Comment by Rachel Evans
and Alex Bainbridge
Voluntary student unionism (VSU) is the most serious issue affecting the student movement since the introduction of up-front fees and HECS. What is at stake is the right of students to form representative organisations and to campaign effectively for student rights.
The legislation introduced by the Kennett government outlaws universal membership of student organisations and specifically limits what students' money, in the form of a compulsory amenities and services fee, can be used for. This legislation prohibits students from being able to control the spending of their own money.
Amendments announced on May 24 do not change the central thrust of the legislation, which is to prevent student unions from representing all students and to limit their ability to campaign. The Liberals want VSU so they can carry out their attacks on students, including up-front fees, with minimal student opposition.
VSU follows a long history of attacks by the federal Labor government since 1986 including the administration charge, HECS, fees for overseas and postgraduate students and cuts in Austudy. The ALP shares the economic "rationalist" agenda of the Liberal Party.
While the Labor Party has spoken against Kennett's legislation, in practice the type of unions they support are ones that won't fight against their own attacks on education.
Since VSU is connected to the economic rationalist program of the major parties, the campaign against VSU needs to remain independent of them, and we need to connect the campaign to the defence of student rights. We need to demonstrate in practice that our student unions are active, campaigning and democratic if we are to win.
The role of NUS
Students may be wondering what "their" National Union of Students (NUS) has been doing since the threat of VSU appeared. It certainly hasn't run a concerted and uncompromising campaign in defence of student unionism!
In fact, NUS' public statements have attempted to play down student unions' role as organisations that can defend students' rights. The Victorian state president of NUS, Liberty Sanger, declared on April 27: "A lot of people think back to the 1960s and 1970s when they think of student unions — long hair, free love and pot. Times have changed drastically, and nowhere more so than Victorian education campuses ... We are trying to be as professional as possible."
According to Sanger, student unions can only be "justified by the services and facilities students enjoy on campus". What about defending student rights?
While the activist-based Student Unionism Network (SUN) has been organising protests, actions and an information campaign, the ALP-dominated NUS has not seriously thrown its weight and resources into the campaign. NUS has continually hesitated on whether to work with SUN and whether even to endorse the rallies. NUS has been a constant frustration for the activists in SUN, and has not run any significant campaign despite costing student unions tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars in affiliation fees.
The strategy of NUS has been to focus on lobbying and court challenges, something they are currently considering. In the anti-HECS campaign, NUS counterposed a High Court challenge to an ongoing mobilisation of a grassroots campaign. The High Court challenge never amounted to anything.
Independent student movement
The only way to defeat VSU is through an ongoing and independent student movement, organised by and mobilising students themselves. We cannot afford to let the campaign be held hostage to the political interests of keeping Labor in office.
We should welcome all support, from all sectors, as long as that support is based clearly on the defence of student unionism in order to defend student rights, not as a service or political bureaucracy tied to government.
Broad and militant protests by tens of thousands of students stopped the introduction of full up-front fees in the '80s. A dynamic grassroots student movement — actively seeking alliances with other sectors under attack by the Kennett government — is the only force capable of stopping VSU now. [Rachel Evans and Alex Bainbridge are Resistance activists from La Trobe and Melbourne universities. This paper is presented for consideration by other activists in preparation for the Campus Activist Forum in Sydney on July 16 at the University of Technology, Sydney.]