NUS Disaffiliation

Hi everyone,

As some of you may be aware, there is a referendum in week 6 to decide whether or not to disaffiliate from the NUS. I've attempted to construct my point of view into a semi-legible rant, which I invite you to read and discuss.

Unfortunately I can't be at the debate in person due to being asandwich year student (no matter how much I'd love to - if this was on a weekend I'd travel up to York specifically to join in the debates).

The biggest argument against NUS disaffiliation is that of losing student representation. The question we should really be asking is how representative of the student body is the NUS? In the 2002 disaffiliation of Imperial College London from the NUS the resounding answer was 'not very'. Sen Ganesh, then president of the ICL union,said "NUS's claim to be representative of students is not borne out by their work". And again, the democratic processes of the NUS are heavily skewed towards politically active students rather than the less active and more apathetic masses. The NUS should be a politically neutral organisation, but many of the executive are Labour supporting students.

My main bug bear against the NUS is their use of their immense membership to pursue aims not related to those of students or student welfare. Why is the NUS a member of the Stop The War coalition, for example? The NUS should be focussing their activities on those that directly benefit students, not other political activities that,although noble, is unrelated to student life.

NUS representation is also internally fragmented - the NUS position on the AUT lecturer strike was decided without consultation of the constituent student unions and was also incredibly fragmented, with individual Unions taking their own stance on the issue, ranging from no support, to support of the issues, but not the actions, to full support of the marking boycott.

Representation to the government is another argument brought, however you must question the effectiveness of NUS campaigns - top-up fees were still introduced to the full extent as Parliament intended, and newer moves by the Government, such as the appointment of a dedicated Minister for Students to be the voice of students in Government undermine the NUS's claim to be the voice of students.

I believe that student government works best at a grass roots level, and by disaffiliating from the NUS, this would allow our sabbaticals and Union officers to focus on issues closer to home.This is also where the NUS falls down, as they are too detached frome veryday student life to be able to get involved in local issues that really do affect us.

One of the main issues that seems to drive this campaign is our NUS affiliation fee - we pay £40,000 (approx £4)per student directly from the NUS to be a member. In addition, the majority of students are now purchasing NUS Extra discount cards of which a further £6 go to the NUS. However, the counter-argument is that if we didn't pay this money to the NUS, the University would never give us it in the first place. However, I believe that if YUSU can present a perfectly acceptable use for the money and justify it the University then it would still be received by YUSU - naturally the University is not just going to give an extra £40,000 to YUSU without it being justified! I'm sure YUSU have things they would love to spend money on that could be easily justified, and of course the new easiest cost to justify would be the cost in printing replacement YUSU membership cards to take over from the old NUS card, and of course the funding deficit incurred by the loss of profits from the sale of the NUS Extra card.

It is a well known fact that the NUS Extra card is not the only way to get discounts. Most places that advertise discounts only advertise a"student discount", meaning any valid form of student ID is acceptable - as a non NUS Extra card holder, I've found my York ID accepted anywhere a student discount is given, and indeed many places were so bewildered by the introduction of the NUS Democracy and NUS Extra card,in addition to the old NUS card which Unions who didn't opt in to the Extra scheme still issue, that many retailers have introduced their own student cards - my wallet has a Waterstones, HMV and Virgin student card, and for those people that still desire for an internationally recognised student card, the ISIC card (Available at retail for £9,although I'm sure YUSU could negotiate a discount for a group sale) is still available - ISIC is simply a student identity scheme run by the International Student Travel Confederation, supported by the UN, and does not get bogged down in the politics that the NUS does.

Do we really want to continue to be part of a union that poorly represents its members, uses their inflated membership numbers to further its own political aims and when it comes down to the important matters regarding student representation, it either falls down on effectiveness or can not decide on a consistent policy? Disaffiliation allows us to opt out of our numbers being used to further political aims and careers and brings us no disadvantage, and some minor benefits of returning control back to ourselves.

The NUS needs us; we don't need them.

Thanks for reading all of that rant!

(comments and healthy discussion welcome)

Reply 1

TSR Community Staff

You ain't going to get a 'health discussion' form me as I have nothing more to add.

All I have to say, is a bloody good post and hope this is successful. It's about time this happened and I hope support at York is widespread and enough people feel strongly enough to vote in favour of this!

University of York

York

Reply 2

worldwide

who copied who here then?
http://yorkuk.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5597687730

Reply 3

Dez

Provided it's financially viable to disaffiliate, I see no problems in doing so.

They copied me.

I totally agree, and a great post. I know which way I'll be voting!

Reply 6

worldwide

anne marie canning also made a good point, though, which is:

The money accrued from NUS Extra sales is deducted from our affiliation fee.

So £36k comes down to £20k if you look at it that way.

Reply 7

Dez

That means the students are paying for affiliation rather than the union. Go figure.

Reply 8

TSR Community Staff

worldwide

anne marie canning also made a good point, though, which is:

The money accrued from NUS Extra sales is deducted from our affiliation fee.

So £36k comes down to £20k if you look at it that way.

£20,000 is still a huge amount, no matter how you look at it. And the Uni gets nothing much back for that and the NUS is still not representing students well.

Also, why should the students themselves be paying for the affiliation fees? When I was a student we didn't even have to pay for an NUS card at all. There was only one sort and it was free to anyone who wanted one so to start and use the argument of people buying such cards helps bring the affiliation costs down is a pretty weak one when the argument should be against having to pay for one type of card as all the card does is split the students in to two groups. That seems totally unfair.

Reply 9

laser

worldwide: If you include the profits of NUS Extra sales, you should also be including the cost to students of the NUS Extra card, which brings the actual amount to £37,000.

Reply 10

Harlequins_Kiss

*skating onto thin ice*
On the grounds that I'm not a student at York (yet - I've had to defer entry for a year on funding grounds) I obviously can't vote etc. I do however feel I could make a slight contribution. Having read the above there were a few points to make.
I have been on a Union Committee at my previous Uni and I have to say much of what the NUS does has nothing to do with students as students. I found my time serving in an NUS Affliated Union possibly one of the most frustrating times because the 'ultra vires' rule was a constant issue at a local level and seemingly totally ignored by the NUS at National Level.
In some areas this got to stupid levels. I was Students With Disabilities officer at my Uni and while I was in office there was a motion at the National Campaign conference to change the name of the campaign to Disabled Students because it was more fitting with the social model of disability (rather than the medical model of impairment). Digging through old paperwork I discovered this was the exact reason it had been changed from Disabled Students to Students With Disabilities. This for me was a good example of one of the major issues with the NUS - far too much bureaucracy and not enough activism for students in general. In the end I took a personal decision to avoid national campaigns as much as possible and focus on changing things for my fellow disabled students at our own university.
I think as a general rule more involved a union is with the NUS hierarchy the less it is active at a grass roots level.

Reply 11

laser

I should probably point out a few mistakes in my original rant - apparently 12,000 students are YUSU members and our affiliation fee is £36,000, not £40,000