30TH JANUARY NEC DELEGATION MEETING & NEC MEETING
In which I can almost taste the difference…
I woke up on the morning of 30th January from a bizarre dream; I dreamt that, in mid-December, there'd been a motions-only NEC with an incredibly high-level of political debate that passed a lot of worthwhile policy. As I shook myself awake, I realised how ridiculous such a notion was and began looking forward to a day that would remind me what NEC meetings are supposed to be like.
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Vote ENS at NUS Conference 2006
Education Not for Sale is standing five candidates in the National Executive Committee elections at this year's NUS Conference (March 28-30). All of them are left-wing activists with a proven track record of campaigning and representation. The common political basis all our candidates will be standing on can be found here.
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We demand sweat-free campuses!
from No Sweat
We are circulating a letter-petition demanding for sweat-free campuses (covering college merchandise, purchasing and employment rights and wages of cleaners, security and other college staff), which will be presented to Universities UK during the national anti-sweatshop campus week of action, 11-18 February 2006.
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Protest to free Iranian bus workers!
From Eric Lee, LabourStart website - www.labourstart.org.uk
Four days ago, security forces in Iran began arresting hundreds of striking bus workers in Tehran.
That’s right — I said “hundreds”.
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FE STUDENTS FIGHT PRIVATISATION
By Rob MacDonald - President, Lambeth College Student Union
Lambeth Student Unions boycott of canteens was a fantastic success. Hundreds of students and staff joined the boycott. In all four canteens only a handful of meals were bought. The Student Union believes 95% of students and staff that normally use the canteen didn’t on boycott day. College and Scolarest management now know how serious the students are and the power we can have when properly organised. After the boycott a delegation from the Student Union handed in a 1400 strong petition calling for food at prices students can afford.
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Defend freedom of speech! Defend the Matthew Boulton Two!
On 5 January, Assed Baig and Darrell Williams were excluded from Matthew Boulton College in Birmingham for distributing a political newsletter. As a result they will not be able to complete the last four months of their course and their possibility of applying to university is in jeopardy.
Their publication, the Guerilla, discussed issues including the Iraq war, corporate influence in education, student apathy and the college's ban on the formation of religious societies.
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Emergency motion on suspension of students from Matthew Boulton College
Passed 15 December 2005
This NEC notes
1. On Friday 9th December two students at Matthew Boulton College, Assed Baig and Darrell Williams, received a letter informing them that they had been suspended ‘with immediate effect for an indefinite period'. They have had no contact from the College since despite making repeated phone calls.
2. The letter refers to an ‘incident' on the 6th December when the two students were approached by security guards for distributing a newsletter. They were questioned, had their identity cards removed and were prevented from re-entering the college premises.
3. The newsletter contains the students' views on international and national issues, student apathy and several criticisms of college policy. It is in no way offensive.
NUS NEC believes:
1. Students have a right to organise, to express their views on political questions and to criticise their institutions policies and practices.
2. These students were acting within their rights and should not have been suspended.
3. This suspension is impeding their ability to complete their UCAS applications and if not lifted immediately could seriously jeopardise their chances of finding a university place.
This NEC resolves:
1. To write to the college principle urging that the suspension is lifted immediately.
2. To send a letter of support to the students.
3. To raise awareness through an article on the website and launch an online petition.
4. To assist their campaign for re-instatement in other practicable ways.
NUS Statement - Reinstate the Matthew Boulton College Two
We oppose the decision of Matthew Boulton College to expel two students, Assed Baig and Darrell Williams, for distributing a newsletter on campus.
The newsletter included articles on the lack of student representation, the Iraq war and criticised aspects of the college's policy including a ban on religious societies.
The college's decision is jeopardising the student's academic progress as they are currently unable to complete their University College Admissions Service (UCAS) applications whose deadline was 15 January, or sit their exams.
We believe that students have a right to organise, to express their views and to criticise their institutions' policies and practices.
We call on the college to reverse their decision with immediate effect.
Motions to NUS NEC, January 30
Motions I'm submitting to the NUS NEC on December 15th - please read, put similar motions to your unions and take up these issues in your campaigning groups!
Defend state education
Support the RMT
Reclaim our education! Reclaim our national union!
Top-up fees mean the privatisation of higher education, the next stage of the invasion of our universities by business. They mean continued underfunding, casualised lecturers and staff, corporate control of research and a rising tide of market-drive course, department and campus closures. They mean students working in low-paid, ununionised jobs for longer and longer hours to make ends meet - and losing out in their education as a result. They mean our universities facing the same fate as our FE colleges, where the concerns of those who learn and teach have been openly discarded in favour of the demands of employers.
As with New Labour’s other market-driven “reforms”, there is massive opposition to this process. That opposition remains largely passive, because our National Union of Students is “led” by people who have no real disagreements with the Blairite agenda, and certainly no willingness to fight it. Over the last two years, NUS’s education campaign has been virtually invisible.
By voting for Education Not for Sale candidates at this year’s NUS conference, you can send a clear message to the Blairites in NUS, to university and college managers and to the Government that students are no longer willing to see their education dismantled and sold off piece by piece. You can elect representatives who will mobilise NUS’s membership, resources and influence to fight tooth-and-nail against the privatisation of education and for the positive changes students need.
- Reclaim our education. Consistent, vocal support for free education and a living grant for every student. No to corporate control of research and curricula, no to closures, no to hall sell-offs. For democratic local authority control of Further Education. A mass national education funding demonstration in London in the first-term and a nationally-coordinated campaign of direct action against top-up fees and closures. Make “Tax the rich to fund education” our central slogan and demand.
- Workers and students unite. Campaign for a national minimum wage of £7.50 an hour without age or any other exemptions. Fight for every university, college and student union to end contracting out and pay its workers a living wage. Organise a nationally-promoted, locally-run campaign to unionise students who work. Active solidarity with workers’ struggles against privatisation and for decent pay, conditions and services, in Britain and internationally.
- A democratic, political, campaigning NUS. Money should be spent on campaigning and political education, not on apolitical training and glitzy ‘launches’. Fight the ultra vires laws. Open NUS accounts to public scrutiny. Set and enforce clear political and ethical guidelines for NUSSL. Defend the Block of 12 and National Conference, fight for mass involvement in the national union.
- No compromise on liberation. Consistent support for LGBT, black, disabled and women’s liberation. Make clear there is no room for racism, including anti-Muslim racism and anti-semitism, in our movement. Defend abortion rights, campaign for free abortion on demand. Fight the rise of the religious right in the student movement - for a secular student movement and education system. Solidarity with immigrants and asylum-seekers, no to immigration controls.
- International solidarity. No to war, yes to democratic change. Support for workers’ and other liberation struggles across the world. Against the occupation, in solidarity with the new workers’, women’s and student movements in Iraq.
Anti-sweatshop week of action: a voice from Argentina’s occupied factories
From February 11-18, No Sweat and Students Against Sweatshops will be working with activists across the country to organise the first ever student anti-sweatshop week of action.
As part of this, Jose Julian Pununari from the occupied Argentinean Zanon factory will be visiting the UK on a speaker tour co-sponsored by No Sweat and the Argentina Solidarity Campaign.
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ENS Women Open Letter to women in Student Broad Left
To women in Student Broad Left
Dear sisters,
From attacks on abortion rights to exploitation at work, from education funding to privatisation and cuts in our health service, there is an urgent need for a strong, activist student women's movement. Socialist feminists in the student movement should be uniting to build the kind of campaigns that can inspire and organise hundreds of new activists.
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Petition to Defend Abortion Rights
ENS Women are collecting a petition for the defence and extension of abortion rights. We hope to have collected at least 1,000 signatures by the time we hand in the first section to Downing Street the weekend after next. A PDF version is available here.
Get Involved!
- Print off the petition, collect some signatures and sent them back to us at ENS Women, c/o Sofie Buckland, Newnham College, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DF.
- Come and help us hand it in: meet at Downing Street, 12 noon, Saturday 4 February.
17TH JANUARY ‘COALITION 2010' LAUNCH RECEPTION
In which I'm haunted by the ghosts of tiger prawns and Bill Rammell…
I thought that the idea of inviting leading Blairite ministers to events intended to launch NUS's campaigns aimed at fighting to abolish all forms of charging for higher education was an unpleasant and hazy memory from the dreary days of September 2005. Sadly, the whole rigmarole was repeated on 17th January. In the Houses of Parliament, no less. And yes - the tiger prawns were back too.
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Universally Challenged
Click here for an article from Corporate Watch on the role of corporate investment in university life, from scholarships to research and development, and activist responses to it.
Germany: students hit by social cuts
By Ben Lewis
On 20 November 2005, 3,000 students from across the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia gathered to demonstrate against the first reading of a bill, proposed by the state's Christian Democrat (CDU)-Liberal (FDP) coalition government, to introduce student fees of €500 per semester (around £675 per academic year) The second reading is planned to take place in March, and if the bill passes, fees will be implemented from October 2007. Education policy in Germany is, due to its federal structures, determined by local government in the states, so although similar demonstrations were organised in other affected areas such as Stuttgart and Hamburg, the action was not nationally coordinated.
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Mary Partington for National Women’s Officer
ENS supporter Mary Partington is standing for National Union of Students National Women's Officer. Her manifesto is available as a PDF here.
For more information on the campaign and how to get involved email Mary. For more information about ENS Women please click here to read our statement on rebuilding the student women’s movement.
ENS model amendments for NUS Conference 2006
Last term, student unions submitted motions for the 2006 NUS Conference, which takes place March 28-30. This term, SUs can submit shorter motions, known as “amendments”.
The four “zones” or topics for discussion are “Education”, “Strong and active unions”, “Welfare and student rights” and “Society and citizenship”; each SU is entitled to submit one amendment in each zone. The word limit is 240, and the deadline for submission is 1pm, Friday 10 February.
This is a vital opportunity for left-wing activists to get text submitted to NUS Conference. ENS activists have produced a number of model amendments which you can propose to your student union.
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ENS amendments on “Society and citizenship”
Model amendments for NUS Conference in the “Society and citizenship” zone
Sweatshop labour - Amends Motion 614
Support Coke workers’ rights - Amends Motion 612
No to war, yes to democratic and workers’ rights in the Middle East - Amends Motion 623
Asylum and immigration rights - Amends Motion 626
Solidarity with workers and students in Venezuela - Amends Motion 606
Chechnya - Amends Motion 617
Sweatshop labour - Amends Motion 614
Conference believes
1. “Sweatshop” means: poverty pay, forced overtime, poor health and safety, sexual abuse and violent harassment, especially against trade unionists.
2. Workers must be free to organise independent trade unions: corporate codes of conduct mean little without grassroots workers’ organisations capable of enforcing them.
3. Some of the high street’s most famous names, including Nike, Gap and Reebok, have been exposed as sweatshop employers and users of child labour.
4. No Sweat found sweatshops in the East London paying illegally low wages to workers producing clothes for Top Shop, while Top Shop owner Phillip Green recently paid himself and family members £1.2 billion in dividends.
5. With the help of No Sweat, the Haitian union Batay Ouvriye has just won a major success in organising Levi Strauss workers.
Conference further believes
1. Institutions often have no idea where and under what conditions merchandise sold on campuses was made.
2. Many institutions have outsourced services to anti-union companies paying poverty wages.
3. The first national campus week of action in February was a step forward towards developing student solidarity with sweatshop workers.
4. NUS must campaign for ’sweat-free campuses’ and pressure institutions to ensure living wages and union rights for all workers on campus.
Conference resolves
1. To support campaigns against child labour, poverty pay and for union rights.
2. To affiliate to No Sweat/SAS for £100 and donate £200 to Batay Ouvriye.
3. To back a 2007 campus week of action against sweatshops.
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Support Coke workers’ rights - Amends Motion 612
Conference believes
1. That “Constructive Engagement ” is useful in certain situations but not in others; alone it provides no hard financial incentive for change. Institutional boycotts by students have a proven record of success: forcing Pepsi out of Burma and Taco Bell to raise wages and end slave conditions for farmworkers.
2. That overwhelming evidence suggests that Coca-Cola sponsors and directs paramilitaries in Colombia that have killed eight union activists, and intimidated thousands more, including students. This view is supported by the report of a delegation from New York City Council.
3. That US students have walked out of a committee engaging with Coke due to the corporation’s obstructive and manipulative behaviour. NUSSL’s engagement process has not touched on the substance of allegations against Coke.
4. That Coke’s abuses against workers have not slowed since NUSSL’s engagement began; they have intensified, expanded to Turkey and Indonesia. Workers in Colombia continue to be threatened.
5. That last August, Coke successfully took legal steps to prevent many of its workers joining unions. By smashing unions, Coke can lower labour costs.
6. That the union of Coke workers, SINALTRAINAL, has called for a global boycott of Coke in support of their campaign for basic human and workers' rights.
7. That twenty universities worldwide have already boycotted Coke.
Conference further believes
1. That NUS has a unique chance to strike a huge blow for workers' rights.
Conference resolves
1. That NUSSL and NUS will boycott commercial relations with Coca-Cola.
2. That they will have no sole-trading relationship with Coca-Cola.
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No to war, yes to democratic and workers’ rights in the Middle East - Amends Motion 623
Conference believes
1. The invasion and occupation of Iraq have created a catastrophic situation, with the country being torn apart between nationalist and religious militias and a repressive and undemocratic ‘government.'
2. Iraq’s trade union, unemployed, women’s and student movements - the only hope for an independent, secular, democratic Iraq, free from foreign occupation and domestic tyranny - are fighting for survival.
3. The constitution ratified in October 2005 creates a semi-theocratic state where no law can be passed contradicting “the undisputed principles of Islam”, posing a massive threat to women’s and other democratic rights.
4. This constitution does not guarantee the right to strike. The Iraqi government recently issued a decree taking control of trade union finances and constitutions.
Conference further believes
1. The Iranian regime is a threat to its own people and to its neighbours, as demonstrated by its execution of young gay men for having sex and by President Ahmedinejad’s call for the destruction of Israel and Holocaust denial.
2. Opposition to US intervention in Iran must be combined with support for democratic, labour movement and women’s opposition to the regime.
Conference resolves
1. To support Iraqi workers’, women’s and student movements in their fight for a free, democratic and secular Iraq.
2. To donate £150 to the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq and the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq.
3. To oppose US intervention in Iran and support democratic, labour movement and women’s opposition to the regime.
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Asylum and immigration rights - Amends Motion 626
Conference believes
1. Over 1,800 immigrants are held in detention centres and prisons in Britain, without trial, without time limit and right to bail.
2. Most detainees are asylum-seekers, while some are people being deported who've never claimed asylum including those refused entry as visitors or students.
3. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture considers this approach “fundamentally flawed. ”
Conference further believes
1. We do not have an ‘immigration problem’ but the problem of a government taking advantage of cheap labour that illegal immigrants provide while simultaneously stoking up racism.
2. Illegal immigrants are vulnerable to exploitation, often receiving below the minimum wage, in sub-standard conditions and without union representation.
3. People seeking a better life in Britain should be treated with compassion and solidarity.
4. Detention of asylum-seekers is inherently inhumane.
5. This system punishes asylum seekers not for anything they have done, but in the hope of deterring others from exercising their right to claim asylum.
6. Immigrants are often used as scapegoats for government failures.
7. All workers, regardless of nationality and origin, should receive a living wage, work in good, safe conditions and have the right to join an independent union.
Conference resolves
1. To defend the right to asylum.
2. To raise awareness, dispelling myths and misconceptions about refugees and immigrants in this country.
3. To campaign for the closure of detention centres and an end to detention of asylum seekers
4. To campaign for an end to immigration controls.
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Solidarity with workers and students in Venezuela - Amends Motion 606
Conference believes
1. Major struggles have taken place in Venezuela since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998 and the attempt by US-backed oligarchs to remove him in 2002.
2. His government has carried out a number of progressive policies including limited land reform, workers’ co-management of some companies and increased spending on public services.
3. Chavez’s power is nonetheless based not on the Venezuelan workers’ and social justice movements, but on the military and big business.
4. This is clearly demonstrated by Chavez’s comment to Fortune magazine in October 2005: “foreign corporations should rest assured and have faith in our laws and…government. We’re doing very good business with them. Almost all the oil companies in the world are in Venezuela - Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Conoco-Phillips, Petrobas, Statoil, Shell.”
5. Chavez maintains friendly relations with the China's Stalinist dictators, Robert Mugabe, the Iranian dictatorship, Lula’s neoliberal government and with Argentinean President Kirchner, who has attacked Argentina’s occupied factory movement.
Conference further believes
1. The formation of the National Union of Workers (UNT) by activists opposed to the right-wing policy of the old Venezuelan Workers’ Confederation (CTV) in 2003 was a significant act.
2. The UNT is now the main union federation in Venezuela.
3. The focus of any meaningful solidarity campaign should be the UNT and other grassroots movements, not the Chavez government.
Conference resolves
1. To build solidarity and make links with the UNT, and to investigate making links with the student movement in Venezuela.
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Chechnya - Amends Motion 617
Conference believes
1. Earlier this year, HRW described the mass disappearances, murder and torture of innocent people in Chechnya by Russian forces and their local proxies as a “crime against humanity”.
2. The elections held in November did nothing to change the basic situation in Chechnya, which remains under a brutal Russian occupation.
3. Tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people have been killed over the last six years as a result of Russia’s occupation.
4. The head of Chechnya’s security forces, Ramzan Kadyrov, is a warlord who deploys his forces as private armies to intimidate any opposition to Russia's proposed settlement.
5. According to Putin’s United Russian Party, “nobody [was] allowed to participate in…elections who had not already had negotiations with Moscow on what their role was going to be.” Only Russian parties were allowed to stand.
6. A spokersperson for the All-Russian Movement for Human Rights stated: “Even those in favour of a union with Russia…have to support Kadyrov, or leave the political stage…I’m not even talking about…real political opponents, who cannot even express…opinions in principle.”
Conference believes
1. In the right of national self-determination.
2. The Chechen people should have the right to determine their own future free of Russian interference.
3. Support for Chechen self-determination does not imply support for right-wing, religious fundamentalist and gangster-like elements of the resistance to Russian occupation.
Conference resolves
1. To support the Chechen people’s right to self-determination and call for immediate Russian withdrawal from Chechnya.
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ENS amendments on “Welfare and student rights”
Model amendments for NUS Conference in the “Welfare and student rights” zone
Public services not private profit - Amends Motion 802
Students rights’ at work - Amends Motion 803
Defend abortion rights - Amends Motion 817
Public services not private profit - Amends Motion 802
Conference believes
1. New Labour’s attacks on education are part of a general assault on public services.
2. The Government has overseen an effective cut in the pensions of workers in teaching, health, civil service and local government by forcing new workers to work until 65, in order to receive a full pension.
3. The spread of PFI in NHS is quickening.
4. The Government is targeting new areas for privatisation, including the Post Office.
5. The Schools White Paper pushes schools to become ‘independent, self-governing state schools’ in which private, voluntary or religious trusts will control public assets and children’s education.
6. The Government is pushing for the privatisation of council housing.
Conference further believes
1. The Government dislikes the welfare state because it represents the principle of human solidarity and human need taking precedence over profit.
2. The Labour Party conference revolt against Government policies on pensions, NHS, council housing etc creates a major opportunity for campaigning.
Conference resolves
1. To work with trade unions and Labour lefts to oppose the assault on public services and the welfare state.
2. To campaign for an immediate end to all privatisation, the renationalisation of privatised industries and increased taxation of the rich and business to fund democratically controlled public services.
3. To campaign for maintaining the public sector retirement age at 60, and a living state pension indexed to earnings.
4. To oppose the Schools White Paper and send a representative to the national campaign against Academies.
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Students rights’ at work - Amends Motion 803
Conference believes
1. Debt and poverty mean that most students have to work while studying.
2. Working long hours while studying, has a detrimental effect on students’ lives and studies.
3. Many students work in badly-paid jobs.
4. Many students take work in the service sector.
5. Such jobs are unlikely to be unionised and workers in such jobs often suffer from poor job security, poor health and safety, long hours, and low wages.
Conference further believes
1. All workers have the right to join a union. NUS should actively encourage students to join a relevant TU.
2. NUS and TUs should encourage ‘best practice’ on British campuses: workers who work in SUs, in college canteens or as security staff or cleaners deserve decent pay, conditions and contracts. In particular NUS should encourage CMs to take up ‘Living Wage’ campaigns; one estimate in London is that this amounts to at least £6.70/hour. the European ‘Decency
Threshold’ is £7.50/hour.
3. Outsourcing of services on campus must end; all services should be brought ‘in-house’.
4. NUS should fight for the repeal of the anti-trade union laws introduced by the Tories and maintained by Blair which prevent workers from organising effectively for their rights.
Conference resolves
1. To instruct the NEC to discuss ways of campaigning with TUs to unionise campus workers, students and non-students alike.
2. To launch such a campaign in the next academic year.
3. To campaign for the repeal of the anti-trade union laws.
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Defend abortion rights - Amends Motion 817
Conference believes
1. Access to abortion is under attack, with widespread support in Parliament for reduction of the 24 week limit.
2. The political climate is now such that Liam Fox MP felt confident enough to advocate a reduction to 12 weeks.
3. Discussion about limits should not distract us from the fact that women in Britain have no right to an abortion, only the right to ask two doctors if they can have one.
4. If we are serious about guaranteeing women free access to safe abortions, we must demand the right to abortion on request.
Conference further believes
1. The postcode lottery of NHS funding means that in some parts of the country it is extremely difficult to get a publicly funded abortion.
2. New Labour’s programme of privatising the NHS will make this worse.
3. The increase of religious schools and creation of ‘independent’ religious state schools will have a detrimental impact on young women getting the sex education and sexual confidence they need to control their bodies and their lives.
Conference resolves
1. To campaign against reduction of the 24 week limit.
2. To campaign for free abortion on request.
3. To campaign for a publicly-funded NHS where free abortion access is guaranteed and integrated as an ordinary service performable by trained nurses.
4. To link with campaigns for the defence and extension of abortion rights internationally, particularly in Ireland.
5. To organise a lobby of Parliament for a women’s right to choose.
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ENS amendments on “Strong and active unions”
Model amendments for NUS Conference in the “Strong and active unions” zone
Cut waste, not democracy - Amends Motion 706
‘Ultra vires’ law and student union campaigning - Amends Motion 710
Further Education unions - Amends Motion 726
Ethical NUS card
Support Coke workers' rights - Amends Motion 612
Cut waste, not democracy - Amends Motion 706
Conference believes
1. Regardless of whether the reforms carried out at the June and November 2004 Extraordinary Conferences were necessary, it is indisputable that NUS's democracy has been curtailed since then.
2. Savings allegedly required to resolve the financial crisis have disproportionately effected democracy and campaigning.
3. The NUS's spending over the last year includes: £50,000 for research into “reform ”; £14,000 for an inquiry into anti-Semitism led by a management consultant (important but why done like this?); £20,000 (25% of the whole budget) on the campaigns launch; more than £50,000 on the National Director's salary.
4. At the very least, we must maintain National Conference at its current size and length, maintain existing observers’ rights and the current level of services provided to delegates.
Conference further believes
1. The Block of 12 is a guarantee of pluralism, minority representation and accountability, preventing the groupings of opinion that are strongest numerically from totally dominating NUS's leadership.
2. Replacing the Block with officers elected at unrepresentative regional conferences would be totally undemocratic and would mean a much less diverse and representative NEC.
3. The blogging system is important in maintaining NEC accountability.
Conference resolves
1. To mandate the NEC to formulate a plan to ensure than more money is not wasted.
2. To maintain National Conference in its current form.
3. To maintain the Block of 12 in its current form.
4. To censure NEC members who had not blogged three or more times by January 1 2006.
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‘Ultra vires’ law and student union campaigning - Amends Motion 710
Conference believes
1. In the need to cut through confusion which exists among activists concerning the ‘ultra vires' provisions of charities law.
2. This law violates students’ democratic rights. It should entirely be up to union members - not the Government - to decide what SUs spend money on.
3. Since most activists know little about what the law's content, it is common for officers to use it to avoid mandates they don't want to uphold and oppose policies they don't like even when there's no question of illegality.
4. In cases where expenditure is ultra vires, there are almost always alternatives (e.g. organising benefit gigs, paying for educational materials).
Conference further believes
1. NUS should campaign for legal reform to allow SUs to define their own charitable status, allowing members to campaign on issues of their choosing.
2. NUS should produce a guide which a) explains in detail, with case study examples, the actual content of the law; b) proposes ways in which unions can get round it; c) sets out the case for legal reform.
3. The obvious link with anti-trade union laws, which play a similar function in limiting the democratic rights of trade union members.
Conference resolves
1. To campaign for reform of charities law to allow student unions to freely decide what they spend money on.
2. To produce a guide as set out above.
3. To make clear in this guide how this relates to the anti-trade union laws.
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Further Education unions - Amends Motion 726
Conference believes
1. Events at Matthew Boulton College highlight current attacks on students’ rights to organisation and freedom of expression.
2. The potential loss of a week’s EMA due to engagement in political activity is further such attack, and penalises students who choose to participate in their union.
3. FE SUs are generally under-developed, under-resourced, with insufficient staff support, inadequate space and little continuity of training and experience.
4. Most FE students take on part-time jobs while studying, but most do not have trade union support, or knowledge of the benefits of TU membership.
5. Some FE SU presidents see members of staff as their “line managers”.
Conference further believes
1. Area Organisations can provide necessary support and training for FE SUs.
2. Promoting TU membership for students who work should be a top priority.
3. SU and NUS activity should have no effect on access to EMAs.
4. The autonomy of SUs must be absolute.
5. Every FE SU has the right to adequate facilities and a block grant covering (at least) NUS/Area affiliations, training, and the cost of campaigning work.
Conference resolves
1. To promote TU membership for all students.
2. To mandate the National Secretary to review engagement of FE delegates with NUS, with a view to reducing as many organisational barriers to their participation as possible.
3. To mandate the VP FE to draw up an FE Bill Of Rights and lobby the AOC and the Standing Conference of Principals.
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Ethical NUS card
Conference believes:
1. That those who benefit most from an NUS discount card are those who are least able to afford to pay for it.
2. That some of the companies currently promoted by the NUS card abuse the environment and subject their workers to inhumane conditions.
3. That there is a range of companies, including but not limited to, workers’ co-operatives, renewable energy companies and manufacturers of sweat-free clothing, that have a less harmful impact on the environment and/or their workers.
Conference further believes:
1. That the discount card supplied by NUS should be available to all NUS members, regardless of their ability to pay for it.
2. That promoting more ‘ethical’ companies is a step towards improving the safety and working conditions of many workers worldwide.
3. That, at the same time, ‘ethical consumerism’ is no substitute for building practical solidarity with workers.
Conference resolves:
1. To scrap all plans for a ‘paid-for’ NUS discount card.
2. To campaign to force all companies promoted by the NUS discount card to adhere to ILO standards in the workplace and reduce their environmental impact.
3. To use the NUS discount card actively to promote workers’ co-operatives, fair trade, renewable energy and sweat-free clothing in accordance with ILO standards.
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Support Coke workers' rights - Amends Motion 612
Conference believes
1. That “Constructive Engagement ” is useful in certain situations but not in others; alone it provides no hard financial incentive for change. Institutional boycotts by students have a proven record of success: forcing Pepsi out of Burma and Taco Bell to raise wages and end slave conditions for farmworkers.
2. That overwhelming evidence suggests that Coca-Cola sponsors and directs paramilitaries in Colombia that have killed eight union activists, and intimidated thousands more, including students. This view is supported by the report of a delegation from New York City Council.
3. That US students have walked out of a committee engaging with Coke due to the corporation’s obstructive and manipulative behaviour. NUSSL’s engagement process has not touched on the substance of allegations against Coke.
4. That Coke’s abuses against workers have not slowed since NUSSL’s engagement began; they have intensified, expanded to Turkey and Indonesia. Workers in Colombia continue to be threatened.
5. That last August, Coke successfully took legal steps to prevent many of its workers joining unions. By smashing unions, Coke can lower labour costs.
6. That the union of Coke workers, SINALTRAINAL, has called for a global boycott of Coke in support of their campaign for basic human and workers' rights.
7. That twenty universities worldwide have already boycotted Coke.
Conference further believes
1. That NUS has a unique chance to strike a huge blow for workers' rights.
Conference resolves
1. That NUSSL and NUS will boycott commercial relations with Coca-Cola.
2. That they will have no sole-trading relationship with Coca-Cola.
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ENS amendments on “Education”
Model amendments for NUS Conference in the “Education” zone
Free education for all - Amends Motion 501
Save our schools - Amends Motion 501
Sweat free campuses - Amends Motion 501
Free education for all - Amends Motion 501
Conference believes
1. Although most universities will charge the maximum top-up fee, HE will remain chronically underfunded.
2. Institutions will continue to make cuts and attack staff in order to ‘maximise efficiency’, leading to a worse education and an inbuilt drive to increase fees, with enormous pressure for lifting the £3000 cap.
3. Dynamic local anti-closure campaigns (e.g. Cambridge and Rolle College) show what's possible when students are mobilized.
Conference further believes
1. NUS’s formal policy has been consistently ignored in NUS's campaigns and statements.
2. Only the demand for taxation of business and the rich can cut through the Government’s distortions and provide funding needed to abolish the market in HE and provide students with the quality education and financial support we need.
3. The decision to cancel the national demonstration was a shocking betrayal of students’ interests.
Conference resolves
1. To reaffirm our funding policy and mandate the NEC to express it.
2. To make our demand for a living grant for FE students clear
3. To organise a first term national demonstration in London and a second term mass lobby of Parliament for free education.
4. To make “Tax the rich to fund education” and “Scrap all fees, living grants for all” our main slogans.
5. To work with UCU to organise a high profile national campaign against cuts and closures, giving maximum support to local campaigns.
6. To campaign against lifting the cap and help organise local campaigns against the implementation of fees.
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Save our schools - Amends Motion 501
Conference believes
1. The Schools White Paper extends the Thatcherite agenda beyond anything proposed during the Tory era - i.e. to replace what remains of comprehensive education with a market free-for-all.
2. The remnants of democratic accountability will end; schools will choose pupils (not vice versa) and the dominant power in most schools will be private, religious and voluntary organisations.
3. All primary and secondary schools will be “encouraged” to become “self-governing independent state schools”, creating trusts whose sponsoring bodies can be businesses, faith groups or charities.
4. This trust will appoint the governing body, own the building and control the pay and conditions of staff, resulting in a transfer of property and power from local authorities to unaccountable private trustees, as in existing ‘Academies.'
Conference further believes
1. Investigations into Academies found the number of poorer children on roll had fallen as schools cherry-pick middle class children to boost results.
2. Ironically these schools showed slower improvement in results, despite receiving higher funding.
3. As in HE, an elite will receive well-funded education with the working-class majority relegated to lower status.
4. The comprehensive ideal - all children enjoying the same well-funded, democratically-controlled system free from selection - is good, but has never been tried.
Conference resolves
1. To oppose these plans.
2. To campaign for a single comprehensive system, democratically controlled, funded by taxing the rich with no selection on financial, academic or religious grounds.
3. To send a representative to the national anti-Academies campaign.
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Sweat free campuses - Amends Motion 501
Conference believes
1. Little consideration is given by college administrations to where and under what conditions their merchandise is produced.
2. Many institutions have contracted-out services (e.g. cleaning and catering) to companies that pay poverty wages, with poor job security and no union rights.
3. Student action at various institutions has forced administrations to adopt codes of conduct committing them to monitor and enforce ethical standards.
4. A number of local campaigns (e.g. QMUL and Oxford) have brought together students, academics, trade unionists and community activists to campaign for living wages for all campus workers.
Conference further believes
1. CMs have a responsibility to ensure union employees are paid living wages and able to organise, and that services are not contracted-out, but brought ‘in house’.
2. CMs should be encouraged to adopt ‘buy union made' policies whereby services and goods are purchased from unionised firms.
3. Verbal support from NUS is meaningless without NUS implementing its principles in agreements with suppliers and partners. NUS should not deal with sweatshop companies such as Top Shop.
Conference resolves
1. To support No Sweat and Students Against Sweatshops.
2. To encourage initiatives like the QM and Oxford living wage campaigns across the UK.
3. To mandate the NEC to draw up a plan to adopt and promote ‘Buy Union Made’ policies.
4. To mandate the NEC to produce a pack on how to campaign for a living wage for campus workers, against contracted out services and for sweat-free buying policies.
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