Waste Not Want Not
It always starts innocently enough. A keen young Treasurer, scouting through the accounts, desperately trying to scrape together enough money to pay for that vital JCR glitter ball, comes across a mysterious payment. NUS affiliation: 1500 odd pounds. Ah, the NUS! He remembers vaguely the reception of three gross of posters sometime in October declaring 'The NUS is behind you'. He recalls those five hundred plastic cups received last July recommending temperate drinking to the youth of today. He can even conjure up some memory of a national demonstration of some kind. Was it about fees? But what comes to mind most vividly is the External Affairs Rep railing for hours about the NUS Conference. The craven Blairite careerism of the National Executive Committee! The unproductive ranting of their opponents amongst Young Militant Tendency! And an idea begins to form in our treasurer's calculating mind...
Last week Keble JCR disaffiliated from the NUS. Christ Church, Merton, Oriel, Pembroke and Worcester have already done so. Wadham is to discuss a similar motion this Sunday. OK so Corpus 'royally' screwed it all up, but Teddy Hall did actually get it through the most heated JCR meeting in current memory - I mean this is St Edmund Hall, supposedly one of the most apolitical colleges in the university! There are rumours, of similar movements at Univ. OUSU is apparently broadly supportive of colleges disaffiliating, with President Ruth Hunt expressing approval in last week's OxStu. This is obviously an issue which can get people interested.
But is this wise? Is the NUS such a hidebound and undemocratic institution that it should be abandoned entirely? Are its problems structural or cultural, and can it be reformed? Do Oxford students derive any material benefits from it? How does the NUS represent our interests on a national level? Does it enable Oxford students to combine forces with other universities on a national scale in any useful fashion? Is it an appropriate body for a collegiate university such as ourselves, backed as we are by the might of OUSU? These and other questions the OxStu will now consider...
Amongst its objectives the NUS declares 'to represent UK students locally, nationally and internationally', 'to promote the views of students on the education system', 'to promote the interests of students in economic, social and youth issues' and 'to campaign on issues which affect students'.
Most notably this has meant student finance and funding: Wednesday 20th February will see an NUS march in London against student debt.
But it should also mean other things. The case of Simon Jones, killed on the day he started work at Shoreham docks in 1998, highlighted the particular need for students to be protected from dangerous practices at work. NUS can do this better as a national body. In fact, the very nature of its welfare orientated services means that you are unlikely to hear about them unless you are directly affected. If a major dispute arises between a student and the university, the power of a truly national organisation might be crucial. OUSU do not have this strength.
The NUS may not have campaigned successfully on issues that are dear to Oxford hearts in the recent past, but nonetheless, it is the only body that can deal with these broader issues since it represents students' interests on a national level. OUSU can do much locally, but as the NUS Press Office was keen to point out, its lobbying power nationally is a fraction of that of the NUS. Since we are not affiliated centrally, an individual college has almost no weight behind it all on the national level, save for its status as an 'Oxford College' - something the national press seem to get excited about, but perhaps not those who formulate policy.
The major disadvantage of not being a member is that it is impossible to influence the agenda if you're not at the National Conference. As students we are perceived as members of the NUS and government policy will affect us. Is it not better to try and change the agenda from within? After all, Oxford sends more delegates to conference per head than almost any other university due to the separate affiliation of colleges, each delegate representing about 400 students, instead of the normal 1000. This would enable us to stop the oft-complained of "irrelevant" motions purporting to solve the multiple problems of the Middle East in one fell NUS Conference sweep, or some other international issue.
Through Campaign Conferences - for the Women's Campaign, Black Students, LGB and Students with Disabilities - the NUS provides milieus in which campaigning groups from Oxford can combine with those with similar interests on a national level.
Oh, and there's that 10% discount in HMV, Top Shop and the rest. Bod cards cannot always be used as an alternative, particularly in other parts of the country - after all, we do spend less than half the year here
One of the main criticisms of the NUS at the moment is that its stance on fees does not represent the interests of most students. Generally, the old system of grants is the most popular, and NUS appears to be tentatively backing the idea of a graduate tax. When Owain James, the NUS President, came down to Oxford to campaign for his hustings he was keen to support non-fee payers, but once elected he was opposed to the idea.
NUS repeats OUSU's error of debating irrelevant issues to students, only on a larger scale. Motions that could be debated at the forthcoming National Conference include issues such as the bombing of Afghanistan . Disassociation from irrelevant motions and often seemingly silly debates is one of the attractions of disaffiliation.
OUSU is able to lobby and represent more effectively the specific views of Oxford students to national bodies. Oxford being a collegiate means students frequently have different interests as far as the university is concerned; therefore NUS becomes too big to cover the particular problems.
OUSU welfare provision is more focused on Oxford issues, and widely regarded as excellent, without the need of NUS.
The NUS, it would seem fair to argue, is a sick institution. Its annual conference, informed observers relate, swiftly degenerates into a slanging match between New Labour careerists and, for want of a better term, Trots. In between Annual Conferences, especially after the abolition of the winter conference in 1991, the running of the NUS is in practice in the hands of its National Executive Council. The 70-member National Council was instituted to replace the winter conference, and meets a reassuring 'at least three times a year'.
Membership of NUS Services Limited, a purchasing consortium which gives unions cheaper deals for their commercial services is of very limited use to individual colleges, since the main advantage is cheap beer, and college bars do not purchase via this consortium.
This leads on straight to the problem of cost. Oxford suffers by our policy of affiliating colleges individually, as against the policy of our nearest equivalent, Cambridge, of affiliating centrally. When Keble disaffiliated it saved itself £1650, or about £3.75 per person. Cambridge colleges, however, affiliate through their student union, CUSU, at a total cost of around £8000, or about 47p per person. CUSU president, Pav Akhtar, argues that this centralised approach means the voices of Cambridge JCRs and MCRs 'are better co-ordinated and make a stronger impact'. But they do have fewer delegates and therefore voting power at conference. If OUSU could co-ordinate views in an unofficial manner among colleges, we at Oxford would have unparalleled influence.
Perhaps, then, we can have our cake and eat it. Perhaps, rather than retreating into the comforting gloom of Oxford-centrism, denying ourselves a voice in our own national union, we can band together and forge a more effective central voice, representing Oxford's interests, and those of students nationally, in a reformed NUS...
But there is an alternative on the distant horizon. There is talk of increasing the lobbying power of the Aldwych Group, the student union arm of the 19 member Russell Group of top research based universities. OUSU is a member of this rather than individual colleges and it holds sway country-wide.
14th Feb 2002