His outgoing manner and love of the marketplace signalled a new broom in higher education.The fact that Schwartz has decided to leave Brunel after only three years to return to Australia where his family live will be a big disappointment to ministers who enjoyed his clear mind and optimistic talk. "And on the union side, it is no good them digging their heels in because that is a recipe for fossilisation."Professor Schwartz will shortly be leaving Brunel to return to Australia. There can be little doubt that he would rather not leave under this particular cloud.The vice-chancellor with a reputation for antagonising his staffSteven Schwartz is one of Tony Blair's favourite vice-chancellors. The pair are believed to be members of a mutual admiration society, and to share the same dislike of bureaucracy and stick-in-the-muds. When Schwartz got the top job at Brunel, his appointment was seen as a sign that British higher education institutions were becoming bolder and brasher and more internationally minded. In recent years, to raise its profile, the union has become more hard-hitting. For Professor Alan Smithers, who used to work at Brunel is now at Buckingham University, the row suggests a failure of leadership.
"To make changes, you have to get people to understand why you are making them," he says. Both unions want to show their muscle in the run-up to merger because it could affect the allocation of jobs to union officials afterwards.When the AUT's provocative new stance is combined with the feisty Schwartz, the sparks begin to fly. Brunel's vice-chancellor is not known for his love of trade unions, or for suffering fools gladly."Other vice-chancellors have been getting rid of staff who were not useful in the research assessment, but they seemed to manage it with a bit more diplomacy," said one university boss. Another factor is the proposed merger with the other lecturers' union, Natfhe (National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education). "There is no substitute for demonising the boss," said another observer.The Brunel campaign appears to have struck a chord, but some of the union's campaigning in the run up to the national agreement on pay modernisation backfired.
And, of course, the Israeli boycott decision, now rescinded, damaged the AUT's reputation further. One feature of the campaigning is that it is personalised - on Schwartz, in the case of Brunel - which means that it hits the headlines and rallies members. But many in the universities regard these campaigns as hit-and-miss Some have worked; others haven't. "That may play better with their members and the press."The recruitment of Matt Waddup from the hard-left RMT transport union is a sign of the AUT's new approach.
