NUS referendum

[pozorvlak]

This is mainly aimed at the Brits: apologies to the rest of you.

Glasgow University Student Representative Council (SRC) is one of only 15 students' unions around the country not to be affiliated to the National Union of Students (NUS). On Wednesday, we're having a referendum to decide whether or not to join (it's constitutionally mandated that we have such a referendum every few years). I'm pretty much decided on voting against joining, but I'd like to canvass your opinions to see if I'm about to do something daft.

In case you're wondering why: my memories of the NUS from Oxford are of one college or other trying to secede every year, and of a friend going off to Conference as the college NUS rep, then coming back in despair, telling tales of insane, vicious, antediluvian politicking that would have been considered a bit extreme at the court of the Pharaohs, and of an "organisation" that made OUSU look like a model of silent, resolute effectiveness. Joining would cost the SRC a lot of money that they don't actually have, and the SRC actually seem to do a fairly good job of representing students' interests already.

Oh, and the NUS gave the world Jack Straw. Need I say more?

Comments

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Someone was telling me about the NUS being strongly and nastily anti-Semitic, too. Don't know / can't really remember any details.

On the other hand, you should think about joining the University and College Union (the new conglomeration of the AUT and The University & College Lecturers' Union). They've been running serveys about and campaigning against the new government plans for funding university research. I meant to blog about this, actually; it would be terrible for maths (and humanities, and Chemistry, which the government are supposed to be bolstering up) and I'm furious about it.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

(And membership is open to graduate students too, which I didn't realise when I was one).

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

From my own experience, the only significant issue is student discounts. Imperial isn't (or at least wasn't) in the NUS, so I know some cinemas have been a bit picky about not accepting their student union cards, whereas my Durham card was accepted everywhere that offered a discount. However, if Glasgow students are getting on ok at the moment, that's probably not a reason to join up.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

I've not had an NUS card for years due to college incompetence, but generally did have an ISIC card, which got me all discounts everywhere. You have to buy it yourself, but it's only 6 quid, and lets you get the STA deals and student discounts abroad etc etc. Not worth tying your university to the NUS just for that.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

a) I have an ISIC card,
b) it's actually illegal to only offer student discounts to holders of NUS cards. You have to accept any valid form of student ID.

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

I'm not a lawyer, but I'd be surprised if it's illegal - I would have thought that shops can offer a discount for any particular card they like. (For instance, the Forbidden Planet in Newcastle used to offer a 10% discount to members of Durham SciFi society, on production of a membership card.) They might need to refer to this as an NUS discount rather than a student discount, but the effect would be the same.

On a more pragmatic level, if you've got a bunch of people queuing up to buy cinema tickets, and the minimum-wage guy behind the counter says "Sorry, we only accept NUS cards", I don't think you'd get very far by claiming that he's breaking the law :)

[totherme.livejournal.com]

One of the posters plastered all over IC at the moment says something like (forgive my imperfect memory)

Reasons to not join the NUS:
No. 5:
It's illegal to offer any student discount only to members of the NUS. Any student ID should suffice.

So, it's not an argument peculiar to Glasgow :)

Practically, you have a point - short term power rests with the bloke with the biggest stick. Having said that, I've not had any problems with my ISIC card. I've used it several times to get discount in the cinema in croydon, which I consider to be a fair sample of minimum wage environments.

As further (possibly slightly shakier, but still worth considering) evidence of the increasing popularity of ISIC, I note that one of the pro-NUS posters I've seen knocking about IC takes pains to mention that the NUS card has an "integrated ISIC card". This suggests to me that some folk are worried about whether the NUS card will be accepted everywhere that ISIC is. Of course, IC does have quite an international demographic, so it could be that such fears come exclusively from overseas. Nonetheless - I think it speaks of the good standing of the ISIC card.

[bob]

they say the advantage is the greater purchasing power however at IC the union always got the same deals.
For a long time you couldnt buy guiness in NUS affilated bars because they cocked up the commercial agreements.
Also iirc the fees are quite large so that might hurt other budgets. It was certainly one of the main arguments the last tiem it came up at IC.
Interesting aside ICU last left the NUS the year after the NUS president was form IC ( Trevor Philips, broadcaster and now head of the CRE)

[michaelp-j (from livejournal.com)]

York was in NUS, which frankly didn't count for very much apart from the membership card. During my time there the union got badly cash-strapped (unlike most SUs, York didn't run any bars or venues so it was wholly reliant on a grant from the University to fund its activities) and managed after a huge palaver to disaffiliate from North Yorkshire Area NUS, which was an entirely pointless organisation given that its membership consisted of York Uni, York St. John college and half-a-dozen FE colleges, and nearly dropped NUS instead. What actually happened is that the President refused to pay the affiliation fee, but NUS waived it rather than throw us out, which was a result all round!

As far as I can see NUS exists for people who are trying to make the transition from university-level to national-level Machiavellianism, and ideally those seeking a fast track to becoming Labour MPs. Besides, the idea that the NUS can launch any kind of meaningful direct action to acheive its aims is frankly laughable. Students can't go on strike, it doesn't inconvenience anyone!

[wholepint.livejournal.com]

As you're probably already aware, not having an NUS card isn't really an inconvenience discount-wise in Glasgow - most places accept matric cards as student ID, so having one isn't going to make a jot of difference to most Glasgow Uni students. The only time I had a problem with student discounts was back home for the summer in London.

As for the purchasing power - I think the Glasgow unions are part of a thing called Northern Services (nonstick probably knows more about this than me) with other non-NUS affliated unions which gives them a degree of weight when it comes to purchasing stuff. I've also been told by people at Leeds Uni that that whole commercial thing has created a couple of political problems: when Leeds students wanted to ban Coca-Cola from the unions, the NUS got iffy about it due to some deal they'd already made with Coke.

Also, my former housemate got paid by the NUS simply to attend conferences. Seriously, that's how he earned his living for a few years, and as much as I love him, that definitely makes me question their ability to spend money wisely as an organisation.

[elvum.livejournal.com]

'nuff said already, I think. :-) As far as I can tell, NUS membership costs a union tens of thousands of pounds in return for very little of value, either economically or politically.

[susannahf.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, the only benefit to students who aren't hacks is the NUS card. I haven't got an NUS card. My main bugbear about this is that everywhere will accept the local student card, but only the NUS/ISIC card if you're not studying in the area, which sucks. I would get an ISIC card, but I can't be arsed, and I think I would probably save about as much money as it costs. What really sucks is that my mother does have an NUS card because of her 2-day-a-week course at her local FE college.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

But if you reckon you're only missing out on 6 pounds worth of savings, is it worth caring?

Dearie me, I'm beginning to sounds like an ISIC promoter :-) Now one totally pointless card they try to push on you at STA, when you're not a student any more, is the U26 card. Cause then you can, for example, get discounts on international train tickets, cause it proves you're under 26, which can't be proved otherwise using rubbish tacky bits of ID like, say, a passport. And in any case, just cause you want international train tickets, who is to assume that you have a passport?

[susannahf.livejournal.com]

hmm. Somehow, I got the idea that isic cost a lot more than it does (btw, it's 7quid now)

[(Anonymous)]

Like folk have said, IC isn't NUS - but we're actually having a referendum on it this week too :)

I think the supposed main driver for this latest debate is that we're going independent from the University of London this academic year, so there are those that'd like to have a higher student authority outside college. Having said that, almost all the campaign posters I've seen have said "The NUS Sucks", and the few I have seen that are in favour of joining seem to be about "hassle free discounts", which I've been getting quite happily with my ISIC card, so meh.

IIRC, New College weren't NUS while we were undergrads, but Balliol was... I enjoyed having an NUS card at the time - and didn't know about ISIC cards. The college politics sorts tended not to be interested in NUS politics for many of the reasons outlined. (I think there may actually have been quite poor relationships between oxbridge reps and non-oxbridge reps for some reason...) I know several folk who've gone successfully into (generally left wing) politics without ever having had to deal with the NUS. So, it's not necessary for that either.

I dunno if the NUS have tried to make themselves useful by organising anti-war/fees/cholesterol marches or whatever... But I suspect that such things can probably be arranged without an NUS as easily as with one...

I guess I'll probably vote against joining.

[totherme.livejournal.com]

How annoying - randomly logged out mid-post!

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

Birmingham are members of NUS, but seeing as they (NUS I'd assume) spent all of Freshers week trying to make us purchase an 'NUS Extra' card for something like £6 which would offer 'extra discounts' I wonder as to the point of affiliation in the first place.

[totherme.livejournal.com]

The most rational pro-NUS arguments I've seen on posters here are:

1. The NUS negotiated the student council tax exemption, a student-friendly housing act and a cut on the taxes on condoms. IC union can't do things like this alone.


2. The NUS provide administrative support and training courses to the local union. We'll lose the University of London Union equivalents soon, so we'll need something like what the NUS provide in place.

At the moment, I'm thinking that the services the NUS provide are probably gettable for less money elsewhere. I've no evidence, this is just a hunch. The first point is interesting though - exaggerations aside. If stuff's going to happen that affects students, who do you consult? If there's a central union of students, then there's an obvious answer. If not, do you ring round all the various individual student unions? I suppose that could work... But it's more effort, and therefore less likely to happen.