Freedom fighter

By Rosie Lombardi

When Neil Tudiver became a CA in 1966, the only thing anyone could have expected him to negotiate was his salary. Today, it's his job to facilitate negotiations for the 70 organizations represented by the Canadian association of University Teachers, a national group that also advocates academic freedom.

As chief negotiations officer for the Ottawa-based CAUT, the 60-year-old provides union and group leaders with strategic advice, on-site training and bargaining support. "I do sit at sweaty bargaining tables on occasion when negotiations get difficult," he says.

It's not the conventional business career Tudiver expected to have when he entered the University of Michigan's MBA program in 1966. But courses in organizational behaviour and social psychology sparked a lifelong fascination with group dynamics, and involvement in left-wing campus politics further shaped his career decisions. "My classmates were working on dissertations like Husband-Wife Decision-Making in New Car Purchases — but I wanted to work in areas that were socially good," he says. To that end, Tudiver began PhD fieldwork in community economic development in regions with high rates of poverty. "My CA training was really useful in the systematic way of thinking through financial analysis," he says.

He eventually became a professor of social work, and wrote an impassioned defense of academic freedom in his 1999 book, Universities for Sale: Resisting Corporate Control over Canadian Higher Education. Published by James Lorimer & Co. and the CAUT, the book eventually led to an invitation to provide collective bargaining services for the association.

Now, as the CAUT's chief negotiations officer, Tudiver continues to fight for academic freedom, and relies on his CA skills to scrutinize university finances, work that serves the common good: "If we destroy the capacity of academics to do independent research in areas like healthcare, then we may not have any reliable research left. Our very health and safety may be at risk."