how they hadn’t existed from their start — and how bastardly illegitimate their starting had been — Ms. McDougall wiped our Hocs right out of pretending to exist:

The Ad-Hoc Committee, although quite probably made up of members, is not a CUPE Local 3903 sanctioned committee. The meetings that they refer to as ‘Special General Membership Meetings’ and ‘General Membership Meetings’ are, in fact, not CUPE Local 3903 meetings as prescribed in the Constitution or intended by your by-laws. CUPE Local 3903 is not, and will not be, bound by any motions, directives or recommendations passed by the Ad-Hoc Committee, as only a CUPE Local 3903 sanctioned Special or General Membership Meeting would have that authority. Their use of the CUPE Local 3903 logo and references, as well as the security breach regarding the email lists have been forwarded for legal opinion.

Alas, Ms. McDougall had failed to see too well.  Our Ad-Hoc Committee, as such, had long since wiped themselves out already.  Leaving Ms. McDougall to redundantly wipe at what no longer wasn’t quite there.  Ever since it had been advertised by email on November 11, 2009 to the 3903 membership at large that,

At the November 4th SGMM, the 3903 Ad-Hoc Committee Against Administration was reconstituted as the 3903 Democratic Membership Committee. This committee, which is open to all members of CUPE 3903, will work at maintaining and renewing the democratic functioning of our local. We recognize the severity of the issues that have led to Administration, and want to work together toward membership-driven solutions to these problems, as well as all other current and future concerns.

So what? What’s in a name?  In this instance, at this moment — plenty. Because it wasn’t just our former Hocs getting wiped out — and transformed. Everything 3903 was getting re-branded at once.  No longer were we 3903s battling the capitalist crisis.  No longer did we struggle against the casualization of labour.  Forget how we denounced and sought to demolish the neoliberal university.  Disregard how ideologically we kept demanding the impossible — and how utterly we refused to settle for anything realistically, remotely possible.  How sector, society, world-wide the ideological  impossibilities we kept demanding were:

.. I submit that the only way – short of a major Left turn in the prevailing social order – to address diminishing funding for universities is to ‘demand the impossible’ and leave university administrators no choice but to demand, in turn, adequate funding from the province. After all, that which is ‘possible’ for students and workers is determined by the extent to which a given university is supported by the state. Demanding more than what is currently ‘possible’ is simply insisting that the state alter the circumstances that define that ‘possibility’ until the people who use these institutions are satisfied..

Come on.  Seriously.  Just forget how, in the context of our local 3903 strike, we weren’t striking for our local membership.  How we struck out for entirely other possible worlds.  For worlds where, we could only imagine, possibilities were fabulously different from here.  Totally out of this world — no matter who got hurt in this one.  Just forget all that — as, of this moment, have we.

At this moment we’re not about that.  As of this moment we never were.  Now we are nothing but a membership-driven local.  Simply and democratically looking out for the realistic well being of our own membership.  We could never have considered trampling our membership’s democratic privileges — regardless how we feared democratic privileges would interfere our more ideological or personal ambitions.  We would never have harassed, intimidated and silenced opposition.  We would never have jacked up the process while paying lip-services to it.  There’s no way — since it was precisely the membership’s democratic privileges to which we were most committed.  Always.  As a membership-driven local, that’s who we are.  That’s what we do.  What we’re all about.  Democracy.

Of course it isn’t true.  Never was.  Whenever democratic processes proved inconvenient to more ideological or personal ambitions?  We trampled them gleefully.  One would have had to experience some of our past General Membership Meetings to appreciate how true our democratic commitment never was.  For a single example, at one outrageous GMM several years back, the Chair illegally halted the meeting from starting at appointed time.  While members of the particular faction to which the Chair was more partial rushed from the meeting room.  While they cell-phoned to summon additional friends and factional cohorts.  Until the Chair’s preferred faction swelled sufficiently to outvote their opposition.

Of course Paul Moist was correct to mention a climate of fear, harassment and bullying.  Just don’t expect we’ll recognize it.  Right now there’s no commodity greater than our newly discovered democratic commitment.  Hence, our commitment to democracy can’t be newly discovered.

What does any of this actually mean?  Like, to our getting administrated?  Simple, really.  While Ms. McDougall kept reacting to demolish the legitimacy of our radical former Hocs — everything 3903, former Hocs included, had got re-branded as nothing but democratic.  And since we 3903s now identify as always having been nothing if not democratic — this casts dim and failing lights upon Ms. McDougall’s efforts.  For whatever problems and issues our local may suffer — these are nevertheless ours by all democratic means.  On this as on all else — we stand together.  In the past, in the present, into the future — we must always shoulder together.  Whatever our victories, problems, defeats — democracy must be upheld.  To advocate otherwise would not be legitimate.  It wouldn’t even be civilized.  It would make one an enemy of democracy.  Which — democracy — has become our 3903 most cherished and principled ideal.

By re-branding ourselves as ideally democratic, we also re-brand Ms. McDougall’s administrating un-democratic.  Autocratic.  Maybe even dictatorial.  Unless, of course, she is prepared to more democratically have us administrate ourselves.  Hey — we’re, like, willing to let her have equal time to express her point of view.  But — sorry about that scheduling conflict, couldn’t be helped — she never showed.  We’re all aghast how undemocratic she is.  Hence the language in the November 11, 2009 “Real CUPE 3903 News” emailed to the membership at large:

What does administration mean? According to Lynn, she is empowered to act as the Executive, but also as more than the executive. This means.. Lynn McDougall now has final say on any decisions related to the local… She insisted that things will be done as democratically as possible because she is not a dictator; however she said there would not be elections for any open positions and all decisions would be up to her.

Thus has the question for us 3903s become not whether our getting administrated is in-itself justified — but whether how we get administrated is sufficiently democratic to suit our convenient ideal.  Certainly this constitutes rationalization — like drunk drivers resenting criminal charges due to not recognizing their actions as criminal.  But when rationalizations become sufficiently shared?  They can become values, ideals, ideologies, cultural principles.  They can become insurmountable.

Ms. McDougall must now choose whether to dispense her administrating authority more democratically with 3903 ideologues guising as democratic idealists.  Or whether not to dispense authority and become a permanent target for the righteous resentment and indignation of — that’s right — 3903 ideologues guising as democratic idealists.

Either way?  It’s difficult to imagine how this administration can accomplish anything beyond cosmetics in addressing our deeper, more burning dysfunctions.  The dysfunctions which warranted us 3903s getting administrated in the first place.

That’s why there’s no point even asking what we will do about getting administrated.  We’ve already done it.