This year a number of socialists, including supporters of the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, have been elected as full-time student union sabbatical officers. Below are interviews with four of them. More to follow soon.
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"Remould a rank-and-file student movement"
Michael Chessum is a non-aligned socialist, an NCAFC supporter and Vice-President Education-elect at UCL Union.
What's your political background?
I've been politically conscious since forever (my parents were Marxists in the 70s, my dad later a left Labour parliamentary candidate), but only got active from university onwards. I've always been consciously independent of the (capital letters) Left Factions - although I was briefly a very inactive member of the Scottish Socialist Party - but found myself involved in Education Not For Sale, which I met at NUS conference last year, as well as being on the Another Education is Possible Steering Committee. My main project now is the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, which I hope will be able to bridge the gaps and remould a rank-and-file student movement. I've also been involved with Palestine solidarity activism.
What's the political culture like at UCL?
UCL Union has been characterised as a "Tory-Liberal marginal", but there's been a strong undercurrent of non-aligned left-wingers, some Revo members, Palestine solidarity work, and a Labour Soc which self-defined as 'Bennite' when I arrived. We had a big Stop the War Society for many years, and managed at one point to get the OTC banned from campus. The union varies from year to year, but in general the left can get stuff through General Meetings (which, thankfully, we still have). We have Free Education policy, and take a good line on cuts and strikes. The union elections have changed the landscape a bit, and we may be stronger than before.
Tell us about your campaign.
UCLU's regulations prohibit joint campaigning, so I couldn't run on a slate (though needless to say we co-ordinated). Cuts were the main issue - we had demos of hundreds during vote week - but I also ran on Free Education, the London Living Wage, doing more Liberation Campaigning, Human Rights, Global Justice and the Environment, and "Effective National Co-Ordination". It helped that my main opponent was the president of the Tories - slightly bizarrely, I had informal backing from Labour and the Lib Dems, who to be fair are not careerists as they are at a national level. But in the end it was a surge in grassroots anti-cuts, living wage and Palestine campaigns that won.
What do you hope to achieve next year?
At a national level, I'd like to see NCAFC and the student movement in general take on the government over and fees, win, and then generalise that struggle into something recognisable to the student movements of yore - bringing together vast swathes of students on everything from international solidarity to environmental activism. On a local level, the London Living Wage, which I think we can achieve at UCL, and liberation and internationalists campaigns. I want a great wave of interest, anger and activism.
Why do you think most SUs are quite conservative?
Governance reviews, careerists, slick well-branded meaningless fluff... I think the widespread death of General Meetings is seriously dangerous for the Left: our arguments need time to be articulated and discussed; the Right is much better at vacuous one-liners, and so more likely to win in small meetings and referendums. More broadly, the recent history of student politics has been a history of tipping-points: every material defeat (eg fees) means a shift in consciousness: students-as-consumers, unions-as-businesses, democracy-as-expendable. And a highly bureaucratised NUS has managed to systematically institutionalise the spirit of New Labour.
What do you think the prospects are for building a united, effective student left?
Good, if people are willing to put aside the acrimony of years of splits and defeats. We need a broad re-alignment of the Left. This will almost certainly come from a general non-sectarian surge in support rather than a strengthening of one or other Trotskyist faction.
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"The SU did not support campaigns - that's why I ran"
Louis Hartnoll is an NCAFC supporter and President-elect at University of the Arts London Students' Union (SUArts).
What's your political background/previous involvement?
I'd never previously been involved with the SU, as I've found extra-union politics to be far more engaging and essentially more real. Previously I've occupied in solidarity with Gaza and over course and job cuts, over both of which I was threatened with suspension and in the latter case taken to court by the university.
What's the political culture at UAL and the SU like?
UAL has traditionally been a very depoliticised university. I do not like the current SU and that is why I ran. When we were involved in the anti-cuts movement, the SU offered no support and I felt extremely disenfranchised. I greatly look forward to supporting autonomous campaigns as best I can over the coming year, and am fully prepared to break the law in doing so.
Tell us about your campaign.
I ran primarily on an anti-cuts platform, as this is the issue on which I became most politicised and gathered most support. It is also the one I feel most strongly about. I worked extremely hard during the two weeks allocated for campaigning, spending approximately 10 to 14 hours a day flyering and talking to people. During the morning and daytimes I was at various campuses and in the evenings I knocked on flats in halls. I'm not politically affiliated with any party so didn't run under any title.
Did you run on a slate, formal or informal, with other lefties?
I did run on a slate with other lefties, neither of whom got elected. Initially I was not running alongside Robyn [Minogue, just elected as Education Officer], but after talking to her and hearing her at hustings I greatly impressed with the things she had to say. After this we asked supporters to give Robyn their 2nd preference vote; this was mostly symbolic as her support base is so vast she didn't need it. I'm looking forward to working with her!
What do you hope to achieve next year?
There are various things that I would love to achieve next year, over many of which I'm anticipating running into various bureaucratic obstacles. However there are some specific goals I am determined to fight for. Particularly in defending students against fees and cuts. I am planning on aligning the SU with sister trade unions, particularly the UCU, in order to achieve this. I want to push the green agenda across our campuses as our current record is embarrassingly poor. I am also looking to injecting a bit of political fun into the university, hopefully beginning a campaign under the title "Reclaim the School" - obviously a pun on Reclaim the Streets, aiming to create an ephemeral utopia in which students can envision an alternative way of doing education. As our membership and sabbatical turnover is extremely rapid, due to the nature of education, I am also looking to set the ball rolling to foster an active left base in SUArts which can take my position when I've finished.
Why do you think most SUs are quite conservative?
I feel this is in part due to a commodification of the student experience encouraged by student unions. I am aware of the difficulties of maintaining a "balanced book", but the drive for economic gains in selling the "student experience" has come at hugely detrimental cost.
What do you think the prospects are for building a united, effective student left?
I'm really looking forward to this coming year, especially with the various left sabbs that are taking office. In particular Ashok [Kumar, Education Officer at LSE, interviewed below] because we have a number of shared staff. I think left unity is not only possible but also extremely necessary. After seeing the problems the left faced at NUS conference this year, I feel a united left is the only way forward!
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"The anti-cuts struggle has shaken things up"
Jade Baker is a Workers' Liberty member, an NCAFC supporter and Vice-President Education-elect at Westminster University Students' Union.
Before I ran, I was already involved in socialist politics as a member of Workers’ Liberty, particularly in student and women's activity. We'd also built a big anti-cuts campaign on campus, mobilising hundreds of students to resist up to three hundred job losses and big course cuts.
Westminster has not previously been a hub of political activity, at least not for decades; the anti-cuts campaign has really shaken things up and sought to combat this. Various religious societies have set the political tone inside the university, but this is now changing. Even though the anti-cuts campaign is a defensive battle, it has politicised the student population significantly and they are hungry for change.
No one is happy at the idea of education being marketised, but the SU had not been an active, campaigning, democratic unit for quite some time. Things began to shift when the Fight Cuts campaign managed to get a motion passed unanimously at the AGM supporting it and any action it takes. That was the prelude to our big demonstration and occupation of the VC's office.
I decided to run for sabbatical because I wanted to continue the success of anti-cuts, and take its momentum into many other campaigns too.
While being quite open, including on my manifesto, about my socialist politics and support for the AWL, I ran under the slogan of "Stop the cuts! Shake up your union!", which was a very effective way of engaging students. After some discussion I ran on a formal slate, using that slogan, with Robin Law, currently VP but going for President, and Fatima Hagi for SU Trustee. Robin and Fatima are not socialists, but they're against our university turning into a business and definitely moving to the left.
Where our opponents relied on flashy presentation and friendship groups, we took students a serious message: if we want to change things, we need to fight and for that we need a political, campaigning SU, not a popularity contest. And I'm glad to say that message went down well! I got almost half the vote on the first round and Robin and Fatima were elected with overwhelming majorities.
Our agreed target for next year is to stop the marketisation of our education. A massive goal, but you have to aim high! We also want to continue to politicise students and prepare them for what is bound to be a year of struggle. I also have plans to set up other campaigns: feminist, anti-fascist, and others too no doubt.
Of course a large majority of SU are quite conservative, especially with the ever-growing trend towards bureaucratisation, with chief executives taking control of unions away from elected student representatives. We face this exact problem at Westminster; we plan to challenge this and fight for democratic control with every ounce of our strength. Our constitution says that a Students’ Union is an organisation run by students for students; that’s what we intend to achieve.
Under the auspices of campaigns like the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, I think it very likely we can build a united, effective, student left can be. We have already started. Many different universities and campaigns are coordinating action and providing solidarity which each other. The next year will be very tough for young people in and out of education; we need a coalition of campaigns to resist this, fighting the cuts and privatisation planned by the coalition government. The lefties elected to SUs this year need to coordinate together, particularly given what has happened to NUS. So though things are pretty dismal, the future could be bright and a united left could make big gains.
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"Build student/worker power"
Ashok Kumar is a non-aligned leftist, NCAFC supporter and Vice-President Education-elect at the London School of Economics Students' Union.
What's your political background/previous involvement?
I was born and raised in a Marxist household in Chicago, a city with a rich history of social and political resistance, where a youngster has many avenues to join various and intersecting movements. I was the US equivalent of academic affairs sabbatical officer at the University of Wisconsin where we fought alongside workers against cuts and fee hikes. After that I worked at the county level, organizing to pass laws expanding workers', immigrants' and gay rights and fighting against racism in the criminal justice system.
What's the political culture like at LSE? What's the SU been like previously?
The LSE students union is rooted in a proud tradition of radicalism and commitment to participatory democracy. It is the only students' union in UK to have weekly Union General Meetings, which has remained a politicizing, radicalizing, and consciousness-building exercise for students from the beginning. No doubt, these structures have helped mobilize the students of LSE, from the shameful red-baiting by the university of an overtly communist students' union in the 30s to the now famous protests, occupations, and shut down of the school against the Vietnam War in the 60s. Well into the 80s the LSE students’ union banner remained “Arm the Workers and Students - Education is a Right not a Privilege”, and the union ‘president’ title was changed to ‘general secretary’ in solidarity with striking miners.
LSE has continued to remain active in recent years, particularly around Palestine solidarity. LSEs continued high degree of activism can be linked directly to the weekly general membership meetings and autonomy from LSE management.
Sadly, the current sabbatical officers chose to spend the 2009-2010 year campaigning to shift UGM floor voting to online voting under the hollow auspices of ‘reform’ and ‘change’. Indeed, in a move taken straight from the New Labour playbook, the LSE constitutional amendments localized and mimicked the undemocratic NUS reforms. Almost all of the SU leadership tried to ram through the institution of external trustees via referendum, yet students resoundingly rejected this move. However the sabbaticals succeeded in ending the voting power on the UGM floor, a democratic forum that made LSE the most rank-and-file union in the country, by a total of 3 votes. An inside-clique of union leadership chose to ignore the requirement for 2/3 majority for constitutional amendments. Thus, in 2010 students for the first time the UGM floor will not be where decisions will be made, rather the votes will take place online--to be rubber-stamped by the largest campus interest groups regardless of whether the debates are had. Indeed this ends the historically democratic nature of the SU, and will no-doubt lead to a more bureaucratized union where discussion and grassroots student dissent will remain institutionally stifled.
How did you decide to run?
I decided the day nomination papers were due. The initial motivation to run was my opposition to the reforms and the fact that all the candidates standing had campaigned to pass them. As a postgraduate student I felt that I should make this year more academic so I chose not to be a member of a single society. However, I became more involved around the fight against the reforms. The ultimate motivation to run was to actively fight the expected avalanche of cuts and the expected lifting of the cap on fees. I come from the US where fees are so high that the last vestige of the working class has been priced out of higher education, and university debt is carried throughout a lifetime. I don’t want the UK system to become the like the US. That’s why I ran.
What was your campaign like?
Even though LSE is seeing some of the largest cuts, the university will able to absorb them since it makes about £26 million profit from overcharging its large international student body that make up 60% of the university. If government decides to increase the cap on fees, or removes it all together, once the recommendations from the Brown Review come out then LSE will no doubt institute those increases to highest point feasible. So, I ran on fighting the fees. I didn’t run on a slate but there was an informal group of candidates with similar politics who were definitely getting each others’ backs as best we could.
My primary support came from the Islamic Society, Palestine Society, and the LGBT Society. Our slogan was a "Ashok to the system". It’s both catchy and captures the essence of our platform. A platform that put robust union democracy and student/worker power above petty backroom deal-making for meaningless policy changes.
What do you hope to achieve next year?
At the campus level we will be organizing a broad-based campaign to fight any and all fee increases by demanding a 5 year freeze on fees for EU and international students for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. This issue is one that hits home for all students and will require organizing beyond our comfort zone of the traditional ‘left’, well into the athletics unions and non-affiliated societies and students.
Given that LSE is expected to be able to absorb cuts better than many other London universities I intend to work towards LSE and other similarly situated universities becoming a hub of solidarity for organizing and resistance against the cuts across the country. We have already witnessed occupations by students at Sussex, Westminster, and Middlesex and worker strikes at a dozen campuses. The hope is that we can make LSE and other similar situated universities a base for organizing and solidarity for worker and student actions and coordination. Left-wing sabbaticals have been elected at UCL, Westminster, UAL, ULU, a number of other universities, and into the NUS executive; many are on the same page and have already begun building ties across campuses.
At the NUS-level I hope to work with others on the left to push our national union away from the bureaucratic, undemocratic, careerist-hack organization it has become towards an organization that is a ‘union’ in the true sense of the word. Another more specific proposal I will put forward at next year’s NUS conference is to mandate that would require all the apparel produced for the over 700 affiliate unions come from factories with democratic unions. NUS spends millions of pounds a year contracted out to produce NUS’s affiliate apparel. These clothes come from sweatshop factories consisting mostly of women of colour in the global south who have struggled to resist and organize into unions. When they do they succeed themselves locked out, orders halted and factories shut down. Licensees simply contract with another factor to exploit a different set of workers, continuing the cycle of wage slavery and the global race to the bottom. My proposal will no doubt come up against some resistance, so I am hoping to get support from many factions to build real global student-worker solidarity.
What do you think the prospects are for building a united, effective student left?
That’s the big question. The key to movement building around campuses is a point of strategy. For one I think it is crucial to find the points of intersection to build a broad based coalition of students and workers. We have to find creative actions and ways to that not only ‘build’ quantifiably, but also build a culture of resistance, our own hegemony on campus. Many have tried, some have succeeded, but clearly this isn’t an easy task. I think as the conditions worsen it will be up to us to help harness the anger into collective action. Sectarianism and petty infighting has become a running joke on the left. I am confident from what I’ve seen so far that socialists, anarchists, greens and others on the left will be able to unite around common cause - namely the cuts.