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Written for the YUFA Bulletin

Homage to York University

Ioan Davies, Sociology, Faculty of Arts

Ray Ellenwood, in one of the intervals between the voting (or not voting) today and the steady stream of questions, position-statements and asides, said to me that the columns I have been writing were "Orwellian." Of course they were Orwellian, but I thought the Orwell of HOMAGE TO CATALONIA rather than NINETEEN-EIGHTY-FOUR or ANIMAL FARM but with spices of Edward Thompson's clear political thinking informing the engagement with what is ongoing and specific (and of course, like any good student, I pick and choose). After today's ratification meeting, however, I'm not so sure. We might be closer to NINETEEN-EIGHTY-FOUR than we think.

In this engagement with a body that we have declared to be the "administration" we have 'fingered' a group of people whom we (including myself) have termed "hegemonic." And of course they are! They have access to all our files (including our e-mails), but we have none to theirs. They have the institutional guns, we have words and our sense of being intellectuals. They have kept their act together by determined organization, but we are a raggle-taggle army of narodnikis, bolsheviks, liberals, Irish or Iranian or antediluvian conservatives, women who may or may not be feminists, creative anarchists, separatists and people whose credentials are nothing more than being professors of this and that. We are what we are because that is what we were hired to do. At no point did we try to tear the place down. We came here because we believed in the message of an intellectual and creative world within which the search for meaning, purpose and the exploration of ideas was important.

In HoJos (again) finally we got to vote on the package that the mediator had put before us. We voted "YES" to the contract and settlement, and "YES" to fighting the administration at every point where we might have effect. The two YESes are a barbed statement. The Struggle Continues, but on the Appointment of Deans, Presidents, Vice-Presidents, at the departmental committees, on the senate, for graduate directors, the Registrar's office, masters of colleges and at every point where we as faculty have any concern in the future of the university as something more than the plaything of the Administration or the Provincial government, the message was quite clear. "Why did you do this to us?" In all the long-winded, anguished statements that came from the floor as delegates were voting, the simple message was that democracy, openness, free discussion is all that we want.

If we reflect on what we have achieved (and friends from the UK and the USA have expressed their great regard for our opposition to issues on which they finked on much earlier) we have created a determined union (even though we might have to think about divisions within it which the Administration will exploit). I think of other great consolidations (chairs of departments and graduate coordinators really do speak to each other without treating Deans as a necessary conduit for all messages), no-one will ever speak again to a Dean or a Vice-President without thinking "what are you doing to me and my colleagues?". We have, finally, met each other and can think of other routes for scholarship, research and pedagogical coordination which were not apparent before.

So if we offer a homage to the battle-scarred University, please let's remember that York is not Catalonia. The Francoists have not taken over. Our Union is bloodied but unbowed. We are stronger than ever. But Big Brother is Watching Us. He has us on file, policing our every move, positioning himself to frustrate our every attempt to get onto the relevant committees. As Igor Kusyszyn said at our meeting today the 58-58 vote in Senate two weeks ago scared the daylights out of the Administration. The 80% warning to it today must be even more terrifying. But let's not forget David Bakan's advice on going back:

1. The work of the university is teaching and research. 2. The faculty of the university carry the primary responsibility for the work of the university. 3. The work of the administration is to facilitate and expedite the work of the faculty.

As we march us the Champs-Elysee of York University tomorrow to reclaim OUR university, David Bakan's wise words should inspire us.

Our e-mails and our heavy use of electronic aids in communicating with ourselves over this strike helped in uniting all the strikers, picketers and office-workers alike. But remember, "Big Brother is reading your correspondence." Let's keep Bakan's words in mind as we breach the Citadel and ask them to open THEIR records to US. "The work of the administration is to facilitate and expedite the work of the faculty."