Times have changed for the State's university lecturers with increasing scrutiny of their role and a more corporate approach to third-level education. General Secretary Mike Jennings must now lead their union through turbulent waters, writes LOUISE HOLDEN.
WHEN MIKE JENNINGS took to the stage on Dublin’s Parnell Square last December to address thousands of protesters marching against education cuts, it marked a quiet but significant shift in Irish educational politics. Jennings is the general secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (Ifut); a group that wouldn’t have been seen dead marching with primary school teachers two years ago. Times have changed for the university lecturers’ union – and Mike Jennings has a lot to do with it.
The demonstration, dubbed “Schools United”, saw a traditionally isolationist union throw its lot in with teachers from national schools, institutes of technology, VEC colleges and a variety of places of learning. It’s becoming clear, says an Ifut insider, that university lecturers and professors are not a hallowed class, not least to themselves.
“Academics always thought they were more loved by society than they actually are. They have been shocked at their excoriation by the media and the public in recent months. People used to joke about how easy it was to work in a university, but academics never thought that people actually believed all that stuff. Now it’s becoming clear that many people actually think lecturers are dossers.”
Meanwhile, the management style of Ireland’s universities has had a make-over and whether you embrace the new accountability or curse the new corporatism, you have to admit that university staff have been forced out of their comfort zone.
Mike Jennings took up the role of Ifut general secretary two years ago, after the 25-year reign of Daltún Ó Ceallaigh. “Along came Jennings and he was in-your-face. He took a small union, of around 1,700 people, and started making big changes,” says on union activist.
For a start, Jennings tried to pick the institutional locks that some say were keeping Ifut members from speaking with one voice. “In NUI Galway Ifut was seen as a professors’ union. They spoke only among themselves,” says an observer. “In UCD it was an academic staff group and they just looked after internal issues. For a long time in UCD, for example, there wasn’t much delineation between staff and management – some very senior management people were actually members. It was all very cosy.”
Jennings has brought representatives from the different universities together to speak as one on broader education issues. He has also strengthened ties with the other teacher unions, and now regularly meets with Peter McMenamin of the TUI (which represents 4,000 lecturers from the institutes of technology as well as thousands of second-level teachers), the ASTI and the INTO, representing post-primary and primary teachers respectively.
It’s clear that Jennings wants his union to be part of the bigger picture – it’s also clear that he has no desire to sip coffee on campus with senior management. Jennings drew a line in the sand early in his tenure when he issued a press release revealing the €2 million pay package of 10 UCD staff members. The move was timed to clash with the funding campaign of the UCD president. Why was Dr Hugh Brady on the airwaves begging for money when these astronomical salaries came so easy? It was quite a salvo and it set the tone for Jennings’s leadership.
“It’s a back-handed compliment to Jennings that the universities are going to the Labour Court with legal representation these days,” says a leading trade unionist. “They used to send HR people,but now they send senior counsel. With Jennings at the front, they know the big guns are needed to have a go at Ifut.”
Jennings has been deeply critical of this development. He told the annual conference of university teachers last month that university human resource departments, despite retaining large budgets, were hiring legal experts at huge cost. “Could anything be more galling and provocative than for Ifut members, whose core job of providing a first-class education is undermined and damaged every day by lack of investment, to be forced to witness the irresponsible use of resources lavished on legal fees?”
Galled as his members may be, getting them to act is a huge challenge for Jennings. There are 4,000 third-level members of the TUI (more than 80 per cent of IoT lecturers), while fewer than 2,000 university staff have signed up for Ifut out of around 5,000 in the State. They’re a difficult constituency to motivate, says a local representative. “Ifut has tended to attract members who are more interested in a quiet life. Academics are not that interested in what’s going on beyond themselves. To mobilise them behind workers’ rights is very hard. Ifut has always been a genteel organisation.”
There’s evidence of change now, however. A spokesperson for Ifut says they have had “hundreds” of new applications for membership since the beginning of the year. “April and May are usually quiet because of the exams, but the applications are still coming.”
Fear of redundancy or salary cuts may be scaring some sceptical employees into union foxholes lately, but Ifut is not simply a beneficiary of the general panic, say supporters of Jennings. “He has definitely come at the right time for this union,” says a colleague. “He has said and done things in the last two years that have put Ifut on the radar after decades of relative obscurity. People are interested in the idea of being in a union that takes part in the national debate.”
Certainly, Ifut has a tough act to follow if it wants to rival a powerhouse union like the INTO. However, Jennings is a canny political operator who is more interested in synergy than competition. A former Siptu official, Jennings has been a union man all his life, taking up a role in the Union of Students of Ireland after graduating from an arts degree in NUI Galway. He came close to taking a seat for the Workers’ Party in Dublin Central in the 1980s, and is a member of the Labour party to this day. His strategy of aligning himself with the three other unions is a product of years of experience of labour mobilisation.
He is not an academic, but he has charmed many Ifut members with a message consonant with their growing unrest. In his first address to the federation’s annual conference in Dublin, Jennings spoke about a crisis of leadership in university management.
“They simply do not treat us with respect and, quite frankly, we have difficulty relating to people who see universities not as communities of scholars run on collegiate principles, but as major corporations run by muscular CEOs,” said Jennings. He saw right away that academics were feeling unloved and has attempted to crystallise their demands and values into a coherent, attractive package, ready to impress on the public mind.
Minister for Education Batt O’Keefe has made some hostile moves in recent months, setting up a body to review higher education without a single serving university lecturer on board. He has famously accused some in the academic fraternity of neglecting their duties by spending minimal hours in the lecture theatre. Jennings is looking for a union that can strike directly at the heart of the Higher Education Authority and the Department of Education in tandem with the broader teaching fraternity. He is sending out the message that academics are committed, valuable, not to be trifled with.
His toughest adversaries may yet be his own membership.
“Jennings is a fireball of action, and an ideologue in the truest sense,” says a leading figure in education. “Some believe he can take Ifut to a new level. There are others who think he’s on his way to destroying it completely. Academics can be hell to work with. They simply won’t pull together for the good of the group. Many don’t want to be made visible. They resent Jennings’s crusade because they believe that an aggressive union could bring the profession into disrepute. He may march up the hill and look around to find there’s no one behind him.”
IFUT comes out of the shadows
WHO ARE THEY?Ifut represents around 2,300 academic staff in universities and teacher colleges across the State. It does not represent staff in DCU or UL – these universities are covered by Siptu. Lecturers in the institutes of technology are represented by the TUI, which has about 4,000 higher education members.
WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?Daltún Ó Ceallaigh headed up the union for over two decades. Ifut kept a relatively low profile under his leadership and the university branches tended to campaign alone within their own institutions. When he left in 2007 there were 1,700 members.
WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO?When Mike Jennings was appointed general secretary two years ago he began a strategic reorganisation which has brought branches together and increased the membership by around 600. Ifut is teaming up with the other teaching unions to play a more active public role.
WHAT ARE THEIR STRENGTHS?Fifty-four-year-old Jennings is a lifelong union man, who worked with Siptu for 27 years. He has a huge network of contacts and intimate knowledge of the mechanisms of industrial relations. His message about the value of protecting academic values against corporatism has gone down well with many Ifut members and has attracted many more.
WHAT ARE THEIR WEAKNESSES?Academics have traditionally eschewed the trade union movement, preferring to stay under the radar. Many find the notion of aggressive lobbying distasteful and there are rumblings of resentment at Ifut's growing profile.
