I’m pleased to say that the National Union of Students is backing the Lambeth College Struggle, a very significant dispute in South London against attacks on staff terms and conditions, and the privatisation of education (the intention is to turn it into a free school), and closing down of ESOL courses.
There’s a big demo in London tomorrow (Saturday 17th May) and I’d urge everyone to go along! Facebook event here.
However, that support is not without condition, which I think deserves discussion. The NUS leadership (i.e. the Labour Students faction), took parts to remove Resolves 7 to donate £100 to the strike fund. Joe Vinson, the VP FE claimed that this was because we are not a trust fund/cash cow (paraphrasing) to donate to this or that cause. This led on from a previous discussion on supporting South African Miners for Justice (remitted from annual conference), which was also opposed on the same grounds). I support NUS giving money to both of these, but I do think that there is a deliberate misrepresentation of the situation at hand with regards to Lambeth which points to an inherent problem in NUS.
Sky Yarlett, current NUS LGBT Officer (Open Place) defended keeping the parts, saying ‘if we don’t do this, we may as well take the ‘Union’ out of our name’. Sky has a point – it is historically, and contemporaneously usual for trade unions to donate to the strike funds of other unions when they are taking industrial action. Motions will regularly go to trade union branches or trades council, or national trade union conferences/congresses to donate money to strike funds of various disputes in other trade unions. There are a number of reasons for this. It shows clear solidarity with that struggle – not just in words, but in actions. If we are not willing to back up verbal support, by ‘putting our money where our mouth is’, what kind of solidarity is that? This adds to the general feeling that the ‘Union’ word is a bit of a joke. It is also simply misrepresentation to call the Lambeth strike fund a ’cause’. Strike funds are there to provide financial assistance to workers who strike. When you strike, you are making a significant financial sacrifice (not just your pay but also reckonable service towards your pension) for the collective good of your colleagues. Not only that, but in this case, they are doing so to secure the future of education for students in Lambeth. So, for the NUS to refuse to give (what can only be called a tokenistic amount of) money to support those workers, it is making a political statement that, whilst it can afford to do so, it is not willing to support another union (UCU and Unison in this case), as well as the Further Education students at the college, who back the strike, and are assisting with fundraising for the strike fund.
It is also not the case that NUS can’t afford £100, or much more, to donate to various campaigns. Whilst liberation officers and sections in the meeting said that their budgets are stretched enough, the two are not in conflict. NUS has enough money to pay for better resources for it’s own democratic campaigns, and for outside campaigns which require financial support. How do we know this? Well, it is well known that NUS pumps £1000s into completely uneccessary projects – for example, the recent rebrand. NUS have not publicly released the costs of this marketing rebranding, and Toni Pearce evaded answering when asked at conference recently. In addition, the CEO of NUS (yes that’s right, a ‘union’ needs a Chief Executive, apparently), Ben Kernighan* earns £100,ooo, taking a 16.7% pay rise last year when the majority of the NUS membership are in £1000s of debt due to student loans and later, graduate unemployment and so on (more on this here from our favourite NUS Trustee, Ed Bauer). So yes, NUS has money, but it chooses to put it elsewhere.
Motion: Lambeth College Struggle
NEC believes
1. That on 7 May Unison announced that its members at Lambeth College had voted 83 percent to strike over
attacks on their terms and conditions.
2. That this came after the 30 April decision by a judge to issue an injunction preventing UCU members at the
college going on all-out strike – despite the fact they had voted 95 percent to strike.
NEC further believes
1. That both UCU and Unison the college plan to be on strike soon.
2. That this is an extremely important and potentially precedent-setting dispute in terms of defending FE from
the cuts and casualisation that are gutting it – vital not just for staff but for the future of students’ education
too.
3. That we should seek to mobilise the movement to ensure that the Lambeth College workers win.
NEC resolves:
1. To promote and mobilise for the UCU demonstration in Lambeth on 17 May.
2. To promote and mobilise for the National Day of Action on 22 May.
3. To publish a statement of support for the Lambeth College workers spelling out the significance of the
dispute for FE and condemning the college management’s use of legal intimidation against the workers.
4. To establish a working group in support of the dispute including the VP FE and any other NEC member who
wishes to be part of it.
5. To ask the VP FE to contact UCU, Unison and the student union at the college to discuss support for the
strike.
6. To ask Constituent Members to send messages of support and make donations/raise money for the strike
fund.
<7. To donate £100 to the strike fund.> (Part removed)
*Edit: Whilst I was writing this post I received an email from the NUS President stating that the current NUS Chief Executive, Ben Kernighan has left NUS:
“After careful consideration Ben Kernighan has decided that he does not wish to continue in his position as Chief Executive of NUS and has now left the organisation.
“Ben successfully led a complex process of bringing together the disparate parts of the group under one new set of terms and conditions. He led the organisation to a number of policy successes around higher and further education funding and regulation as well as wider policy wins including winning concessions to the Lobbying Act. He also oversaw the successful launch of the National Society of Apprentices. Membership of NUS grew during Ben’s time here and he used his wide network of contacts within civil society to broaden the reach and message of NUS and place it in a strong position in the run up to the general election.
Rosie Huzzard 