This letter, by Left Alliance NSW region, is a response to an open letter to Left Alliance distributed by Resistance in NSW and published last week in Green Left Weekly.
The Resistance article published in last weeks GLW is a new contribution to dialogue within the left about the structure and role of the National Union of Students. Left Alliance welcomes this dialogue on NUS and welcomes Resistance's decision to participate in the union after many years of hostile opposition on campuses to affiliation and effective abstention from debate.
This letter in response aims to outline some of the principles of Left Alliance's approach to the union and some of the political reasoning behind it.
Critical support
In terms of NUS Left Alliance has maintained a position of what we call "critical support". This means that we have principled support for the existence of a national representative student organisation — it does not mean that we support everything about NUS as it exists, all its actions or its leadership. Our support for NUS is based on an assessment of whether it has the potential to be a vehicle for an active and politicised student movement.
If minimum democratic criteria are met, then the direction and relevance of the union will depend on our success in winning the support of students. A tactical assessment of the potential for the left to intervene into NUS will show, not just the "prevailing climate", but the effectiveness of the work which left comrades have and continue to put into the union.
Left Alliance believes that it's not enough to criticise the structures and actions of a union if it's also possible to change that union. We have run in delegate elections, held office bearer positions and consistently proposed motions for structural change of NUS aimed at making the union more democratic, accountable and participatory. This year is no different. We've also taken the position that intervention means more than numbers. LA has worked to involve students in NUS campaigns and to encourage a critical and politicised approach to the union among students.
There is no way to "legislate" a left union. The influence the left holds in NUS depends on its ability to win support on the ground (and so delegates), to expose the right and to make arguments for its proposals to be adopted. This is something the left has achieved in NSW.
A national union?
To clarify one apparent platform of Resistances position. NUS is not a "peak body as the ACTU or other federated organisations are. Although students become members via their student organisation, elections for delegates are direct, rather than the office bearers of the SRCs automatically being NUS reps.
LA recognises the importance of a participatory union structure, relevant and responsive to campuses/students and with a constitutionally prescribed major role for regions in the activities of the union. However, Left Alliance does not believe that this should occur at the expense of national campaigns, national coordination and national direction. Policy and decision-making must be located with all the delegates at the National Conference.
A movement towards a federation would seriously weaken the union as a whole, particularly in the context of differing VSU [voluntary student unionism] legislation in different states. To make the union more participatory, we should be looking more towards integrating campuses into the union as a whole by measures such as directly elected campus liaison officers rather than looking just at the middle level of states.
Proportional representation
Any National Union of Students needs to be controlled by its members. Each student's vote must carry an equal weight and should be considered equally at every level and in every decision of the union. The best way to ensure this is through proportional representation (PR). Many of Left Alliance's proposals relate to ensuring PR throughout the union.
Left Alliance opposes the inclusion of state branch presidents as voting members of National Executive. The National Executives role should be to ensure accountability and give direction, representative of the demands of different students, between conferences. It should, therefore, directly reflect the make-up of the delegates elected by students to that national conference. The voting state branch presidents take the balance a large step away from this. It skews the direct relationship between National Conference and the Executive, making the union less democratic and less participatory. We argues for a strong role for (PR) National and State Executives rather than office bearers being given unfettered power by one simple majority vote.
The Left Alliance position on PR extends to the committees of the union as well. As our practice shows, we fully support activist networks as one way of involving students in the union; however, we identify real problems with such forums being able to totally direct democratically elected office bearers and to contradict democratically decided policy. Issues such as the full involvement of regional campuses, stacking and poor coordination must be taken seriously.
Conclusion
There is much more that can be said about the proposals Left Alliance has put forward, and we are keen to engage in more debate about them. In many ways, the future of NUS is at stake. We can defend the democratic structures of the union, improve them and also ensure greater participation or, alternatively, allow the union to be moved away from democratic principles, and so in the long term away from students and the left.
[Left Alliance is a national organisation of feminist, socialist and progressive students.]