Month: September 2022

A Principal’s Evaluation of My Teaching Basic French, or: How to Oppress a Worker Through Performance Evaluation, Part Three

The following is the third of several posts that provide a verbatim reply (with a somewhat different order) to a “clinical evaluation” (a performance evaluation of my teaching) made by the principal of Ashern Central School (Ashern, Manitoba, Canada), Neil MacNeil, in the fall of 2011 when I was teaching grades 6, 7 and 8 French. This post deals with the performance evaluation of grade 8 French. It also includes my “Teacher’s response” to that evaluation.  

For the context of the “clinical evaluation,” see the post  A Worker’s Resistance to the Capitalist Government or State and Its Representatives, Part Eight.

As a teacher, I was earning around $85,000 a year at the time. Undoubtedly, according to the social-democratic or social-reformist left, it was a “good job,” “decent work,” and other such clichés. Being under clinical evaluation or supervision, however, was in effect legal torture–and I could not grieve the continued harassment by the principal since it was within management’s rights to “evaluate” a teacher’s performance.

I responded to Mr. MacNeil’s clinical evaluation with an initial 43-page reply, with the then Manitoba Teachers Society  (MTS) staff officer Roland Stankevicius (later General Secretary of the MTS) providing edited suggestions that reduced it to about 30 pages.

Mr. Stankevicius remarked that the evaluation reflected negatively–on Mr. MacNeil:

You have provided a very scholarly response but it needs to be shortened.  I hope you agree with my suggestions. …

You have made your points here.  NM [Neil MacNeil] does not look good in a lot of how he states his observations (in my opinion).

The radical left should expose both what management does and how it does it. Discussion of the situation that various kinds of employees face need to be openly discussed, but to do that it is necessary to expose, in a transparent way, managerial behaviour.

I provide Mr. MacNeil’s assessment grade by grade in separate posts (and post by followed by my reflections (response) that I provided. In other words, the performance evaluation of the three grades is distributed over three posts. In the case of Grade 6, I also included the first area of evaluation (Domain I, Professional Responsibilities), with Mr. MacNeil’s comments and my reflections (response). Four further posts follow that include Domain I (Professional Responsibilities),  Domain II (Educational Environments), Domain III (Teaching and Learning) and Domain IV (Professional Relationships).

Lakeshore School Division

Teacher Clinical Evaluation Report

Teacher: Fred Harris
School: Ashern Central School
Subject/Grade: MY French; ELA Trans. Focus 30S; SY Support

The teacher and administrator will review Administrative Regulations and Procedures Evaluation Process-Professional Staff (2.3)

  1. Date and Focus of Teacher/Administrator Pre-Conferences and Post Conferences

3. Grade 8 French 2011 12 05 2:50 – 3:30 p.m.

“Pre-conference: Reviewing a quiz on passe compose. Fred will clarify expectations for a sports bulletin around research, then go up to the library for this research.

To note:

– nothing noted.

Post-conference: Fred was asked for his assessment of how this class went. He spoke to the need to review the passe compose again with the class, and to clarify again the intent of the assignment that the class was given for their sports bulletin.

I stated that, in my view, this was not the primary issue in the class. I pointed out that this was a class of 5 girls, with one new student who started this class today, and another boy whose attendance was “hit and miss” in Fred’s words. In my observation, all of the girls were unengaged and disinterested throughout the class. (Fred had occasion to remonstrate with each of the girls during this 35 minute class, and with some as many as a dozen times.)

I asked Fred for his assessment about how the situation had come to this pass, where I heard three of the girls state “I hate French” during the class. He responded by speaking to each of the girls in turn, describing what he believed to be their fault(s) in this matter. He pointed out that at least two of the girls were being forced to be there against their will, and I replied that, if we were to remove the students who did not want to be there, there might be no students left. After further prompting from me, about how this should not be the case for this class, he went back to previous years, where he spoke to the role of two boys, who have since dropped French, in having destroyed the atmosphere of the class.

I pointed out to Fred that, in all of this, he had not acknowledged his own role for the state of affairs in the class. He acknowledged that he did have some responsibility, for not having been sufficiently disciplinary with these students, but that he was working on this. He pointed out the detentions list he now has on his whiteboard. I asked how he intended to repair the relationships with these students, which he acknowledged to be damaged, and he said that he would talk with them.

Finally, Fred inquired about the next steps in this process. I clarified for him that the notes from the first two observations that I had given him were not part of my report. I told him that I would complete my report (using this template), give it to him for his comments, and that it would then be forwarded to the superintendent.”

Teacher’s Reflections

Grade 8

Re: “Post-conference: Fred was asked for his assessment of how this class went. He spoke to the need to review the passe compose again with the class, and to clarify again the intent of the assignment that the class was given for their sports bulletin.

I stated that, in my view, this was not the primary issue in the class. I pointed out that this was a class of 5 girls, with one new student who started this class today, and another boy whose attendance was “hit and miss” in Fred’s words. In my observation, all of the girls were unengaged and disinterested throughout the class. (Fred had occasion to remonstrate with each of the girls during this 35 minute class, and with some as many as a dozen times.)”

This is true. With one girl in particular, who has persistently been oppositional or defiant. I have since changed my tactics. If she does not do her work in French class, she then makes up for it during recess.

Re: “I asked Fred for his assessment about how the situation had come to this pass, where I heard three of the girls state “I hate French” during the class. He responded by speaking to each of the girls in turn, describing what he believed to be their fault(s) in this matter.”

The first thing that I said was that my formative assessment of their skills had been inaccurate—that I had overestimated their skill set. It was indeed an issue that came out when I had a discussion with the students subsequent to the observation and post-conference. One student said that I expected too much of them; I have taken that criticism into consideration and have tried to proceed more slowly and have made changes to the material as a support for their learning.

With respect to the issue of discipline, I would say that I made a serious mistake in trying to reason with certain students in past years who are no longer in French. My general approach has been to be empathetic to students (despite the contrary proposition by the administrator); I was too tolerant. I failed to identify real disrespect from mere shenanigans, and as a consequence I allowed the two students the year before too much leeway.

I have continued with the detention if the students talk while I am teaching.

As for referring to each student in turn, I indicated what they were doing that interfered with my direct instruction (such as persistent talking while I was trying to teach).

One circumstance that I did not mention was the obligation to teach in the home economics room. At the beginning of the year, I did not even know where I was going to teach. I was then assigned to the home economics room—a room ill-suited for teaching in general (apart from home economics) let alone French in particular. The room was several times used for meetings (in the evening and the day). I did not even have chalk at first and had to ask other teachers for some chalk. Then I was shifted to a different classroom. My sense was that such references to the unsuitability of environmental conditions and changes in environmental conditions would be interpreted by the administrator as “excuses.”

May Day 2022 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada: The Case of the President of the Ontario Public Services Employee Union (OPSEU), J.P. Hornick, Part One: A Fair Contract

Introduction

I did not attend the May Day rally here in Toronto. I did however attend it in 2014 (I had moved to Toronto at the end of August 2013). At the time, in 2014, it looked mainly like a protest of the fringe left who were not supported by organized unions. There were a few unions present (if I remember correctly, for example, CUPE 3903, a union “representing contract faculty, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, and part-time librarians and assistants.”

I did, however, in 2022, look at a couple of videos on YouTube that showed some of the speeches given. This year union representatives were present.

Now, I have little doubt that my personal presence at the rally would make no difference politically. On the other hand, personal presence is sometimes necessary to show workers’ strength in numbers. However, from the speeches that I heard on YouTube, it was evident that the main agenda was a critique of the Conservative Doug Ford government here in Ontario (elections were on June 2, 2022).

Of course, it is understandable that the immediate aim should have been the defeat of the Ford government. The government has been, as some of the speakers had indicated, a very pro-employer government.

On the other hand, there was no indication of any other point of view than the implicit social-democratic or social-reformist point of view. After workers have experienced the personal stress of having to work under even worse conditions than they normally do on a global scale, and after many citizens, immigrants and migrant workers have personally experienced tragedy in their lives during the pandemic, the need to organize to end the class power of employers was nowhere to be seen.

Thus, one video shows a speech by J.P. Hornick, the relatively new president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). Her main target is Doug Ford’s government.

Ms. Hornick is likely an improvement over the former president of OPSEU, Warren “Smokey” Thomas (see my criticisms of his views in the posts Fair Contracts (or Fair Collective Agreements): The Ideological Rhetoric of Canadian Unions, Part Two: Warren “Smokey” Thomas, President of The Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU) ) and Smokey Thomas, President of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU)–A Good Example of the Real Attitude of Many Union Leaders Towards the Ruling Class). But then again, it would be hard to not be an improvement over a union “leader” who criticizes those who criticize Conservative Ontario leader Doug Ford.

Indirect Evidence That Ms. J.P. Hornick, President of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) is a Social Democrat or a Social Reformer

But who is JP Hornick? Obviously, to characterize any person is a complicated process that involves delving into history. As John Dewey once noted (Logic: The Theory of Inquiry), logically, to properly describe something necessarily involves a narrative form, with a beginning, a middle and an end. The following obviously falls short of this standard, but at least it is a beginning. I invite others to improve on it.

Ms. Hornick works (or worked) at George Brown College in Toronto as a professor. From https://www.georgebrown.ca/preparatory-liberal-studies/liberal-arts-sciences/school-of-labour/staff-profiles ):

Professor JP Hornick

JP Hornick is the current Coordinator of the School of Labour at George Brown College and a long-time social activist. JP is also vice-chair of the OPSEU Divisional Executive for the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology–Academic. She is presently on the Board of Directors of the community arts organization Red Dress Productions.

An experienced educator and steward, JP is committed to bringing a socially progressive labour perspective to students and workers through workshops, training, and community events

A natural question would be: What is the School of Labour? A webpage from the College ( https://www.georgebrown.ca/preparatory-liberal-studies/liberal-arts-sciences/school-of-labour) indicates the following: 

George Brown College has partnered with the Labour Council of Toronto and York Region since 1992 to establish and maintain the School of Labour. It is governed by a Joint Board, co-chaired by the Presidents of the College and of Labour Council.

Together, our commitment is to socially progressive curriculum that respects working people and expands their access to post-secondary education. We work to make George Brown a “labour-friendly” college because we believe that labour contributes to and enriches not just the college’s culture, but the whole society’s.

Our Mission Statement

Our mission is to:

  • Facilitate improved access to post-secondary education and socially progressive, relevant curriculum for working people.
  • Facilitate effective working relationships among the College, unions and their members for the benefit of working people.
  • Bring a progressive labour perspective to the College and its students.
  • Help ensure that George Brown College retains and strengthens a reputation as a ‘labour-friendly’ educational institution, and an awareness that labour contributes to and enriches the culture of the college.

Working Principles

Both the Labour Council and George Brown College are guided by the following principles in working together:

  • A respect for working people, the union movement and its educators.
  • A respect for the right of working people to formally-accredited, worker-centred education and training.
  • A commitment to expanding the access of workers to education and training.
  • A belief in the educational value of work experience.
  • A belief in the value of formal links between the publicly-funded education system and the trade union movement.

In offering training and services to unionized workers, and labour education to George Brown College students, the School of Labour works in coordination with the Labour Education Centre (LEC), the educational project of the Labour Council.

Coordinator: JP Hornick
Phone: 416.415.5000 ext. 3531 Email: jphornic@georgebrown.ca

Labour Educator: Kathryn Payne
Phone: 416-415-5000 ext. 3414 – E-Mail: kpayne@georgebrown.ca

Given the link between the School of Labour and Toronto & York Region Labour Council, it is probable that the School of Labour is a social-democratic or reformist organization. John Cartwright, the former president of the Toronto & York Region Labour Council wrote the following in 2018:

We need to fight for labour law reform including broader based bargaining so that precarious workers can have a vehicle in which to achieve dignity and economic justice.

My comment to that statement, made in a previous post:

It is unlikely that he means by economic justice the creation of a working-class movement organized to abolish the treatment of workers as a class. He probably means the signing of a collective agreement, with its management rights clause. (For an example of a management rights clause.  Management Rights: Private Sector Collective Agreement, British Columbia

Compare this with the money circuit of capital (The Money Circuit of Capital) to determine whether workers experience economic justice even in the best-case scenario of a collective agreement. Or do not socialist principles include opposing treating human beings as things, as mere means for others’ purposes?

More Direct Evidence that Ms. Hornick is a Social Democrat or Social Reformer

But this is only indirect evidence that Ms. Hornick holds social-democratic or social-reformist views–views that aim to humanize the class power of employers (alias capitalism) rather than abolish it. Is there more direct evidence? Yes, there is. 

Ms. Hornick, although likely an improvement over Mr. Thomas’ leadership, shares much of Thomas’ beliefs–and those of other union leaders throughout Canada. Thus, she, like they, uses the rhetoric of “fair contracts.”

  1. From  https://opseu.org/news/on-the-line-college-faculty-strike-bulletin-4/16849/, dated November 1, 2017: 

On the Line: College Faculty Strike Bulletin #4

Your bargaining team is ready to bargain when contract talks resume Thursday.

“College faculty are taking a stand for a better college education system. We are ready, as we have been from the start, to bargain a fair contract that addresses the issues of good jobs and quality education.” JP Hornick, bargaining team chair. [my emphasis]

On November 8, 2017, OPSEU had a news conference concerning negotiations between academic faculty in Ontario colleges and the College Employer Council (CEC, or the Council), representative for the employer. At the beginning of the presentation, there is written the following: 

OPSEU college faculty held a press conference in Toronto, Tuesday, November 7, affirming their commitment to bargaining a fair contract that includes quality education and fairness for all faculty. [my emphases]

A further message indicates how the management side acted: 

Colleges have called for a forced vote on their final offer, which contains serious concessions. Meanwhile, faculty remain strong on the picket line at colleges across the province. 

Mr. Thomas, who at the time was the president of OPSEU, then indicated that the union negotiating team had not thought that there was a great gulf between the parties to negotiations. However, on Monday the government as negotiator indicated that it was going to ask the Ministry of Labour to conduct a vote–a legal move that they can do once. Mr. Thomas then indicated that the union negotiating team modified its demands and met the employer more than half way. They wanted the Council  to come back to the bargaining table since they were very close to a deal. 

Ms. Hornick, presumably as a member of the negotiating team, then implied that the Council’s request for a vote was continuous with the tactics of the Council since July, “which is to dictate rather than negotiate.” Despite the dictatorial attitude of the Council, both sides did manage to agree on many things before the last request for a vote. What was mainly left was the academic freedom piece. That issue revolved around “who is better placed to make decisions for our classrooms? Is it the faculty who are working with the students, or administrators who may have not even taught before or don’t know the subject matter.” The union negotiating team tabled an offer at that point, and the Council came back with a new final offer that contained many concessions that were designed to undermine the work the union negotiating team had done on protecting contract faculty. Their counter offer also tried to create unlimited overtime and individual bargaining with faculty. The union negotiating team could not accept this. The Council then indicated  that it was taking this to the Ontario Labour Relations Board for a forced offer vote. 

The night before this conference, the union negotiating team came back with a counter offer: retain the old collective agreement except for the items that both had already agreed to during negotiations, such as language that would protect contract faculty in terms of job security and seniority. The union negotiating team also took the language concerning academic freedom used by other party and worked into a clause that should have been acceptable by Council. Ms. Hornick then summarized what the union negotiating team had offered the night before the conference:  

  1. status quo
  2. things they had agreed on 
  3. and academic freedom–a no-cost item

But the Council rejected the offer.

Mr. Hornick then proceeded to indicate that the union negotiating team was still ready to negotiate so that a final negotiated agreement could be taken for ratification and faculty would be happily back in our classrooms very soon. 

The college faculty went out on strike, and the strike lasted for about five weeks, until the Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne legislated the workers back to work. 

To return to the main issue: how is it possible to obtain “fair contracts” in the context of the class power of employers? What does the term “fair contracts” mean? Sam Gindin, former research director for the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) (now Unifor), wrote the following:

[But] unless we can respect workers enough to address the reality and win them over, we’re left with a progressive demand that is in essence an abstract slogan.

Is this persistent reference to “fair contract” an abstract slogan? Does it not cover up the real nature of the power relation between management and workers? 

What of the phrase “fairness for all faculty?” What does that mean? Is it possible to achieve fairness for all faculty in the context of the employer-employee relation? Such a relation is hierarchical and characterized by dictatorship (see for example  Employers as Dictators, Part One). 

Or is the following an example of a “fair contract?” From Academic Employees Collective Agreement Between College Employer Council (the Council) for the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology and: Ontario Public Service Employees Union (for Academic Employees), effective from: October 1, 2017 to: September 30, 2021. 

Article 6
MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS

6.01 It is the exclusive function of the Colleges to:

(i) maintain order, discipline and efficiency;

(ii) hire, discharge, transfer, classify, assign, appoint, promote, demote, lay off, recall and suspend or otherwise discipline employees subject to the right to lodge a grievance in the manner and to the extent provided in this Agreement;

(iii) manage the College and, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, the right to plan, direct and control operations, facilities, programs, courses, systems and procedures, direct its personnel, determine complement, organization, methods and the number, location and classification of personnel required from time to time, the number and location of campuses and facilities, services to be performed, the scheduling of assignments and work, the extension, limitation, curtailment, or cessation of operations and all other rights and responsibilities not specifically modified elsewhere in this Agreement.

6.02 The Colleges agree that these functions will be exercised in a manner consistent
with the provisions of this Agreement.

Who made the employer the dictator? Why is it that they have such power? Why the separation of administrative powers from the actual work of the workers who constitute and make up the university? And not just academic faculty. There are library workers, administrative personnel, cleaning personnel, trade persons and so forth. 

What of “good jobs?” 

As I wrote in another post (The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Three: Collective Bargaining and the Interests of the Working Class): 

Furthermore, a few privileged sets of workers (such as tenured university professors) may seem to have “decent jobs,” but even that situation has eroded over time. It should not be forgotten that such relatively privileged workers exist in a sea of workers, whether unionized or not, who are things to be used by employers systematically and legally. University professors cannot engage in research, teaching and administrative activities unless there are other workers who produce their food, clothing, cars and so forth.

The concept of “decent jobs” or “decent work” even in the case of tenured professors cannot be divorced from the general economic, political and social context within which such workers work. As Thomas Hodgskin wrote (1825):

To enable … the labourer to devote himself to any particular occupation, it is … necessary that he should possess … a conviction that while he is labouring at his particular occupation the things which he does not produce himself will be provided for him, and that he will be able to procure them and pay for them by the produce of his own labour. This conviction arises, in the first instance, without any reflection from habit. As we expect
that the sun will rise tomorrow, so we also expect that men in all time to come will be actuated by the same motives as they have been in times past. If we push our inquiries still further, all that we can learn is, that there are other men in existence who are preparing those things we need, while we are preparing those which they need. The conviction may, perhaps, ultimately be traced them to our knowledge that other men exist and labour.

Ms. Hornick, of course, cannot be accused of focusing exclusively on the work of tenured professors. She, along with the other members of the bargaining team, attempted to provide protection for contract faculty as well. However, the implicit standard of the bargaining team in general and Ms. Hornick in particular for determining what constitutes “good jobs” is permanent, relatively secure employment–with a particular employer.

Even if all faculty in the colleges had relatively secure positions (a big if), in the first place, there are other workers in the colleges that do not have such security. Furthermore, to ignore the insecurity of other workers in all branches of work (industrial, commercial, financial, transport, agriculture, construction, high technology, education, health care) and to call the isolated work of relatively secured work at colleges “good jobs” is to define what constitutes a good job on the basis of a part of a whole that involves ignoring the whole of which it is a part. 

To ignore the division of labour and what makes possible the work of any particular part simply leads to narrow-mindedness and, ultimately, to the illusion of security since, if the sea of other workers involves insecure work, how can even the secure workers remain secure?

As I wrote in the other post: 

This division of labour is implied in a poem by one of the most famous poets of Guatemala, Otto Rene Castillo (from Apolitical Intellectuals):

“Apolitical Intellectuals

One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.

They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.

No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with “the idea
of the nothing”
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.

They won’t be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward’s death.

They’ll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total lie.

On that day
the simple men will come.

Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they’ll ask:

“What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?”

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.

A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.

Your own misery
will pick at your soul.

And you will be mute in your shame.”

To focus exclusively on the work of a bargaining unit (which is what unions do, at least in Canada) while neglecting the general context in which the bargaining unit functions is a narrow and sectionalist point of view that ignores the reality of social interdependence of workers on each other. As Hodgskin pointed out, pages 45-46: 

To enable either the master manufacturer or the labourer to devote himself to any particular occupation, it is only necessary that he should possess … a conviction that while he is labouring at his particular occupation the things which he does not produce himself will be provided for him, and that he will be able to procure them and pay for them by the produce of his own labour. This conviction arises, in the first instance, without any reflection from habit. As we expect that the sun will rise to-morrow, so we also expect that men in all time to come will be actuated by the same motives as they have been in times past. If we push our inquiries still further, all that we can learn is, that there are other men in existence who are preparing those things we need, while we are preparing those which they need. The conviction may, perhaps, ultimately be traced then to our knowledge that other men exist and labour.

The unconscious dependence of one set of workers on other workers, however, should not be used as a reason for omitting such objective dependence; those who represent workers should acknolwedge such dependence–after all, such objective dependence is the basis for arguing for the need for solidarity among workers. 

Admittedly, tenured professors have much more freedom in their work than untenured ones and contract faculty (faculty who do not have permanent status and who often experience precarious working conditions), but this freedom, when set in the context of the general lack of freedom among the working class, needs to be taken into account when referring to “fair contracts” and “good jobs.” Freedom for a minority of workers that involves the negation of freedom for the majority of workers hardly constitutes freedom based on working-class solidarity. 

As for “quality education,” although it is certainly better to fight for faculty workers who have a more stable position and thus provide more consistent and continuous service to students, quality education as a goal requires a consideration of the entire educational system, from kindergarten to university. For example, what is Ms. Hornick’s position with respect to the existence and need for grades (marks) when evaluating a student’s work? Does she think that the existence of grades interferes with the learning process? Collective agreements hardly have begun to address that, and I doubt that Ms. Hornick refers to this at all in her reference to “quality education.” Her reference is to a very narrow definition of what constitutes “quality education”–limited in reference to the immediate situation of the university. (For a critique of the use of grades in schools, see The Expansion of Public Services Versus a Basic Income, Part Two: How the Social-democratic Left Ignore the Oppressive Nature of Public Services: Part One: Oppressive Educational Services). 

2. On May 5, 2021, we read: 

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Conversation

Of course, unionized settings, by limiting the power of management, do tend to keep communities safER, but hardly SAFE. This is bullshitting the workers. Another union rep was more truthful. From Steven Bittle, Still Dying for a Living: Shaping Corporate Criminal Liability After the Westray Mine Disaster, doctoral dissertation, page 202:

Another union representative expressed concern [with the proposed government legislation] that unions can be held responsible for workplace accidents, noting that unions and employees have little decision-making control with the organization:

“…basically we wanted the legislation to go after corporate bosses, basically, because
they’re the ones that make the decisions. At the end of the day any decision that’s
made on anything to do with the business comes about as a result of management’s
decision. It doesn’t come about because of a union decision. We wish, but it doesn’t.
They have the ultimate authority to manage, and that authority is only restricted by
terms of a collective agreement, and in very few cases, maybe in terms of regulations or legislation. So we were hoping that it would focus more on criminal liability for those that have the power to make decisions. But in reality what it does is that it will hold anybody accountable if the investigation shows there was any part played in any particular incident by anybody from the janitor right up to the CEO. Now some people will argue, why not? Well normally, in my experience in almost forty years, is that any decision made by the janitor is usually something that is usually handed down from above, right. And there are very few cases where you could actually cite where somebody at that level had any type of malicious intent to do anything to cause harm “(Union representative, Interview 12).

3. From    http://www.local244.ca/2022/jobaction , dated January 17, 2022: 

W2R Update #4: Town Hall Meeting, Jan 5, 2022 06:30 PM

…

5. What should I tell my students about work-to-rule?

You are invited to adapt either of the following messages, to suit your purposes…: 

“In response to the College Employer Council’s decision to unilaterally impose employment conditions after college faculty voted to support strike actions (https://www.collegefaculty.org/2021/12/17/opseu-sefpo-stands-in-support-of-college-faculty-members/), Ontario college faculty are now following work-to-rule guidelines established by the Faculty Bargaining Team.

Faculty have chosen to focus on our students’ needs and not interrupt College courses with a strike at this time, while demanding that our employer negotiate a fair resolution to this labour dispute [my emphasis]. Work-to-rule means that we will be working only the time outlined by our current contract and workload assignments, or our job descriptions. This means that we may not be available for additional, volunteer work that we may normally do, or work outside of regular work hours. Therefore, we may take more time than usual to respond to emails or other forms of communication and any additional work-related requests.

Currently we are in Phase 2 of the planned work-to-rule job actions. For more information on these actions including a work-to-rule FAQ, please visit: https://www.collegefaculty.org/work-to-rule/.

We appreciate your patience and your support in our efforts to improve working conditions for Ontario college faculty and the learning conditions of Ontario college students.”

In solidarity,

Your CAATA Bargaining Team

Ms. Hornick was chair of  the CAATA bargaining team at the time. 

4. The following is from a series of bargaining updates: From  https://opseu354.ca/bargaining-updates/   : 

Faculty solidarity works: your team is doing everything we can to protect the year for students, and to achieve a fair settlement that addresses faculty needs. It is up to the College Presidents to do their part.

In solidarity,

JP, Jonathan, Katie, Michelle, Ravi, Rebecca, Shawn

Your CAAT-A Bargaining Team

I assume JP means J.P. Hornick.

Ms. Hornick’s position is very similar to the position of Brian Forbes, who was president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union from 2002 until 2004 (see for example my post Academic Narrow-mindedness: A Reason for Starting a Blog, Part Three).  Mr. Forbes complained that the Nova Scotia government, as employer, was engaging in underhanded methods by, on the one hand, not negotiating in good faith and, on the other hand, in trying to negotiate independently of the negotiating team. From Brian Forbes (Spring/Summer 2017), “The Assault on Teachers’ Collective Bargaining Rights in Nova Scotia,” in pages 20-29, Our Schools/Our Selves, page 21: 

While the two [negotiating] teams were engaged in trying to establish dates for further meetings, the Union’s chief negotiator, lawyer Ron Pink, was “approached by senior representative of the province … and asked if [he] would have a ‘discussion’ with the government about the possibility of settling the issues in dispute without lengthy and diffcult negotiations.” According to Mr. Pink, that led to “negotiations” between himself and the individual who had approached him, during which he consulted with “senior leadership of the union” and relayed their responses back to the unnamed government representative. 

Brian Forbes implies that was needed was fair negotiations–the usual process of give and take of conceding certain demands of the other side of negotiations if the other side does the same to the point where an agreement is reached that addresses the interests of both parties. The intent is to reach an agreement–but not at the expense of one’s own “bottom line.” Strikes or lockouts thus form part of the whole process even in the case of “fair negotiations.” 

I have constantly questioned on this blog the idea that, from the workers’ point of view, that there can be such a thing as a fair collective-bargaining process or fair collective agreement (fair contract). This is ideology that hides the reality of oppression and exploitation for most workers, whether unionized or non-unionized. 

Ms. Hornick undoubtedly is right to show concern about the tactics of management. As she stated in her presentation in the first point above, the union negotiating team bent over backward to reach an agreement: they proposed the maintenance of the former collective agreement, with the exception of three areas. 

The above quote manages to contain two clichés: “fair contracts” and “good jobs”(a.k.a. “decent work.” Good jobs are, apparently, relatively secure jobs that pay a unionized rate and provide some protection from the power of management. The opposite of good jobs is precarious jobs that pay minimum wage, are non-unionized and provide little protection from the power of management (except as provided by legislation, such as the Employment Standards Act). “Fair contracts” are, presumably, contracts negotiated by employers in good faith, recognizing the legitimacy of the union and the concerns of workers that are negotiated. 

I will not repeat what I have written elsewhere concerning the lack of critical thinking when it comes to using these two clichés (see for example Fair Contracts (or Fair Collective Agreements): The Ideological Rhetoric of Canadian Unions, Part One: The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and  Do Collective Agreements Convert Working for an Employer into Decent Work?). 

5. On May 9, 2022, Ms. Hornick retweeted: 

JP Hornick Retweeted

OPSEU 231
 
@local231opseu

Thinking of our Union brothers and sisters with

 

@CarpentersONT

as they begin their job action to get a fair agreement [my emphasis]. #SolidarityForever

Quote Tweet
 
CityNews Toronto
 
@CityNewsTO
·

 

 

 

Industrial and commercial construction projects across Ontario are expected to be impacted after workers with the Carpenters District Council of Ontario walked off the job at midnight. toronto.citynews.ca/2022/05/09/car
 

Of course, any radical leftist, out of solidarity, would generally support strike efforts of union members, but they would take issue about the rhetoric of “fair agreement.” 

Further evidence of her reformist views is her praise of the work of correction officers–whom she believes “keep us safe” in some fashion. But I will leave that, perhaps, to follow-up post. How they do so she fails to indicate.

Conclusion

Ms. Hornick’s stint as president of OPSEU will probably be an improvement, at least initially, over the former president, Warren “Smokey” Thomas, who was president for over 14 years. However, given that she shares the same beliefs as Mr. Thomas when it comes to the issue of the fairness of collective agreements, she may well end up similar to the current views of Mr. Thomas. It would be interesting to compare Mr. Thomas’ views, when he initially became president of OPSEU, and his current views. 

In a future post on this topic, perhaps, it will be shown that Ms. Hornick’s views on the role of corrections officers, whom OPSEU represents, reflect once again a social-democratic view–if not a more conservative and reactionary view. 

 

Critical Education Articles Placed in the Teacher Staff Lounge While I Was a Teacher, Part Thirteen: A Critique of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE)

This is a continuation of a series of posts on summaries of articles, mainly on education.

When I was a French teacher at Ashern Central School, in Ashern, Manitoba, Canada, I started to place critiques, mainly (although not entirely) of the current school system. At first, I merely printed off the articles, but then I started to provide a summary of the article along with the article. I placed the summaries along with the articles in a binder (and, eventually, binders), and I placed the binder in the staff lounge.

As chair of the Equity and Justice Committee for Lakeshore Teachers’ Association of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS), I also sent the articles and summary to the Ning of the MTS (a ning is “an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks”).

As I pointed out in a previous post, it is necessary for the radical left to use every opportunity to question the legitimacy of existing institutions.

In previous posts (see for example A Principal’s Evaluation of My Teaching Basic French, or: How to Oppress a Worker Through Performance Evaluation, Part One), I have implied that the principal of Ashern Central School, Neil MacNeil, used, among other methods, outcome-based education as a method of oppressing me when evaluating my performance as a teacher. He wrote:

We discussed whether students should have learning goals identified for them. I pointed out the research backing doing so; Fred characterized this as unnecessary and counterproductive to the “inductive” methods he is utilizing with them. I also encouraged Fred to at least ensure that the learning goals were clarified in future preconference meetings.

In my written response, I replied to this:

If there is indeed research, I am certainly willing to read up on the issue. In fact, I indicated during one of the conferences that I would appreciate references so that I could read such research (especially articles since I do not have the time to read many books these days). He claimed that the specification of learning goals was the single most important variable in determining learning. As a philosopher of education, I am skeptical of such wide-sweeping assertions. My understanding of the learning process is that it is much more complicated than that. However, I am certainly open to such a claim and would enjoy reading up on the matter. I wanted to know more.

I did search for an hour at the resources on learning goals that the administrator provided me the day before I received the clinical evaluation report. I found no specific research that justifies the assertion that the specification of learning goals is the most important determinant of learning. Attached is a copy of evidence that I did go on the sites referenced by the administrator. I received the sites for resources only the evening before I received the clinical evaluation, and in effect only read them a little while before receiving the clinical evaluation.

Re: “Fred characterized this as unnecessary and counterproductive to the “inductive” methods he is utilizing with them.”

The use of “ ” marks in this observation may be a sign of a lack of respect for my ideas. The administrator has shown little empathy for my ideas.

OBE, therefore, has political implications.

The attached article for the ESJ Ning is prefaced by the following:
Hello everyone,
I sent another article to the ESJ Ning.

Colleen Capper and Michael Jamison, in their article, “Outcomes-Based Education Reexamined: From Structural Functionalism to Poststructuralism,” find that outcome-based education (OBE), though in a few respects empowering to students, generally reproduce the same oppressive school structure as before.

The immediate relevance of the issue of the extent to which OBE is empowering or oppressive is the push in Canadian circles for having teachers specify learning on the basis of outcomes (or “learning goals”), with the design of units to be a process of “backward design”.

The idea of specifying outcomes and then specifying the means to achieve those outcomes seems at first glance to be logical. The authors question, however, whether OBE is really as liberating for students (and teachers) as its advocates imply.

OBE has at least four aspects: the focus is on student success, with schools controlling the environmental conditions for success; curriculum design and pedagogy are a function of explicit learner outcomes; outcomes are differentiated into core (or essential) outcomes for all learners and extended outcomes (for the more gifted); mastery learning (based on Bloom’s concept of mastery learning), or the learning of prerequisite skills before moving on to more complicated or advanced skills with time constraints of the traditional curriculum being loosened (credit recovery, for example);  a management information system that permits the teacher to monitor students’ progress in terms of prerequisite skills learned and to group students according to skill sets already achieved; and, finally, an assessment system that tests the whole range of skills required for mastery learning a loosening of traditional time constraints, with an incomplete being assigned until the student has completed the set of defined skills.

Advocates of OBE imply that it enables a clearer conception of the curricula, permits the use of better pedagogical techniques and satisfies the need for more reliable and valid assessment measures of student achievement.

There are at least three forms of OBE. Traditional OBE involves the use of the same curriculum, but with clearer focus on learning outcomes. Transitional OBE specifies essential learning outcomes. Transformational OBE, being the most advanced form for some, in addition to specifying the essential outcomes to be learned for success, emphasizes attitudes and skills that have broad implications for success in their future in the modern world, such as critical thinking skills; it requires a reworking of the curriculum to satisfy those broad implications for success.

Ironically, one feature of OBE seems to have been at best only partially adopted in modern school systems in Canada—constraints of time. Traditional schooling has operated according to instructional time distributed over a set curriculum. OBE permits the breakdown of learning into outcomes that students can master at their own pace. Mastery of the material rather than ploughing through the material in a set period of time becomes possible; results can be the focus rather than the inputs from a set curriculum in a limited period of time. However, in Canada OBE the use of credit recovery, for example, only partially offsets constraints of time.

In addition to learner outcomes, a complete OBE program includes, among other things, a core and extended curriculum and criterion-referenced assessment. Its watchword is student success, and it assumes that all students can succeed.

The authors then analyze OBE from various theoretical lenses: structural-functionalist, interpretive, critical and poststuctural. Structural-functionalist and interpretive paradigms aid in reproducing the status quo; the difference between them is that structural-functionalism considers the status quo to be objective whereas interpretivism considers the status quo to be constructed socially and subjectively. Critical theory, by contrast, seeks social change by intellectually grasping and criticizing social reality that is largely oppressive. Critical theory is grounded in pure reason, considers a universal consensus among the oppressed to be possible and focuses more on class rather than on other forms of oppression; Capper considers these aspects of critical theory to be limiting factors.

Poststructuralism shares with critical theory a concern for social change but casts suspicion on any claim for universality and objectivity through reason given that people have multiple identities. Like interpretivism, it views the social world as a product of subjective reality.

The authors examine the language of OBE, its construction of personal identity and the extent to which OBE reproduces inequities from the point of view of the various paradigms.

OBE shares much with the structural-functionalist paradigm. For instance, knowledge is treated as a summation of its parts rather than the whole being more than its parts.  Discrete bits of learning are determined beforehand, dissected and distributed, often through a central agency. Control by others is the watchword despite the rhetoric of student success. Curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices are centralized (controlled from a central bureaucracy), and learners are organized according to predefined skill sets.

Transformational OBE does share with the interpretivist paradigm a concern for cooperative structures of learning. However, the interpretivist paradigm also holds that students learn best when what they are learning connects with their own interests—something which OBE, transformational or otherwise, ignores.

From the point of view of critical theory, there is little in OBE, transformational or otherwise, that leads to greater social equity and equality of opportunity. OBE does not aim at social change in such a way that oppression is lessened. Tightened control over the teaching process is hardly equivalent to real social change that leads to more equitable results.

Advocates of OBE may reply that, by removing time constraints for achievement, students are indeed empowered to a  greater extent. They may even suggest that they are concerned with fighting against oppression and for social justice.

However, Capper and Jamison question such advocates claims since OBE’s underside involves authoritarian structures of power—as poststructuralist analysis reveals. In particular, OBE does fails those who are disabled, especially the cognitively disabled. Furthermore, since OBE grounds its assessment on performance of set achievements, if a person cannot perform adequately even if understanding of the material is present, then failure will ensue.

A more telling criticism of OBE, even in its transformative form, is that the skills and knowledge specified in advance as required for success are assumed to enable students to succeed in current society. Current social structures within mainstream society are assumed to be the standard; there is little criticism of that standard itself. OBE is therefore conservative in its very nature and hardly progressive. One can imagine a white, male principal defining OBE in terms of student success—as defined by the experiences of the white, male principal and not in terms of the student’s own background and experiences. In the end, as the German philosopher wrote of Schelling’s philosophy—all cows are black (or white, male and middle class in this instance).

Mastery of the curriculum outcomes typical of OBE leaves little room for co-evolution of the curriculum and the students’ experiences. Furthermore, those who determine the outcomes are little different from earlier, state-mandated curriculum: policy makers, curriculum consultants and a few teachers. The outcomes are externally determined and controlled and defined according to what this minority deems to be worthy and relevant to have learned by the time students have finished high school. There is little flexibility in terms of the content of the curriculum. Related to this issue is the lack of control by most teachers  in determining outcomes; OBE is a way of increasing control over teachers by rigidly defining what they are to teach and by assessing them on that basis.

Differentiation of the curriculum into core and extended components also easily leads to a continued division of students into average students and an elite set of students destined to university or other, more prestige post-secondary institutions.

Finally, criterion-based assessment, in practice, results in students in the same age-level working on  substantially different outcomes as some require to spend substantial periods of time in attaining the minimal level of achievement specified in advance for advancement to another level of skill. Some may never be exposed to the extended curriculum since they must demonstrate mastery at a certain level before they can advance. OBE, together with criterion-based assessment, merely reproduces the inequities that already exist between different sets of students—despite the rhetoric of success for all students.

OBE, in whatever form, essentially relies on the structural-functionalist paradigm, which merely reproduces the status quo of injustice and inequity.

The authors then argue that what is required is participation by students and community in the determination of their own curriculum and education. They then note that poststructural and critical theory may be wed in some fashion by critical theory providing the direction and poststructuralism providing the deconstruction necessary for reason to be continuously challenged through tension and disagreement.

Such a view, though, is so general that it provides little guidance in practice. For example, school bureaucrats, who are also representatives of the employers of teachers, are so certain that they are right in instituting OBE and criterion-referenced assessment (currently characteristic of Manitoba public schools) and all others who question them are wrong, that the question becomes: How are we to struggle against such authoritarian impositions?

Indeed, why is it that teachers have not engaged in such struggle? An answer may lie in the deskilling of teachers and their becoming more like the rest of the working class: cogs in the economic  and school structure. In other words, an answer may lie in what teachers also are: employees, or things to be used by employers.

Should we as teachers and as employees not query whether OBE leads to just outcomes and is educationally sound?

Fred

Economics for Social Democrats–but not for the Working Class, Part Four: Is There Such a Thing as a Responsible Employer in Relation to the Health of Workers?

The Toronto Star published an article in the Opinion section by the social-democratic reformer here in Toronto, Jim Stanford, on January 8, 2022, which directly relates to a previous post  (Economics for Social Democrats–but not for the Working Class, Part Three: The Health and Safety of Workers and an Economy Dominated by a Class of Employers Are at Loggerheads  )   as well as to other posts in this series critically analyzing Mr. Stanford’s economic theories and assumptions.

I am going to quote verbatim the entire article by Mr. Stanford in order for the reader to see the complete picture which Stanford paints before analyzing it. I will refer to an earlier post to show how Stanford contradicts himself.

When death is a cost of business

Strong rules needed to force employers to do right thing

Throughout COVID-19, there’s been an uncomfortable tension in how political leaders, employers and public opinion have reacted to the challenges of working during a pandemic.

On one hand, many acknowledged the courage and sacrifice of those who kept providing essential services despite the risks. We applauded health care workers and first responders. And we thanked those in more humble, undervalued roles: like grocery clerks, cleaners, and delivery drivers, whose continued labour helped us weather the crisis.

On the other hand, a deeper reflex remained in place among employers and governments. They could quickly revert to a more dollars-and-sense perspective, in which workers are just another productive input: something whose continued supply must be assured and whose cost must be minimized.

Grocery chains offered $2 an hour bonuses during the scary initial weeks of the pandemic, but snatched them away as soon as operationally (and politically) feasible. Pandemic pay was replaced by million-dollar bonuses for CEO amidst a COVID-fueled grocery boom. Premiers [heads of provincial governments in Canada] praised health care workers for their bravery, and then demanded cuts in their pay. And from the outset, the willingness of negligent employers to sacrifice the health and even lives of workers to maintain production–in slaughterhouses, corporate farms and Amazon warehouses–was a frightening reminder of the amorality of the profit motive.

Now, with Omicron out of control, it seems employers and public health officers have thrown in the towel in the fight to limit contagion, protect workers and customers, and support isolation when needed.

The cannon shot signalling this new, grim approach was the relaxation of isolation requirements for workers with COVID. This started in December when the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention cut the isolation period to just five days (for those infected and close contacts). It was lobbied hard by U.S. employers, who wanted sick workers back on the job faster.

Scientific evidence on this issue is mixed at best. Recent research suggests the average contagious period for vaccinated COVID patients is 5.5 days–and since that’s the average, it’s longer for many patients. But it wasn’t science that ruled the day: it was the complaints of employers that isolation was depriving them of needed workers.

Other jurisdictions rejected the U.S. precedent. And America’s sorry COVID record (it registered more than a million new cases last Monday alone) hardly constitutes a role model. But influenced by similar complaints from Canadian employers, our officials fell in line.

The five-day rule has now been mimicked in several provinces (including Ontario, Alberta and B.C. [British Columbia].

In Quebec, the government even requires some health workers to stay on the job with COVID. Alberta gives individual employers discretion in deciding staff shortages necessitate isolation periods of less than five days. Meanwhile, B.C.’s health officer bluntly stated she is no longer interested in “telling (employers) what to do.” Instead, each business should make its own plan to avoid shutting down because of staff shortages.

Leaving life-and-death decisions to the discretion of individual profit-seeking employers wilfully ignores the power imbalances that shape the day-to-day reality of workplaces. Without clear, strong rules, workers don’t have a chance of forcing their employers to behave responsibly.

Business leaders celebrate this turn to light-touch COVID-regulation. Workers can be forgiven for feeling differently. Now, in addition to fears of catching COVID, accessing testing and protecting loved ones, workers face an added danger: their employer can demand coworkers return to work even if contagious. Most perversely of all, almost no Canadian jurisdictions (outside of federally regulated industries and B.C.) guarantee enough sick pay to cover even this shorter isolation period.

Perhaps more than any recent history, COVID-19 has highlighted the callous logic of capitalism. Bosses need workers to keep working, no matter what: after all, that’s what produces the value added. And if workers must die in the process, so be it. We must keep the wheels of commerce turning–and keep profits (which perversely rose during the pandemic) flowing.

No wonder workers are angry. No wonder there are more strikes, more union drives and more individual acts of resistance (like resignations). When you suddenly realize your boss will tolerate your death as a cost of doing business, your attitude toward them (and your job) changes considerably.

Let us list several facts pointed out in the article:

  1. “Throughout COVID-19, there’s been an uncomfortable tension in how political leaders, employers and public opinion have reacted to the challenges of working during a pandemic.” (It is unclear who the “public” is. Does it include mainly workers? Mainly workers but, in addition, the unemployed (challenges of not working and trying to find a job), children and adolescents in school (children of parents surely “react” to the challenges their parents often have faced during the pandemic), seniors who are not working for an employer, self-employed (they work), and so forth. Probably, but it would have been helpful to have differentiated public opinion somewhat; of course, in a newspaper, there is a limited amount of space for elaboration. In any case, there has been some tension between three “groups.”
  2. This tension was expressed, on the one hand, in the recognition of the heroic sacrifice of essential workers who produced what we needed to both survive and have access at least to some of our normal comforts (such as agricultural workers producing food; factory workers producing toilet paper, hand sanitizer and masks; grocery workers processing the exchange relations that permitted the transfer of property from capitalist corporations to consumers) and health workers who attended to the sick from COVID-19 and, on the other hand, in the priority of the pursuit of profit by employers and reinforced by governments by treating workers as mere inputs to the production and exchange process, an input whose costs need to be minimized in order to maximize profits.Why would anyone who understands even the basic nature of the relations characterized by the class power of employers be surprised by this? If I remember correctly, John Dewey, a philosopher of education, objected to teaching children the fantasy that lions do not kill and eat their prey–teaching children in effect that the nature of lions is other than what it is and that the natural world needs to be interpreted in human terms. (I learned just how lions do really act when I was an adolescent (or younger–I do not really remember how old I was). My mother and I went to the zoo. We were looking at the lions in a cage. A boy was throwing pebbles at the male lion. Suddenly, the male lion jumped towards me–I froze. It was evident that had the cage not been there, the lion would have attacked me. There was no hesitancy in his act–unlike those who let their morals influence their acts to the detriment of acting at all (as the German philosopher Hegel recounted in his account of the “beautiful soul” who is afraid of tainting the moral soul by engaging in any act).Of course, there have been tensions between the well-being of workers and the class interests of employers and governments that, ultimately, represent their interests.Does Stanford think that, all of a sudden, the nature and interests of employers and a  government that, among other reasons, depends on the flow of tax revenues  from the “private economy” for its continued power and existence, would change? Why would anyone who understands the nature of capitalism be surprised by this?One explanation is that Stanford believes that there is such a thing as the “real economy” that is disconnected from the pursuit of profit (the pursuit of ever more money). His theory of money as “purchasing power,” disconnected from production and the nature of the labour that occurs in capitalist workplaces, then enables him to refer to such a world as the “real economy”–under present class power.

    In an earlier post mentioned above, I quoted Stanford: “The economy is not a thing in and of itself. The economy is what we refer to as the work that people do to produce goods and services and then how those goods and services are distributed and used.”

  3. He then implied that this “real economy” was somehow operating independently of the class of employers–an illegitimate assumption. The economy in the kind of society cannot be separated from the pursuit of more money–because that is the nature of the beast (just like a lion’s hunting and killing its prey (when it succeeds) is the nature of lions). The economy is a capitalist economy, and this economy is not the same as “the work that people do to produce goods and services and then how those goods and services are distributed and used”–as if the goal were the mere production of socially useful things and their distribution to others so that they can use them. When I worked at the capitalist brewery, our production of beer was necessarily united with our oppression and exploitation.
  4. In the initial phase of the pandemic, grocery stores increased wages by $2 an hour, but then they eliminated them. Stanford’s reference to snatching away this $2 an hour “as soon as operationally (and politically) feasible” does not explain anything. An increase in $2 an hour was probably tied to two typical reasons in an employer-dominated economy for increasing wages: danger pay and a shortage of workers, as an article by Sylvain Charlebois implies (https://retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2020/06/the-end-of-hero-pay-for-grocery-workers-in-canada-an-operational-necessity-expert/): The economics of pay increases at retail are always weak, especially in food retailing. With such low margins, these stipends were offered simply to keep enough staff around and not have operations affected by higher absenteeism rates. It worked for a while, but COVID-19 fears are slowly fading away. But so is the need to incentivize employees to show up for work. The COVID-19 fear factor is diminishing. The money will instead be spent on PPEs and other protective shields, which are likely to remain in place for a while. This seems to be where things are going. Disappointing for employees, but not surprising.
  5. Increases in CEO pay. This is nothing new; it has been going on as the class power of employers has assumed a neoliberal form, with shareholder value and short-term profits taking precedence. (But we should never forget that before neoliberalism, even longer-term profit seeking led to economic crises and necessarily involved daily exploitation and oppression of workers.)

  6. Premiers [heads of provincial governments in Canada] praised health care workers for their bravery, and then demanded cuts in their pay.

    Did all premiers advocate cuts in pay? In Alberta and Ontario they certainly did. But for factually accuracy (I am not a fan of the NDP government as anyone who has read certain posts on this blog will know), in British Columbia the NDP government did not. From https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0157-001703

    Beginning this fall, the Province will serve notice under the terms of 21 commercial service contracts and start a phased approach to repatriating housekeeping and food-service contracts. The move will improve wages, working conditions, job security and stability for approximately 4,000 workers who rely on their jobs, and the countless patients that they help each day. By promoting a stable and effective workforce, government will be better positioned to offer attractive jobs options to people interested in joining the workforce.

    “Health-care workers rely on a committed and stable workforce to help them with their jobs, and this move also better protects support service workers in their positions,” said Premier John Horgan. “Previous government actions cut health-care wages, took away the jobs they relied on, and created a chain reaction of layoffs that saw women disproportionately affected – the largest such layoffs in Canada’s history. Nearly 20 years later, we are still living with the aftermath of those choices, with workers paid less to do the same work as their colleagues in the public system. It’s time to put a stop to it.”

    This move started with Bill 47 (Health Sector Statutes Repeal Act), which was brought into force through regulation on July 1, 2019. Bill 47 repealed two existing pieces of legislation – the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act (Bill 29) and the Health Sector Partnerships Agreement Act (Bill 94), which facilitated contracting out in the health sector and caused significant labour impacts.

  7. And from the outset, the willingness of negligent employers to sacrifice the health and even lives of workers to maintain production–in slaughterhouses, corporate farms and Amazon warehouses–was a frightening reminder of the amorality of the profit motive.

If the profit motive is amoral, would it not be logical to advocate for the elimination of the class power of employers and the economic, political and social structures that serve to produce that power and that permits the existence and dominance of the priority of the profit motive over the health of workers?

Stanford contradicts himself. If the profit motive is amoral, why does he say the following:

Without clear, strong rules, workers don’t have a chance of forcing their employers to behave responsibly.

However, Stanford nowhere explicitly or even implicitly advocates the abolition of the class power of employers. Why is that? I will let the reader infer the reasons for Mr. Stanford’s silence over the issue. 

 Conclusion

Mr. Stanford published a book in 2008 titled Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism. It is not really a good guide since it fails to characterize a basic fact of capitalism: the sacrifice of the health of workers for the good of–an economy dominated by a class of employers. If rules were really strong enough to force employers to act responsbly, the rules would involve the self-abolition of the class power of employers.

Rather than waiting for that utopian vision, it would be better for workers to organize to abolish the class power of employers themselves.

Basic Income, Decent Wages and John Clarke’s Radicalism: A Tale of Social-Democratic or Social-Reformist Deja Vu

I have criticized Mr. Clarke’s views of basic income on a number of occasions, the most recent one being An Inadequate Critique of a Radical Basic Income: The Case of the Toronto Radical John Clarke, Part Three: Basic Income), so i will simply quote a couple of his relatively recent posts on Facebook. The first post is dated May 17, 2022, and the second is dated August 4, 2022.. I will also briefly quote from an article he published on August 6, 2022, in Counterfire ( https://www.counterfire.org/articles/opinion/23380-the-false-promise-of-basic-income-in-wales ) and make a few additional comments. I refer the reader to the above-mentioned post for more detailed criticism.

“With a basic income program, recipients would be motivated to participate in the labour market and feel empowered to discover the most fulfilling way to work without fearing for their financial security.”

That quote leaps out at you as the clearest expression of the basic income delusion. What is proposed here is the provision of a level of income to millions of people that would utterly shift the balance between workers and employers in this society.

The article completely fails to understand that the capitalist job market rests on economic coercion and the seller’s market it envisages here would represent a devastating defeat for the capitalists. Yet this enormous retreat by that class is supposed to happen on the basis of a social policy redesign.

In reality, however, the measure that is being proposed here would work in a way that would actually worsen the situation of working class people because the payment would function as a subsidy to employers and as a cash replacement for existing public services.
Mr. Clarke simply repeats himself in a contradictory manner. Of course, if a minimum basic income is all that workers, citizens, immigrants and migrant workers can expect, then it would probably be better to leave the current welfare system as it is (although Mr. Clarke does not really provide any convincing arguments to the contrary). 
 
Mr. Clarke continues to assume that only a minimum basic income would be the aim of a movement to free workers from the dictates of the market for workers. He continues to contradict himself since he assumes, on the other hand, that adequate housing, free university tuition and so forth will arise with a struggle (see  Critique of the Limited Aim (Solution)–Decent Wages–of a Radical Social Democrat: The Case of the Toronto Radical, John Clarke: Part One). Struggle for a radical basic income is not something in the cards, for him–but a struggle for various welfare reforms are. Why does he persist in assuming that those who advocate a radical basic income would presume that it would not require much struggle, indeed, a major struggle between workers, citizens, immigrants and migrants, on the one hand, and the class of employers and the government on the other?
 
Let us assume, however, that he is right. What proposals does he have from moving from the present welfare system to a society freed from the power of a class of employers? His proposals boil down to a refurbished welfare state, with various public services provided by the capitalist state. Of course, even if a refurbished welfare state arose, there would always be the threat of a return to some form of neoliberalism–which is what I argue in another post (see Anti-Neoliberalism Need Not Be Anti-Capitalist: The Case of the Toronto Radical John Clarke, Part Four: The Welfare State and Neoliberalism, or The Infinite Back and Forth Movement of Capitalism).
 
Mr. Clarke accuses those who propose a radical basic income of being delusional. I will let the reader draw her/his own conclusion conerning the clarity of Mr. Clarke’s own vision of the nature of the real world, its problems and solutions to those problems. 
 
From August 4, 2022, Facebook:
 
“A Universal Basic Income would require a rethink of the values attached to different types of work, as workers would not be forced to accept just any job.”

I just saw this on Twitter and want to draw attention to it because it so perfectly captures the essence of the sadly pervasive basic income delusion. The problem is a failure to understand the nature and present condition of the society that we live in. What is being proposed is to take from the capitalist class their capacity to exploit workers by ending the economic coercion the job market rests on. This isn’t just about ‘values’ but a proposal to fundamentally challenge capitalism. I’m in favour of such a challenge but that’s a job for the mass action of the working class and not a social policy enactment.

You notice that the tweet pays no attention whatever to the means by which this shattering course of action might be achieved. There’s no proposal for the massive social action to completely change the balance of power in this society that would begin to make this proposal coherent. It is simply assumed that UBI has about it a rationality and fairness that can prevail regardless of social reality. Yet, because the political level is so low in this society, it is possible to write something like this and be taken seriously. If someone were to tweet out that “Staying young means never getting old,” the absurdity would immediately be apparent because those who read it would pass from the desirability of eternal youth to considering how likely it is to happen. Yet, the notion that governments that have worked for decades to intensify the exploitation of the working class are going to suddenly enact a measure that will overturn the very basis for capitalism is taken quite seriously.
At a time when what we demand and how we fight for it are critical issues, the faith based basic income delusion is a preposterous diversion that we must outgrow.
 
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Daphne L. Hunt

UBI = Universal Bandaid Income. Over the past 40 years or so, the corporate sector has contributed less and less to the tax “burden” and more of it is shouldered by individuals. These individuals don’t seem to get that that’s why their taxes are so “high” and they are getting less from them and yet they are yakking on about “personal responsibility” without reference to corporate responsibility. One tells them about the co-operative sector as a means of alleviating poverty and they sniff at it and say “fairy tales” or “granola” sector unaware of the $billions it contributes to GDP and tax revenue, helping people stay employed, and making a healthier economy. But John, you already know all that. I just needed to vent. Thank you.
 
Daniele Colajacomo

I agree with you. Whole policy changes do happen, but if the capitalist class retains its pivotal influence in law making and market manipulation, it will attempt, and likely succeed, in neutering the effects of basic income, likely by bankrupting the state as they try to do with every institution that works against their insatiable interest, then pointing the finger at ubi as the culprit.

Of course, if there is no class struggle, then any universal basic income that threatens the availability of workers for exploitation by employers would be successfully resisted. A social policy that is not backed up by organized power of the working class would be whittled away for the benefit of employers. 

The pilot program initiated in Wales certainly would not become universal. From the article by John Clarke in Counterfire: 

Following in the footsteps of a sizable number of their international counterparts, the Welsh government has launched a pilot project to study the possibilities of basic income. As it unfolds, ‘more than 500 people leaving care in Wales will be offered £1600 each month (before tax) for two years to support them as they make the transition to adult life.’

Mr. Clarke is certainly correct to question whether such a program would be generalized (become universal) since it would probably threaten the job market, as he himself argues: 

In a capitalist society, the job market rests on economic coercion and, if workers or potential workers have an alternative source of income that meets their needs, their bargaining power is massively increased. For that reason, social benefit levels are set high enough to control social unrest but great care is taken to ensure that they are not adequate enough to discourage people from taking low paid jobs.

So, since such a policy would increase the bargaining power of workers. Mr. Clarke, however, does not mention that to aim for such a goal would also threaten the class power of employers. Such a goal could serve as an organizing tool and a rallying point to increase not just “the bargaining power of workers” but their class consciousness and their class power by having workers coming to understand that employers need to have persistent economic coercion in place if they are to control workers in the first place and that the workers need to organize to counterpose such economic coercion by aiming to formulate policies that negate such economic coercion.

What does Mr. Clarke propose as an alternative to a radical basic income? A refurbished welfare system (as I argued in my posts above. He also repeats his social-reformist rhetoric of “decent wages” in his published article: 

The great problem with basic income is that, precisely when there is such an acute need for a major fight back, it seeks a non-existent detour around the class struggle. If precarious, low-wage work has proliferated, rather than fight for decent wages and workers’ rights, it lets the exploiters keep their profits and asks only for wage tops up, paid for out of the taxes of other workers. In its response to technological displacement, instead of fighting for reduced hours of work at no loss of pay, it again lets the capitalists off the hook. [my emphasis]

Mr. Clarke nowhere justifies his assumption that radicals who propose a radical basic income “seek a non-existent detour around the class struggle.” My view (subject to change since a radical basic income policy is a means to an end of aiming to challenge the class power of employers and not an end in itself) is that such a policy likely has greater scope for challenging the class power of employers than a refurbished welfare state. It also has greater scope for challenging the class power of employers than the aim of “decent wages”–a figment of Mr. Clarke’s social-reformist or social-democratic imagination since there exists no such thing as decent wages in a society dominated by a class of employers. As I wrote in one of my posts cited above: 

Let me make a categorical statement: There is no such thing as a decent wage. To work for an employer is in itself degrading, exploitative and oppressive. The concept of a decent wage serves to hide this exploitative situation (see The Money Circuit of Capital). 

Mr. Clarke, apparently, only aims at refurbishing the welfare state rather than abolishing exploitation. Like Mr. Bush’s own references to exploitation, Mr. Clarke uses the concept as a rhetorical flourish (in his case, to criticize a radical policy of basic income) while conveniently “forgetting” the concept when it comes to the issue of whether wages can ever be decent.

Furthermore, there is no logical basis for counteposing a struggle for a radical basic income and 
“fighting for reduced hours of work at no loss of pay.” They are not mutually exclusive. Mr. Clarke fails to justify his implicit claim that the struggle for a radical basic income cannot include a struggle for reduced hours of work at no loss of pay.

The fact that economic coercion exists is used by this social refomer to oppose a policy that possibly challenges such economic coercion–because of the fact itself of economic coercion! It is like saying that because economic exploitation of workers by employers is a fact that therefore workers should not struggle to abolish economic exploitation.