By Jo Brown
Students enrolling on Victorian campuses in recent weeks have been confronted by Liberal students asking them to sign petitions in support of voluntary student unionism (VSU). The Liberal students are trying to gain support for VSU before the state government brings in legislation outlawing compulsory student union membership.
The leaflets distributed by the Liberal students argue that compulsory student unionism is a violation of individual freedom, and they use a cartoon with the caption, "In 1969 it was conscription to the army ... in 1994 it's conscription to the student union", to illustrate their point.
This line of argument is not new; in fact Liberal students have mounted unsuccessful court challenges to compulsory student union membership as a human rights violation, and a Victorian Liberal government policy document describes it as "contrary to the democratic ideals which the Coalition supports".
The February 14 editorial in the Age supports the Liberals' argument: "Compulsory student-union fees ... cannot be equated with taxes because, while some services that union fees provide are admirable, very few can be deemed vital. There is no reason why those who do not use services should have to pay for them. This argument applies even more to donations that many politically committed student unions like to make to dubious but ideologically compatible causes."
For all students to pay union fees and be eligible to elect their student union representatives is in fact quite comparable to members of a society paying taxes to maintain services, only some of which are used by any one individual, and having the right to vote for a particular government in order to decide where those taxes are to be spent.
VSU would be a step backward to the situation of "taxation without representation", where students paid fees to the university administration without a student organisation to decide how they were spent.
The Liberals' leaflet also claims that under VSU services would still be provided to students. While it is true that services could be run without student funds, this would mean that students would not have any control over which services were offered, or have access to the profits of such services. Funding for clubs and societies, and for women's committees, education committees, environment officers and so on would not be guaranteed.
The other side of the student unionism debate, and in fact the primary question, is the political role of student unions as organisations which defend student rights.
This is the real reason that VSU is on the agenda now. VSU has to be seen in the context of the recent attacks on students by both Labor and Liberal governments, and the further moves towards "user pays" for higher education and attempts to limit university education to narrow vocational training.
VSU will limit the ability of students to act collectively to defend their rights. VSU means taking away the collective voice of students, as any student organisation that represents only some students will be weaker than a united union and will be less able to campaign against government attacks.
The Liberals claim that student unions as they exist have failed to stop the introduction of the HECS fees, or the cuts to Austudy, and so are not necessary to defend student rights. The challenge for the campaign to defend student unionism is to recognise that many students see some truth in this and identify passivity and political impotence with student unionism. This is rooted in Labor's use of the majority of student unions to implement its restructuring program for higher education.
Labor-controlled student unions have played a major role in discrediting student unionism. Since the beginning of Labor's attacks on higher education in the mid-1980s, Labor students have sought to channel student protests away from challenging the policies and economic program of the Labor Party.
Student unions must be free to represent the interests of students regardless of who is in government. While most student unions, like the trade unions, have been dominated by Labor, they have lost their fighting power and continuously lost support from their constituency.
Our job in defending student unionism today is twofold. It is not only a fight against Liberal attacks, but also a fight against Labor control of the student unions. Student activists need to fight for student unions that are independent of government.
Student unions with their hands tied behind their backs make voluntary student unionism attractive to large numbers of students. We need to untie the hands of student unions, campaign against the range of attacks on students that both Liberal and Labor are now implementing and in this way win more and more students to student unionism.
The Victorian legislation could go through parliament any time from the opening of the autumn session on March 8. In Perth, the legislation was passed with only 24 hours' notice, and the Kennett government is offering no details of the proposed legislation.
In response to the threat of VSU, a Student Unionism Network has been set up. This includes representatives from most of the student unions in Victoria, as well as other interested students, and plans to campaign in defence of student unionism and student rights.
For more information, contact Melbourne Resistance on (03) 329 1320.
[Jo Brown is a Resistance activist at Melbourne University.]