Professional demands

I do not want to be called "professional."

Some of my friends and most of my colleagues think this is odd.  After all, the word "professional" is a term of praise - isn't it?  

But if you go back a little bit, you can find other uses of the term.  There are many theological attacks on those who are called "mere professors of religion."  They are seen as people whose entire concern is with formalities and outward show rather than real belief and action.  Within my lifetime the term "professional woman" signified a prostitute.  And the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary offers a sense in which "professional" is uncomplimentary, giving examples of people who treat themselves as commodities.  One of the examples is the old term "professional beauty."   


It may seem rather strange to go back to earlier meanings of the word.  We all know that language develops and words change their meaning.  But in an important sense, those older meanings of the words cling around the term "professional".  


I'm not so worried about the idea that people are paid.  I like my job - well, most of it - but I do it for money and I don't need to be coy about the fact.  If I weren't paid I couldn't do it.  But jobs - particularly those jobs that are labelled "professional" - can take more than the energy and dedication with which most employees perform their primary work.  They can, by degrees, sap the integrity of those who work.

Behaving in a "professional manner" often means acquiring a veneer of false confidence which creates a distance between the "professional" and any member of the public.  This isn't something that I would always criticize.  When I go to see my doctor, for instance, I accept that she will adopt a confident and reassuring manner, even if she's just had a bad weekend and is personally feeling a little unsure of herself.  I don't mind the distance either.  She really can't ask all her patients to be her personal friends.  But I hope her determination to appear confident never gets the better of her honesty.  If one day she can't work out what is wrong with me, she'd do best tell me so and send me for tests elsewhere. 

While professionalism distances professionals from the public, it also draws professionals together in their workplace and can begin to separate them from the world in which others live.  Here it can be closely related to the kind of corporate loyalty which leads employees to forget to question what they are doing and why.  An inside account from an unnamed bank suggests how easily a number of professionals forgot about the ethics of banking practice and their responsibility to the wider society.  Instead they showed their loyalty to the well-being - primarily the financial well-being - of their employer and, as a group of professionals, broke the law.  Manipulating the Libor rate had an effect on the wider economy and on numerous individuals but some of the professional employees of the banks involved put the banks' interests first.  They placed the good of a corporation and the good opinion of their colleagues above the good of individuals.  They may also have broken the law, though that isn't yet clear. 
 
Almost all employers have a rule somewhere that employees must not damage the reputation of the company or institution for which they work.  It's a vague rule which employees have come to accept - not that they have much choice.   But what does that rule really mean?  


I take for granted the idea that I shouldn't tell lies about my employer and that I should behave in a reasonable way and work hard at my job.  I worry that the reputation rule may give my employer the right to police my private life or my public life away from work.  Suppose I, acting in a private capacity, go on a demonstration against the government or the arms trade, and am recognized by someone who knows me through my job.  Would this be regarded as bringing my employer into disrepute?  If my employer were dependent on government funds and good will, or if my employer wanted to make money by hosting a reception for arms traders, I might find myself in a difficult position.  I hope the clause doesn't extend so far.  If it does, it gives government and global corporations a very easy way of stifling dissent.  And it means that an employer can control my free time as well as my working hours.

But what if I wanted to tell the truth about my employer?  There are circumstances in which honesty would be seen as "unprofessional."  So would whistle-blowing, although society as a whole owes a great deal to whistle-blowers who have seen where their wider loyalty lies. 


The best employers I have worked for have encouraged open discussion and haven't been afraid of criticism.  They create an atmosphere in which the workers do their best but know that they aren't perfect.  Anyone who needs help or advice can ask for it.  If a worker sees that something isn't working, that worker is free to say so.  The aim is not to hide behind the mask of professionalism but to do the work as well as possible.

These days, however, the market is more firmly and forcefully present.  Everything seems to be for sale: sport, arts, education, health.  Every public good is forced into competition and instructed to sell itself and explain its value in solely economic terms.  Organisations concerned with sport, arts, education and health are told that their primary aim is to acquire customers, and that the approval of those customers is the means to acquire and retain sponsorship.  Every school and GP's surgery is busy competing with others and every sports team and art gallery spends days and weeks writing funding bids, surveying customer opinion and producing the kind of jargon that will enable them to keep going. 

No-one tells employees to lie but the rhetoric everywhere is about "marketing," "branding," "presentation" and "networking."  Apparently these are key elements of professionalism.  In these panicked times they make employees look inward, focus their attention on the survival of their own jobs, and discourage them from looking at any question larger than the immediate good of their own company or institution.  When the competition is so fierce, there's a danger that the competition will focus only on the first impressions of the "customer," whether a patient, a parent, a pupil, an enthusiast for museums or the local football team.  There's no time to consider the longer term or the good of the "customer" in five or ten years. 

But humans have a tendency to ask questions and make ethical judgements.  I can't stop questioning what my work is for and what its value is, and should be, in society.  These are difficult questions and may produce answers that go against my personal interests and the interests of my employer.  It's a dangerous path.  If I think too much, I may find myself saying something my employer doesn't like.  I could even be accused of damaging my employer's reputation.  Yet I believe in freedom of speech and I believe in speaking the truth.  It's a matter of integrity - and, next to integrity, professionalism looks pretty hollow.


 I hope my employer agrees.

Pretty policemen and agents provocateurs

When I arrived at university, one of the first stories I read in a student publication was about police spies.  It said that for the entire summer vacation, two policemen, disguised as hippies, had been instructed to punt up and down the rivers watching out for students or other layabouts smoking pot.  They may have enjoyed their summer but they never managed to catch anyone.  A cartoon accompanying the story showed two policeman, dressed as stereotypical hippies but wearing policemen's helmets.

I don't know whether the story was true.  I do know that, in the three years of my first degree, I was never offered cannabis or any other illegal drug.

At the time, the story just made me laugh.  It fitted with the comforting view that the police were so incompetent at going undercover that, if they tried, they'd fail amusingly.

A little later I became aware of a more disturbing story circulating about the activities of some police forces - and I heard this so often and from so many different sources that it seemed quite evident that it was true.  This was all back in the 1970s when homosexual acts in private between consenting adults aged 21 or over had only recently ceased to be a crime.  I suppose this affected the arrest totals of many police forces.  However it remained illegal for a man to solicit sex with another man, raising an interesting question as to how gay men were ever to form sexual relationships.  Several police forces went beyond looking out for gay men meeting one another.  They sent policemen in plain clothes (known as "pretty policemen") to places where gay men met so that, if a man mentioned the possibility of sex, they could whip out the handcuffs and arrest the man.  There were stories of pretty policemen who did their best to ensure gay men would make advances to them.  It all seemed fairly disgraceful to the policemen and forces involved and I'm glad to say that the practice seems to have died out.  I don't think today's police would countenance such activities.  I don't think the government would allow it.


But I have been disturbed by what I've learned in the last year or so about the activities of undercover policemen.   There are plenty of cases of companies going under cover to spy on their opponents.  The McLibel case in the 1990s revealed that seven spies working for McDonald's had infiltrated the small London Greenpeace group so that at some meetings the infiltrators were in a majority.  The campaigning organisation Campaign Against Arms Trade was infiltrated by a man who worked with them first as a paid volunteer and then as their paid Campaigns Co-ordinator.  He was also being paid through a company working for arms muanufacturers British Aerospace.  According to the Sunday Times story which uncovered this espionage, he was one of half a dozen paid infiltrators.  Although it's a national organisation, CAAT is pretty small.  


At least when McDonalds or BAe engage in infiltration and spying they merely lower my already low opinion of them.  I had occasionally visited McDonalds with my children when the McLibel trial began but after I heard about the infiltration and spying, I initiated a family boycott.  Some people may find James Bond glamorous but I reckon there's something rather sickening about spies.


For a long time I've heard stories about state infiltrators in political groups.  I didn't think too much about who organised them.  I'd probably have thought it was the secret services, whoever they are.  I wanted them to be something shady because I didn't want to put a face to them.  I've been involved in some left-wing, mainly pacifist campaigning.  I don't want to discover that my friends aren't my friends at all - that they're pretending to like me and share my ideals so that they can spy on me, for money.  And I don't want to look at the people who really are my friends with suspicion, because if I began to do that, how could any friendship survive?

But in the past year or so it's become evident that that the state infiltrators might be quite close to home.  Mark Kennedy worked as a serving police officer by infiltrating protest groups, some of them near where I live.  I don't know if he went on the same anti-war marches but it's possible.  He looks vaguely familiar but that's all.  At least I wasn't one of the women campaigners with whom he had affairs, while concealing the existence of a wife and family elsewhere.  As the story of his spying became public, other spies were unmasked.  Some of them had affairs with activists too.  Some of them fathered children.


The police response to this was to say that the spies were "grossly unprofessional," "morally wrong" and "rogue."  My assumption was that at least, after this, the behaviour of police spies would be reined in.

I was wrong.  The Home Office minister Nick Herbert has stated that police acting as undercover spies should be allowed - in certain circumstances - to have sex with activists.  I don't know what that makes the government.  Paying someone to have sex with people as part of a job isn't quite the same as being a pimp, although morally it seems roughly equivalent.  In a few countries encouraging the deception might count as inciting rape - but this wouldn't be the case in English law.  I expect the women who have been deceived feel pretty damaged by it - especially if they have had a long-term relationship and a child with the spy.   But it's not something I want my government to permit, organise or encourage.  I think it's wrong.


I'm relying a lot on instinctive reactions here.  So I thought I'd better consider other circumstances.  What if the police spy was infiltrating an extreme right-wing group?  Would I think this worthwhile?


I dislike extreme right-wing groups, particularly those which incite racism and carry out racist attacks.  I want them to stop doing this.  It's possible an effective infiltrator would find a way of stopping them.  But I'm still not happy about the spying.


Anyone who infiltrates a group has to take part in its activities.  Police spies risk arrest when they break the law - Mark Kennedy was arrested on more than one occasion.  If they reach a position of power - which must be their aim - they need to suggest activities and encourage them.  So the police spy infiltrating a racist group might need to establish his or her credibility by abusing people on the grounds of their race, by spraying racist graffiti on walls, by suggesting groups to be targeted on a demonstration - even by initiating or taking part in racist violence.  This comes close to acting as an agent provocateur by encouraging people to break the law.  I don't want any police officer to do this, however noble the initial aims.  Nor do I want any police spy to be expected to have sex with a racist as part of his or her job.  


Doubtless some people - including members of the government - will say I'm being naive.  But I think members of the police who go undercover as spies cease to act as upholders of the law and move into a shadowy area of questionable morality.  When Nick Herbert endorses undercover policing and says that police spies may have sex with activists to reinforce their cover, he may speak for the government, but he doesn't speak for me.  I wonder whether the majority of voters - or the majority of police officers - would agree with him.
 
 

Money money money money money money money money

As prices rocket and companies start laying people off, there's one good news story - allegedly. I heard it on the news and read it on the BBC website. British companies are the best at creating wealth.

To me, that raises two questions: where does the wealth come from and where does it go? I assume the companies aren't simply printing banknotes and handing them out in the street.

Looking more closely at the story, it turns out that 23% of British or part-British companies have been placed in the top 750 for a league table I've never heard of. It's the 2007 Value Added Scoreboard from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform - a government department which has the job of boosting British business. I suppose the story would have had less impact if it had been billed as "British government says British companies are the best."

So what precisely is being measured? According to the BBC, the scoreboard measures wealth-generation - which it also terms "productivity" by deducting "bought-in" goods and services from profits made by sales. I'm not quite sure where the value is added in all this. But I find it curious that "buying-in" goods and services is seen as such a bad thing in the private sector. In the public sector we're always being told that buying-in from outside, private industries boosts efficiency.

The top five British companies in terms of wealth generation are a surprising group. They're not exactly known for innovation. Some of them aren't even known for being British. They are: Royal Dutch Shell, BP, HSBC, Vodafone, Royal Bank of Scotland.

Royal Dutch Shell may be registered in Britain but its headquarters are in the Hague. Its subsidiary, Shell, has caused debate, especially for its operations in Nigeria, denounced by Ken Saro-Wiwa and others, and for alleged damage to the environment.

BP, initially the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, is a huge multi-national which has come in for criticism and lawsuits alleging environmental damage and human rights abuses. Most of its activities are far from Britain.

HSBC operates under four initials in Britain. They stand for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. While its HQ is in Britain it operates in 83 countries. It may be the world's largest company. It certainly knows how to make money. In the past two years it has made £100 million from running NHS hospitals. The bank's routine charge for fitting an electric socket is £200 - far above the usual rate.

Vodafone is a global mobile phone company. Two years ago it posted a loss before tax of £14.9 billion (for 2005) - the biggest loss ever posted in British corporate history. For all this, it seems to be profitable at the level of current operations. I'm not sure what - if any - the effect of the loss is.

Royal Bank of Scotland seems to have overcome recent problems from the "credit crunch" by asking shareholders to give it £12 billion. Apparently they did. Like most banks, RBS as it is now known is proud of its abilities in "wealth management", helping "high net worth individuals" look after their assets - in offshore trusts, for instance.

I'm sure all five companies will be celebrating their position in this new league table. But I'm still not sure why it's a good news story or what, if anything, it means to British people today.

Who's in charge?

It's summer. Suddenly the centre of Nottingham, which has been almost empty in the cold and rain, was thronged with people. I'd forgotten about the noise of happy crowds. In the Old Market Square a French market drew smiling queues. I couldn't resist the quince jelly or chestnut jam, let alone a wonderful mustard "aromatisee" with goats' cheese and basil.

Real baguettes were a necessity. And although French cheeses are more expensive after the change in the exchange rate, I succumbed to the lure of some favourites: a good comte and emmenthal, a thin slice of tome de Savoie and a small piece of Roquefort. They offer a taste of holidays - just a taste as I asked the young man on the cheese stall for "cent gramme, seulement."

He served everyone with a flourish, in French when the customer spoke French but otherwise in an English sprinkled with French words and intonations, rapidly charming customer after customer. He was swift as he sliced and wrapped cheeses but always found time for smiles and politeness - and he had a happiness in his work that infected everyone. I was nearly tempted to extravagance.

Nottingham must have one of the most crowded city centres in Europe. It's compact, held in by a dull inner ring road, Maid Marion Way. (Maid Marion deserves better.) The Old Market Square has recently been rebuilt with fountains where children play when the weather is hot. Much of the central area has been paved so that only buses, trams and taxis trouble pedestrians. Despite the hilly terrain, the centre itself is as flat as it can be, so that it's easy for wheelchair users to navigate.

Around the city, traffic crawls along access roads and car parks are crowded. There have been debates about a congestion charge but the city council has come up with a different solution: taxing car parking spaces at work. I haven't read through the arguments as I don't live in the city but I have noticed that public transport is excellent, especially in the day-time, and there are the usual park-and-ride schemes. In a small city, traffic adds to pollution. Not everyone enjoys the sunny weather in the city centre; some choke or gasp.

Yesterday's Nottingham Evening Post published the response of businesses to the proposed parking charge. "Impose the charge and we'll quit the city," they say. The threat - to withdraw employment from the area - is a serious one. It raises a serious question: who's in charge?

Nottingham electors vote for their council. If they don't like the parking charge, they can vote the council out. It's called democracy and, for all its shortcomings, it's a decent, fairly open system. But when businesses threaten publicly-agreed policies, they short-circuit the democratic process. Are our cities run by elected councillors or by wealthy corporations?

Companies have always influenced politics. Councils and countries want thriving, successful economies. Today they court businesses as the providers of wealth and apparently fail to notice that they give more than they gain. Companies demand tax inducements, special provisions, an education system that serves its needs, subsidies, consultation - even deference - when the government proposes new policies. In a global economy, the threats of big companies are huge and dangerous. They can relocate where workers are cheap and unprotected - and where no-one expects them to care about the environment. They can get together and threaten mass unemployment. And despite legislation, they can achieve a near monopoly in the supply of necessities. Small traders have to look out.

If councils and governments defer to businesses, we don't live in a democracy. Bribes and blackmail govern our lives. Of course, there are organisations which could protect democracy against the corporations: the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation, the European Community and the United Nations. But these seem to have fallen for an absurd notion which correlates the free market with freedom and democracy. And it's not the same thing at all.