I want to live in a worlds where we have few rights as we need and where the rules of how I am governed are passed by those who are neither elected or representatives of me. This world would be one that serves the few and will walk all over my rights and give me no security or freedoms and would ensure I feel helpless. I want to have a student union that serves the university first their union ‘trading companies’ with the student body coming in third with the students being treated like customers and a hindrance. I want to know that if I have a problem with the union or university that I will get no support from my elected representatives and if the university deem me ‘an issue’ then the union will cut all support and ties to me and back up the universities position.

I want to know that when it comes down to whether my students union is democratic they will pass measures making sure that the real power of the union is placed elsewhere making it imposible for me to challenge them. And I want to know when it really matters, when there is an opportunity for my union to stand by me and to support me they don’t, they simply close ranks and alienate me.

Am not sure about you but this sounds like an awful world to live in. The idea that a students union wouldn’t be working for and with the student body, that it would surrender its core beliefs and its role in being the ‘voice’ of students providing them with the support they need to be protected at university is laughable. Yet unions around the country have slowly been stripping their union councils of their essential role and placed it in the hands of the sabbatical officers and thus the dirty hands of the union’s permeant staff.

Over time the role of the council has been has morphed into nothing more than providing a rubber stamp the union needs in order to get motions passed and policies passed. You only have to look at the twice failed AGM that Sussex Student Union last year that was a truer as any indictment to the failures of the unions to connect with their student body.

Student unions have strangely closed their doors to students and have made it their duty to strip the council of the overall rights and responsibilities. Elected officers spend most of their time surrounded by the unions trading company and permeant staff and not enough time with the students. The dangers of this is obvious in that it does nothing to bring the student in and over time the student has started to feel less involved and supported by their unions. This also makes the unions nothing but a business who’s interests are to produce a fake idea of solidarity as without the power of council they fail to be representative and thus lack any real power.

Council what council?

Do I have a love affair for student council? Probably. My own experiences have been mixed but one thing was for sure it was the heart of union democracy and without it you have nothing but a slow devolution of student politics and with each generation that comes in they see less and less student representation. The council’s overall duty is to ensure that the constitution is adhered to, that the sabbatical team don’t run rough-shot with policy, and that students can come to the union no matter what for support, surly the whole premise of the union?

Disclaimer

I have to be honest and let you all know I have never met Ed Bauer and I only know of him via twitter. Last year we got into quite the ideological discussions over the student protests/demonstrations and it was clear we where never going to see eye to eye, at all. Yet unlike others who are part of the ‘movement’ Ed didn’t unfollow our twitter feed but rather, when he could owing to time, he took the time and effort to respond to my tweets and questions.

Though that alone is not the reason why I am supporting Ed the main reason is down to the fact that it is the right things to do. Ed actions where bound to rub against the grain of his union/university because he is an original voice. He’s a student who actually believes in something and is willing to challenge those who are hindering his beliefs. There are too few students who believe in anything and even less who become threats to this disastrous mariage between the unions and universities. Ed’s treatment is proof that the democratic ideals that are at the heart of unions has been ripped out leaving bastard patsy institutions that have neither any beliefs or a student body well informed enough to know just what their unions are up to.

No student should be treated the like this. Birmingham Guild should truly feel ashamed for balking as they have and letting one of their democratically elected officers be hung out in such a way. The only course of action that the union, if they so desired, would have been to have an emergency union council meeting to decide the action to take. It in no way is in their hands to suspend an officer, and it certainly should not have been placed in the hands of the non-elected trustees. The student body are the only ones to make that call, yet Birmingham Guild simply decided that they would prefer if it the running of the student union wasn’t (isn’t) interrupted by the student electorate.

Ed should be fully reinstated without delay and Birmingham Guild should remove any policies or motions that it has that stop the union being democratic and fully 100% answerable to the student body and the student body alone. Am sure if they where to ask their students if they would prefer for an unelected group of trustees to decided, without having to come to union council, the fait of elected officers an thus undermine the entire democratic process, they would not vote yes.

It is sad that it has come down to this but UoB Guild of Students should be mindful of what they are setting. Do they really want to be known as the union who turned their back on their students.

Birmingham Guild of Students* it is now time to do the right, just, and honorable thing and reinstate your elected officer and let the student body decided what action it wants to take.

Support from Sussex Students Union is undeniable, it is now up to YOU students from Birmingham, and from other unions to tell UoB Guild how wrong they are!

*TNC has been in touch with the guild about this and are waiting to get the information we asked for. We will give the elected members of the guild the right to reply to this piece.