On July 11, Beta Faculty ODC members Ivo van Stokkum and Anton Feenstra published a poignant article in Ad Valvas highlighting the problems associated with top-down administration (particularly in the Beta Faculty) and overreliance on contrived models for cash flows within the university and faculties. They point out that directors of the university – presumably referring to the executive (CvB) and faculty boards (FB) – are appointed by advisory committees represented by various stakeholders, and that their power is borrowed for the terms of their appointments. Who are the stakeholders of this committee? Who should be considered “stakeholders” in the operations of a university.
The major stakeholders are the general public and the workers at the university. The stake that the public has in the university is obvious: The university plays a major role in the reproduction of labor power in society (it is one of many layers including domestic and public childcare and education). The stake that the workers have in the university is also obvious: We have committed our labor power to the university. Our inspiration, happiness, and health are strongly influenced by the conditions of our workplace. Our livelihoods depend upon the wages that we receive from the university. Because we have a principal stake, I propose that the workers take democratic control over the administration of universities. This is especially critical at a time of budget crisis at universities across the Netherlands, when university boards act as enforcers of the state’s austerity budget and whose primary task becomes implementing “reorganization” (i.e., layoffs).
The public, ostensibly, has influence on universities’ operations via indirect democracy, electing representatives who appoint a minister of education and vote on matters such as university budgets (I recognize that this is a very simplified overview of government and legislation in the Netherlands). As far as I know, these representatives are not revocable by the public (i.e., via referendum) during their terms in the Netherlands. I am an advocate for much more direct and representative democracy in general – e.g., binding referenda and representatives selected from the population by lot – in order that the will of people in society be more faithfully implemented. I accept that nuance is required in this discussion, for example perhaps minimum vote-turnout requirements for the results of referenda to be ratified, constitutional protections for fundamental personal rights shielding them from possible reactionary referenda, etc. Despite the belief (at least in “western” society) that countries like the Netherlands are bastions of democracy, the idea of direct and representative democracy is still portrayed as radical in our society.
Although an advocate of direct democracy in broader society, it is not my intention to delve into that topic here. My proposition is hopefully much more tractable to the other major stakeholder of the universities: The workers at those universities. I propose that the executive and faculty boards be composed of members of the faculties, departments, and services (hereon referred to as divisions) who are elected by the workers of the divisions. The number of representatives of each board should be in proportion to the number of workers in each division. The representatives should be given a mandate by their division’s workers and should be immediately revocable by vote if they do not act upon their mandates. As for the current members of the boards, they should be given roles within divisions according to their areas of expertise and be eligible for election to (and revocation from) the boards.
I understand that some nuance is also required here, for example measures to protect small departments from being eliminated during budget cuts if other departments band together out of self-preservation. These nuances will require discussion and democratic agreement before implementation. But in our current situation, we have neither security nor democratic influence on the actions of the boards.
One might counter: “but the current boards are elected by stakeholders with broad representation”, i.e., some form of representative democracy. Those stakeholders perhaps even include members of organizations ostensibly in support of university workers, e.g., the Works Council (Ondernemingsraad – OR) and the Subcommittees (Onderdeelcommissies – ODC). How broad and active is the participation of most workers in these committees though? In my personal experience, I was never approached by or made aware of these committees when I began working at the VU. It was only through my own inquiry that I became aware of them. In the ca. 2 years that I have worked at the VU, I have never been invited to a general meeting with the ODC or the OR. Because of this disconnect, how closely do the board-electing “stakeholders” represent the interests of workers in particular divisions? In an Earth Science department meeting on July 4, the Beta Faculty ODC chair defended the inevitability of “seven fat years followed by seven meagre years” (my paraphrasing), to the clear dismay of the members of the department in the audience. In reference to the much-contested economic models for departmental overhead cost charging (KDM), they said “it’s the working model, so you cannot easily change the working model”. Ironically, the ODC chair quoted here is one of the authors of the above-referenced article criticizing the contrived models for university cash-flow. Scepticism of the KDM was also raised by workers from other departments in the Beta Faculty townhall meeting on July 16. If workers “cannot easily change” something that has profound impact on the viability of their department and the prospect (perhaps certainty) of layoffs, then this means that the current paradigm for decision-making is seriously flawed.
The need for democratic decision-making at universities is particularly acute in the current landscape of budget crises at universities across the Netherlands. The members of university and faculty boards may predominantly come from education and research backgrounds, but they now play the role of typical middle-upper management at any company. The budget is the budget and must be balanced. The easiest way to do this is to reduce expenditure on variable capital: that is, hold wages down and/or lay off workers. They may engage in talks with members of the government (e.g., the ministry of education) to decry insufficient university funding or reactionary legislation such as the “Wetsvoorstel Wet internationalisering in balans”, but then they return to their universities and continue the “reorganization” process, all the while wringing their hands and lamenting the need to make ‘difficult choices’. A nation-wide education budget crisis requires radical response – ultimately the tens-of-thousands of university workers in the Netherland halting the universities’ operations until reasonable demands are met – not the usual “difficult choices”. The workers whose livelihoods are at stake must be the ones who dictate that response, not the administrators who play by the same old neoliberal rulebook.
My proposition may sound radical to some, but recognize that this is only a call for democratization of the administration of universities. We commonly advocate (at least rhetorically) for “democracy” but somehow accept that democracy should not extend to certain major aspects of our lives, including our work. Such democratization of the universities’ functions will not transform them into utopias. Periods of pressure due to multiple factors – including austerity budgets handed down from the government – will still occur. We will, however, have control over how we respond that pressure.