By: Ethics and partnerships: the OU and the St Athan

Ethics and partnerships: the OU and the St Athan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:39:37 +0000

Ethics and partnerships: the OU and the St Athan
Military Academy
The Open University now boasts a Centre for Ethics and includes ethical teaching in its curriculum, but it does
not yet have an ethical policy guiding its corporate partnerships. The recent link between the OU and the Metrix
consortium has led to protests in Wales and may result in far wider ramifications for the institution
Life at the OU in Wales took a new turn recently, with demonstrations
against the University’s involvement in a military training consortium
taking place outside our building.
Over the past year, the ‘Stop the St Athan Military Academy
Campaign’ has been publicizing and attacking the OU’s involvement
in the Metrix consortium, which followed its success in being
awarded a government contract to run a training agency for all of
the British armed forces at St Athan in South Glamorgan.
The OU is a member of the consortium, along with some major
arms manufacturers, including QinetiQ and Raytheon. Raytheon
manufactures Tomohawk and Patriot missiles, and missiles
capable of carrying cluster bombs; QinetiQ hit the headlines with
criticisms by the National Audit Office of the process whereby, in
the privatization of DERA, the responsible civil servants became
multi-millionaires overnight.
Thousands of training jobs from around the UK will be moved
to St Athan, just outside Cardiff, where up to 5,500 jobs will be
created. This figure is one that fluctuates and is contested, but it is
claimed that the St Athan Military Academy, costing £15 billion,
will be the largest ever public-sector project in Wales.
The project is welcomed by local MPs and Welsh Assembly
Members, by the Welsh Assembly Government and by all of the
major political parties in Wales. Nonetheless, several Plaid Cymru
members of the National Assembly for Wales have spoken against
it, and there are a small but vociferous number of people in Wales
opposed to the militarization of the economy. Anti-militarism has
been a core element of the nationalist struggle since its inception,
and is a perspective shared by many key figures in public life.
Does this new partnership fit with the mission of the OU – to
create and enhance life opportunities? There are concerns about any
institution’s associations with the arms trade. Jennie Lee, one of the
main founders of the OU, was firm in her stand against arms, in that
she was against the UK acquiring a nuclear deterrent.
Various UK universities (including St Andrews and several
Cambridge colleges) have adopted ethical investment policies.
University College London, under pressure from students and
alumni, is among those that are considering doing so. The School of
Oriental and African Studies and Goldsmiths, University of London
and Bangor University have withdrawn investment from arms
companies. The OU has still to decide on whether it needs to devise
clear and fully transparent ethical guidelines to steer its business
partnerships.
Other institutions have been more forthright. The Norwegian state
pension fund, which includes its petroleum fund, and Liverpool City
Council are among the bodies that have disinvested from Raytheon,
on the basis of its implication in war crimes and killing civilians in
Iraq and Lebanon.
Of course, military technology and the armed forces are involved
in defence as well as attack, and there are plenty of us who subscribe
to notions of ‘just wars’. But the plan is to train not just British
troops, but armed forces from around the world. The idea of training
troops for the Burmese government is more controversial than
training British troops.
Others do not share this political or moral concern, but object on
pragmatic grounds: that the OU risks tainting its brand. In a sense,
the greatest asset of the OU is its brand. The brand isn’t just a logo
but is a reputation, and the reputations of organizations increasingly
are linked to their ethical and environmental policies and practices.
We only have to look to Nike, McDonald’s, Tesco, the Body Shop
and the Co-operative Bank to see the centrality of ‘the brand’ to
business performance.
Across the economy and around the world there is a huge growth
in the ‘corporate social responsibility’ agenda. In one sense, this is
recognized by the OU, which recently launched a Level 1 course
on Ethics in Real Life and takes very seriously its commitment to
development in Africa. At the same time, it is in partnership with
the World Bank to develop a private university in Pakistan, in
collaboration with Tesco regarding using clubcard points to pay
course fees (see Society Matters No.10), and is now linked with the
Metrix consortium.
This suggests the need for an ethical, environmental and corporate
responsibility framework for the OU’s relationships with other
organizations. With its deservedly high standing, the OU brand is of
enormous benefit to us all. The good reputation of the OU is an asset
and needs to be defended actively.
In response to the University’s involvement in the Metrix
consortium, the Open University Branch of the University and
College Union (OUBUCU) has formulated a set of ethical guidelines
to be applied to the future selection of its strategic partnerships with
external organizations. The guidelines set out criteria regarding the
arms trade, ecological sustainability, animal welfare and corporate
responsibility to ‘filter’ out partnerships which may commercially
damage the University’s brand. At the time of going to press, a
paper setting out the arguments for their implementation has been
presented to the Vice-Chancellor and the Branch awaits a response
to its suggestion that a forum be established between union and
management to discuss the guidelines. The union believes the
University cannot be financially successful in the future unless it
is committed to an ethical approach to partnerships.

By: TINTIN

TINTIN — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:03:48 +0000

FUCKING SMASH EM WE DID EDO WE BEAT RAYTHEON NOW WE CAN BEA THE COURTS 1 0N TO US AND YES I AM FREE TINTIN WHERES MY ITALIAN ROSE

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By: Ethics and partnerships: the OU and the St Athan

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