ie

Above, Participants Donna Mundell, Donna Sequine, Leo
Foisy. Below: Producer Allan King. Right: Unemployed get

together without the help of psychoanalysts.

Who’s In Charge?

An assault on
the jobless

By DOUG TAYLOR and STAFFORD NEAL

CBC television recently aired producer Allan King’s
controversial film Who's In Charge? Controversial be-
cause six of the participants in the film sought an injunc-
tion to block the program which had been billed as a
special on ‘‘A Working Conference on Being Employed
and Unemployed’’. The conference was initiated by
King and Gordon Laurence of the Tavistock Institute
which studies groups dynamics “particularly with re-
spect to authority, leadership and organizations’. As it
turns out, this film had little to do with the experience of
unemployment and is purposely exploitive.

Who’s In Charge? selectively focused on the reactions
of 30 unemployed people who were supposedly brought
together for a four day conference on unemployment.
The conference was held at a retreat in Orangeville,
Ontario. When the conference began, some participants
expressed concern that the conference not just relate
experiences or the latest sob story but rather that it deal
with the causes of unemployment and possible solutions.
One of the participants quips that they don’t want to be
“put on display like zoo animals’’. The managers of the
conference, three professional psychoanalysts, re-
sponded that they were free to discuss whatever they
wished but then proceeded to confirm those fears.

The conference was structured to ensure group isola-
tion, social intensity and a lack of conscious direction.

However, on the first day of the proceedings particip-
ants expressed almost unanimous dissatisfaction with
the format and the seating arrangement — chairs had
been arranged so that the participants all faced the con-
sultants. According to one participant, this created a
boss-worker relationship and fostered feelings of intimi-
dation and weakness. Asa result, on the second day, the
participants voted to change both the format and the
chairs.

TEE ee

“We were lead to believe that it was
going to be a real working :
conference of unemployed people.
Instead, it was an experience which
degraded and dehumanized us ...a
laboratory experiment in which we
were the guinea pigs’’.
UT ee Te OTOP CE

The seating,arrangement was altered and the particip-
ants began, one at atime, to express what they saw as the

reasons for their unemployment. They also discussed -

what they thought should be done. —

This format worked well and it seemed as if the par-
ticipants were going to be able to break through the false
parameters the producers had defined for them. But after
ten participants had spoken, the bosses succeeded in
diverting the participants away from the picket lines of
protest and back to the padded rooms of the personal.

From that point on the discussion deteriorated into an
endless cycle of despondent personal accounts. When
the participants — provoked by the consultants — broke

down in a hothouse of tears, sob stories and ‘violent
anger, Allen King captured it all on film. ad

King and his consultants were so successful in emo-
tionally breaking down the participants that one of the
unionized technical crews walked out in disgust over
both the treatment of the individuals and the content of
the tape. In the control booth, a switcher spent much of
her time weeping uncontrollably in response to the
humiliation she was witnessing. :

The participants felt betrayed. As Chuck Cauthier, a
member of the CAIMAW union in British Columbia
remarked in a letter to other participants after the con-
ference was over: :

‘We were lead to believe that it was going to be a real

working conference of unemployed people. Instead, it:

was an experience which degraded and dehumanized us
wee a laboratory experiment in which we were the guinea
pigs.

Another participant, Ron St. Pierre, a laid-off Allen
potash worker and vice-president of USWA Local 7589,
shared similar feelings. He recently told Briarpatch that
“six months later, I still get very emotional ... The

reason I went was because I thought I could speak for a .

lot of people, but they wouldn’t let me ... They kept
going for the personal, provoking artificial reactions,
promoting feelings of animosity. I didn’t want to learn
how to cope with being unemployed. We all wanted
solutions.” j

Such a feeling of futility had emerged by the fourth and

final day that the participants were left with no alter-

native but the historical remedy of resistance and rebell-
ion. In an attempt to leave the conference with a solu-
tion, the ‘subject of revolution was latched on to. Al-
though the resulting video tape gave a disproportionate

amount of time to the discussion about revolution, Ron .

St. Pierre, who kicked over a chair in an attempt to shake
some sense into the session, stated that the discussion
took place in the last hour of the day.

The participants realized they had been led down the
garden.path. Although there had been no script, the
producer had had a pre-planned strategy. It was their
desire not to allow the participants to express their view.
Rather they were to express the analysis of the producer,
based on an ideology, that unemployment is an individ-
ual problem.

According to King and his consultants, ‘‘unemploy-
ment is something like a death in the family’’. It is
inevitable. All we, the unemployed, can do is simply
accept and put up with a situation and “‘get in touch with
our feelings’. They call this the adult approach as op-
posed to the less-than-adult manner in which the un-
employed conducted themselves during the conference.
Kings stated that ‘‘most of us wish that our union, our
employer, our government at every level looked after us
perfectly ... The consultants’ view was that feelings are
bits of leftover childhood . . . (The fact) that these wishes
aren't answered produces frustration and anger.”’

As Ron St. Pierre commented afterwards: :

‘*They were trying to get us to believe that we were a
bunch of cry babies and that Something was wrong with
us. The consultants seemed to play the role of govern-
ment, like the government doesn’t care. They were try-
ing to see how far we could be pushed, like how far they
could push the whole population before someone fought
back.”’ :

ILIVING
WAGES

HARE TOM UISKGN
ise Z

St. Pierre ended up playing the role of three per cent of
the population reacting violently to the deaf ears of
government. He realized immediately that he too had

been manipulated for the viewing enjoyment of video |

voyeurs. “‘After I kicked over the chair, I was mad at
myself. I had fallen into their trap. It was exactly what
they had wanted me to do.”’

In a written response to St. Pierre afterwards. Allen
King admitted what his true intentions were with respect

MM
“After I kicked over the chair, Iwas
mad at myself. I had fallen into
their trap. It was exactly what they
had wanted me to do.”’

MMM

to.the program. King said ‘‘the television program based
on the conference will convey in the most powerful

possible way the human cost of unemployment and the _ e

intense personal distress it can cause.’’ And he added,
“For an audience to experience the experience of the
unemployed is the most powerful way to move them to
act on the issue.’’

But how many unemployed workers does it take for an
employed producer to experience the experience of the
unemployed? According to St. Pierre, ‘“‘the ends do not
justify the means.” :

Although it is too late to undo the damage that was
done to those involved we can send out a warning. A
warning to resource and educational groups, trade
unions and organizations of the unemployed, who in
their desire to inform the public and support the un-
employed, might mistakenly think that this film has some
value. It does not.

The film has nothing to do with the experience of
unemployment. What it does have a lot to do with is how
ordinary people, when placed in a structured, manipula-

_ tive environment can be thrown into a group encounter

session by deceit, stripped of their emotional defences
and subjected to a cruel psychological experiment.
Perhaps to Allan King’s dismay, unemployed workers
in Canada are getting together without the help of
psychoanalysts or the Department of Manpower and:
Immigration (who funded the conference to the tune of
$75,000). Unions and committees of the unemployed
have sprung up in every major centre in Canada. They
meet to collectively discuss and act on fighting for jobs
and dealing with the many real problems facing the un-

employed. In the years to come, these groups could

become a major political force. -

Allan King and Who’s In Charge? educated no one,
misrepresents the experience of unemployment and
cruelly exploits a group of people under the guise of
helping them. The only beneficiary is Atlan King who has

_ added his name to a growing list of those who find the
_ plight of the unemployed a ripe subject to build a career

on.
King has indicated that ten half-hour ‘‘training prog-
rams’’ and a feature film are also being produced from
the conference. We suggest that they be titled, ‘‘They’re
In Charge Again!’ or better yet, ‘A Parasite in King’s
Clothing”’.

Bo — Briarpatch

20 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 2, 1984