Thesis for Ed.D. at University of Toronto, 1994.
CHAPTER 1 - RESEARCH STANCE
D'Arcy Martin
Expressing one's views against the dominant wisdom is not only a social obligation but an unquenchable personal impulse:
"We sing because shouting is not enough
nor is sorrow or anger
we sing because we believe in people
and we shall overcome these defeats
we sing because the sun recognizes us
and the fields smell of spring
and because in this stem and that fruit
every question has its answer
we sing because it is raining on the furrow
and we are the militants of life
and because we cannot and will not
allow our song to become ashes."132
This study addresses a particular environment, the trade union movement,133 and incorporates its ethos and language in the form of reporting. In this sense, the style of presentation in this thesis is integral to the content itself. This format attempts to work in stereo, in both unionist and academic style.134 The challenge embedded in this stylistic choice is to make visible the intellectual and practical links between union work and scholarly work. Unless this is accomplished, the form of presentation is an affectation rather than a substantive help to understanding.
The academic channel of this study reflects the attractions for me of the Educational Domain as a learning environment at this point in my personal and professional development. Academic recognition offers some reassurance and legitimacy for my work. Academic discussion offers membership in a group whose learning tasks are parallel to my own. The substantial human and intellectual resources provided in support of my work by the academic community, and the possibility of certifying my learning accomplishment in a traditional form also reinforce my willingness to work with academic conventions.135 And this willingness is reflected in the second channel of presenting the study.
In this study, where I am both actor and reporter, it only makes sense to write in the first person.136 In this way, I am obliged to take direct responsibility for the selection and form of presentation of material, rather than being able to hide behind the conventions of "corporate English". Those conventions include frequent use of the passive voice, the third person, and disembodied subjects, all of which have the effect of distancing the writer from any action and any connection with the ideas being advanced.137
Instead, I will be present, actively, in the text which follows. Indeed, my learnings and forgettings will be a focus of reflection. At this point, let me suggest two areas in which I think I have learned, and two in which I have forgotten during the fifteen years covered by the study.
On the issues of gender and race, I know more than I did before. Living and working with active feminists through the 1980's, I have seen the women's voices in the labour movement grow, and then more recently fade under the pressures of job loss and social backlash. From my work with colleagues at the Doris Marshall Institute, the power and richness of an anti-racist practice has become increasingly important to me. As a white man, with privileges of race and gender in the current social order, I have come to see what I have to gain by taking a stand against sexism and racism.
On the other hand, on issues of culture and region, I know less than I did before. A decade ago, I was in continual contact with unionists in Quebec, sharing resources and debating matters of politics and unionism. Today, the Quebecois nation is taking shape differently than it was, and I have little direct involvement. Similarly, the experience of Atlantic Canadians, brutalized economically by the collapse of the fishing industry in the early 1990's, is farther from my heart than it was. By changes in my job, my family situation, my reading habits and my friendship networks, I know less of Quebec and Atlantic Canada than I used to.
At the time of completing this study, then, my perceptions are becoming more humble and inclusive in terms of gender and race, but more narrowly Ontarian. No doubt further changes should be expected, as age and parenting roles shift in coming years, and as the context of my union education work alters in response to broader economic, demographic and cultural forces. In any case, a critical stance around my learnings is assumed on the part of the reader. In this spirit, I invite the reader to join in re-constructing a narrative covering fifteen intense years of work. It has been a roller-coaster, not a steady climb to the top of some professional and personal peak:
"Those of us raised in a Western tradition tend to approach life history with certain preconceptions about what constitutes an 'adequate' account of a life. The familiar model comes from written autobiography -- an author's chronological reflections about individual growth and development, often presented as a passage from darkness to light."138
In 1978-80, I designed and conducted strike education programs with the Inco miners in Sudbury and the Radio Shack warehouse workers in Barrie. During the depression of 1981-83, I spent much of my time in western Canada, particularly in mining communities, and saw the challenge by the Solidarity Coalition in British Columbia to the social agenda of the New Right. During 1985 and 1986, I was swept into the debate over Canadian autonomy, which culminated in the separation of the Canadian Auto Workers from their American headquarters, and the consolidation of international control over the Steelworkers. After moving to the Communications and Electrical Workers in early 1986, I participated in the "grassroots campaign", a systematic effort to re-connect members with their union. For six months, I worked night and day in the unsuccessful campaign to organize the clerical employees of Bell Canada into the house of labour. And in 1988, I ran strike courses yet again, this time as part of the seventeen-week long strike against Bell Canada.
Starting in 1990, I became increasingly involved in policy discussion, around economics, labour markets, training and work reorganization. Assigned to "special projects" under the direction of CWC president Fred Pomeroy, I continued to lead courses with staff and local union activists, but concentrated on presenting the insights of the union culture to employers and governments.
Through this time, many changes happened within me, as well as around me. As Judy Darcy has observed:
"That's been one of the most exciting aspects of union life for me, seeing the changes in workers who were given a chance to develop skills, build confidence, and actually become different people. It's the same kind of developmental change that happens to people on a picket line, for as we know a strike is an educational experience like no other. How the labour movement develops its activists and leaders and enriches their lives is still the aspect of unionism that people understand the least."139
This study is being completed in early 1994, following a study leave from the CWC, negotiated as an option for union staff in 1990. During my study leave, the merger was completed which brought the CWC into the new Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. As I finish this text, I am responsible for membership education in the Ontario Region of the CEP, and assigned to coordinate educational activities with other regions of the union.
In each twist and turn of this roller coaster, my work as an educator has been linked to the union and political issues of the time. At each point, my own learning has been about the potential and limits of learning and action in the working class. To see these years in a flickering light, guarding against self-congratulation and self-flagellation, requires blending academic and union discourse.
The mix of stories and observations is one way of achieving this blend. Consistent with the oral culture of unions, this text will include many stories.140 While this text may lapse into one or the other, for weaknesses in my craft as a writer, it aims to alternate the anecdotal and reflective modes throughout. It is also my hope to address a range of learning styles in this way.141
This thesis will attempt, not so much to present conclusions reached, but rather to implicate the reader in the process by which these conclusions were reached.142 In this way, the process of my own learning becomes transparent rather than being mystified. As with Brechtian theatre, the constant reminder that the reader is dealing with a construction rather than with the "truth" should give more choices than an effort to sweep the reader along in a single form of discourse. The option opened is that the reader can "climb off the train" at points where it seems that the argument is taking a wrong track, and re-engage when the schedule and destination are more attractive.
By making visible the process of bringing together the skills of the adult education profession with the passion of the trade union movement, I hope that this thesis will generate more respect for education among unionists, and more respect for unions among adult educators.