On Friday morning, a group consisting of managers from the University of London (UoL) and its Colleges convened to consider the outcome of a review into the operations of the University of London Union (ULU). That review recommended that the University take control of ULU’s premises and services, and that the union’s democratic structures be replaced by an as yet non-existent pan-London union. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these recommendations were accepted and ULU will cease its current function in Summer 2014.
The review was initiated at the end of 2012 following concerns raised by outgoing sabbatical officers from a handful of University of London Colleges. By all accounts there are legitimate criticisms to be made of the way ULU operates, although its current sabbatical officers are working to address them. As I’m not a UoL student I can’t comment on how ULU represents its members – instead, I want to talk about what this decision means for SUs nationally.
One thing that should immediately jump out is the membership of the review board – not a single student had a vote on the union’s future. There are very good reasons why ULU wouldn’t be charged with reviewing itself. Fortunately (with the exception of the School of Advanced Study) each of UoL’s constituent institutions has its own union – the very unions which, on behalf of their students, prompted the review in the first place. It appears disingenuous in the extreme for UoL management to treat these unions as the legitimate voice of its students when it comes to criticising ULU, yet to only trust them with mere consultation when deciding its fate.
The National Union of Students (NUS), while in full PR flow about its annual award ceremony, has been outwardly completely silent on the matter. In an email to London SUs, NUS President Liam Burns cites a lack of consensus on the review’s findings as a reason for this silence. So let’s spell it out. ULU could ignore its members on free education, lead them to Kennington in the rain, and fritter money away on a rebrand and payrise for the CEO. The conduct of this review would still be reprehensible. University management do not make decisions on how we organise as students. If that’s a red line that NUS is unwilling to defend, it may as well close its own doors next Summer.
Fortunately (and I say that in the loosest sense), the majority of SUs in universities have a modicum of protection under the 1994 Education Act. ULU is a special case in that it only provides primary representation for SAS students – all other UoL institutions have their own SU to fall back on. This makes it slightly trickier for management to play these particular existential games with other unions. However, with university and union management across the country taking out injunctions against students, summarily suspending our officers, and treating their own governance structures as an optional constraint, we can’t be complacent. Our freedom to effectively organise against all manner of shit that the sector wants to throw at us is under concerted attack.
So what does your union need to do about it? At the very least, I hope that everyone who supports the principle of unions run by and for students will sign the petition supporting ULU’s right to exist. Public statements of support from individual unions would no doubt also be appreciated – this is a very immediate attack on ULU, but it strikes at the heart of why we have SUs at all. Decisions about students need to be taken by students, and any challenge to that should be resisted at every turn.
Useful Nuisance 