Negative Motion
At a meeting of UCL Union Council on 27th February, student officials voted to approve the grandly titled ‘Motion on New Governance’. Proposed by Finance and Administration Officer Lucy Gould, the motion mandates her to “carry out an investigation into an alternative Governance system.” She is to subsequently report back to Council with her findings and “recommendations for approval by the final Council of the academic year.” Ostensibly, reforms of the union’s constitutional structure are designed to streamline the decision-making process and thus improve the effectiveness of policy implementation by union apparatchiks. Sounds fairly reasonable, doesn’t it? Actually, no.
First of all, the precise problems with the union’s democratic structures are never adequately defined. Whilst there’s perfunctory reference to the collapse of student participation in UCLU and a recognition that this is somehow connected to the “cumbersome” nature of the or-ganisational structure, there’s not really any logic behind the kind of reforms that will supposedly rectify this dire situation. Instead, the motion is obsessed with promoting the most basic and superficial reforms of the union – some committee slash and burn. Because committees are apparently unable to effectively deal with policies at the “issue-based level” (seriously), they must be evil.
The fact is, Gould and co. haven’t the faintest idea themselves what the actual point of the union is. Referring to “issue-based” politics and the challenges of responding to “market competition” indicate how confused they are. The union’s prime directive – and indeed, only legitimate directive – is to provide representative functions. To stick it to the Provost. To campaign. And those committees were intended to provide an inclusive and collective forum for the discussion of the strategic-based issues of running those campaigns, and providing those representative functions. And it’s precisely because union leaders think they’re all really good economists and want to play at running their own mini-Wetherspoons that they come up with crap motions like this, and only further alienate students from the organisation that claims to represent them – but has no interest at all. Gould has already professed her admiration for the shit KCLSU reforms, which saw the transformation of the students’ union into a company. Oh boy.
UCL Union has 100% market share of the representative duties on this campus. There’s a case for reform of the union’s institutions. But talking about market share is just going to make me laugh. And it’s going to make students cry.
True colours
At that same delightful council meeting, another motion was proposed by Ben Williamson. Two motions! At the same meeting! Council must have been on fire that night. Even more so once they realised that the motion was about Social Colours reform.
Last year, my good friend and former colleague Oli Usher represented UCL with three other chaps in the 2004-5 series of University Challenge. The UCL team went all the way to the finals, and displayed knowledge and dedication in the competition. But despite placing a team of awesome UCL students on millions of TV screens and being praised by College, UCL Union maintained a stoic silence because the contestants allegedly hadn’t fulfilled the criteria of providing an “outstanding contribution to UCL Union or RUMS”. Soc Colours Committee decided they couldn’t be recognised in the annual Social Colours awards.
Anyway, pre-empting any similar future outrage, current Services and Events Officer Ben Williamson proposed that it was time that people got awards for services rendered unto the “student community of UCL” and not just UCL Union. Spiffing! I was genuinely impressed by such a rare display of awesomeness, and a proper understanding of the inclusive nature of UCL Union’s role in the community. I would have liked that awards were given to awesome people for their own individual achievements too, and academic achievement be recognised in an integrated awards ceremony with College, but hey – you can’t have everything. And so I was thinking what a jolly good fellow Ben was. Then my rather unjolly editor showed up.
Despite the reform of Social Colours, Ben admitted in a conversation his belief that sabbatical officers should be automatically entitled to Honorary Life Membership (HLM) awards – simply because it goes with the job. This is of course entirely at odds with the point of Social Colours reform; to shatter the cronyism that is inherent in the union’s honours system, and to recognise genuine achievement throughout the UCL community which exceeds any stated job description (as noted in the Social Colours criteria already). I could rant some more about this, but I thought I’d wheel in the always eloquent RUMS Clinical President Simon Lammy: “I do not think that sabbaticals and honorary life membership should share any similarity to an arranged marriage. I have absolutely no sympathy when some sabbaticals moan and groan about their workloads because there are some of us students who work our socks off still studying and not being paid! Sabbaticals are not stupid and complaining about long days sounds bizarre when they know beforehand that the job is an educational career enhancing apprenticeship.”
And that’s that. When the Sabb HLM nominations inevitably arrive at Union Council in the near future, it will be interesting to see what happens – at least one executive officer has already promised to quorum at least one Sabb’s HLM. Could be entertaining to watch.
The Policy That Time Forgot
Did you get that e-mail from the Education and Welfare Officer about the AUT and NAT-FHE strike action? On 7 March, members of the academic unions went on strike at UCL and across the country. Maz Young clearly stated: “UCLU does not support the strikes.”
Several members of the part-time executive have spoken off the record about their surprise – and disgust – with the e-mail. “Whilst we have spoken briefly in committee about our concerns with the implications of an assessment boycott upon students’ work, we never actually came up with a collective position on the strike,” said one executive with departmental responsibilities. “This email does not represent my views, nor that of UCL Union as a whole.”
Oh dear. Also, former E&W Officer Alex Coles giggled when he got the email. “It looks like she cut and pasted my email from two years ago!” he said. The most shameful thing about that? He copied and pasted it from his predecessor.
Parting Shots
This being my final issue of the CG, I was going to write some profound last words here. But I’m out of room. So I thought I’d tell you about something funny that I heard last week. Apparently, one of the Sabb-Elects for next year doesn’t like me. Because I only ever report the bad news apparently. “And bad news makes me feel bad.”
Idiot. [We wish Zoe Davies well in her new job - Ed.]