How Voluntary Student Membership eroded the social contract between society and students

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When the National Party gifted ACT the opportunity to gut Universal Student Membership in NZ, ACT jumped at the opportunity.

ACT were smart enough to understand that if you removed the resources from students to be able to organise and protest Government policy, you effectively silenced one of the great challengers to their hard right doctrine.

Neoliberal User Pays Culture won a massive victory by stamping out Universal Student Membership by ironically selling the entire debate as an issue of ‘rights’, the ‘right’ to association. Their facile position was that no one should be forced to pay for a fee that is used for activities that an individual disagreed with. The response from the Left – rather than rolling over and letting National get away with this – should have been to point out that many Student Unions already had procedures in place where if a student disagreed with the activities the fees were being used for, then they could present their opposition and could nominate a charity that fee could be sent to instead.

Problem solved.

Sadly the Left seem to have the strategic skills of a checkers player playing chess and didn’t put up much of a fight and this right wing wet dream came to pass.

With the blow to resources, Universities have swallowed up Student Unions as glorified ‘service’ providers minus any of the real power. With a drop in resources comes the inability to organise properly, student media starts to die off and Steven Joyce quietly cuts the throat of any real voice by students in Tertiary Education without so much as a whimper.

The special and important role Tertiary Students play in our society is one of social critics. They are supposed to have time to think, to drink, to argue, to protest and debate. They are supposed to provide the social friction of criticism, it is a necessary and healthy part of our culture to evolve. By killing off the funding for Student Unions under the pretence of ‘right of association’, the Right have cleverly choked off any association at all.

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One of the first things a progressive, left wing coalition must do on taking back Government is an immediate implementation of Universal Student Membership so that the next generation of thinkers and leaders have the resources to have a voice and act as a conscience to society by strengthening our communities because of that debate.

We have allowed the seduction of individual rights to damage a necessary function of democracy, and we are doing the next generation a terrible disservice by robbing them of the resources they require to find that voice.

Universal Student Membership now.

27 COMMENTS

  1. The last paragraph says it all. You want to live in a democracy, yet are not happy when the majority vote with their feet in deciding they don’t want to be a part of your compulsory union membership and acquisition of other people’s money. Individual rights are non negotiable. Do you want to live in a free country or not? Why is freedom of choice good for same sex marriage but not for union membership?

    Your hypocrisy knows no bounds!

    • your stupidity know no bounds, in case you didnt realise it you are a card carrying member of many unions, your IRD number makes you a member of the taxpayers union, maybe you should ask them if you can opt out, if you own a home you are a ratepayers member, own a car you are a registration member, starting to get the drift now, life is about communities not individuals, the roads you drive on were built by communities along with the parks your children play in etc, people like you give me that puking feeling

      • Lloyd your comparisons are just plain silly.

        We get services in return for our rates, services we want and need. The tax payers union has members who join voluntarily; there is nothing to opt out of if you haven’t joined.

        No-one should be forced to join a union. If they have such great worth, let them prove it to those they want to join. They have obviously failed miserably.

        • When the students had a vote on continued automatic enrollment in student Unions, you have always had the option of opting out, they voted to keep it.

          The ACT policy ignored the fact that the majority of students who had a view, voted for the Unions.

          • So the majority of the unionist voted for the unions. How bizarre to use this as an argument…..
            Student unions as well as teacher unions should be banned. They both corrupt society where it is at its most vulnerable.

            • I assume you’ll be giving up all the things unions won for workers, then? Like your weekends, holidays, sick pay, rules around dismissal, and so on?

      • “life is about communities not individuals”

        No, life is about communities AND individuals. We should be protecting the freedoms of both.

        “the roads you drive on were built by communities along with the parks your children play in et”

        No, they were built using tax and rate payers money, most of which was and is contributed disproportionately by high income earners and the wealthy.

      • A card carrying member? No I don’t get your ‘drift.’ Just because I am a taxpayer doesn’t make me a member of any collective group represented by anyone, I am merely a taxpayer, a ratepayer, a (multiple) car owner. Of course life is about communities, but it is also about individuals….individuals with individual wants, needs and desires, and each of those individuals has inalienable human rights, which in this case includes freedom of association. There is no ‘community good’ involved here, but there is (or should be) a right to choose if an individual would prefer collective representation or not. Some will opt to be a member of a union, others not, just as some will opt for kiwisaver, some not. Some opt to have a family, some not. Why the hostility towards the rights of the individual? For heavens sake, this blog includes a reference to human rights in almost every article. Now if a person standing up for individual rights and freedom of choice gives you that ‘puking feeling’, maybe you should exercise your freedom to jump on a ‘plane to North Korea

        • North Korea?
          …way to ruin an argument, as if it wasn’t half-assed already. ‘Freedom of choice’ is my favourite though. I understand that the term ‘freedom of choice’ is used by politicians to fool people into thinking an oppressive system which coerces us gives us freedom. But I don’t understand why you would want to use it in regards to student associations within an institution.

          If ‘freedom to choose’ and ‘individual rights’ are so valued by you, then why would you choose to go to a publicly funded university?

          Thanx 4 da lolz

          • So let me get this straight. Anyone interested in freedom of choice and individual rights are not welcome at a publicly funded university? It is interesting that my recollections of a university education promoted exactly those values of freedom of choice and actively denounced any form of dictatorship as a human rights violation.

            Your reference to students being depoliticised, why would I be interested in attending a publicly funded university and libertarian leaning students not deserving an education in a collectively funded university worry me. Firstly, the inference that everybody should be forced to pay, but only those with a collective mindset may attend. And secondly that universities, in your opinion, should be treated as some kind of government sponsored socialist indoctrination centre. You accuse me of being selfish, but show yourself as the most selfish and unfair of all of us.

            • “Firstly, the inference that everybody should be forced to pay, but only those with a collective mindset may attend. And secondly that universities, in your opinion, should be treated as some kind of government sponsored socialist indoctrination centre. You accuse me of being selfish, but show yourself as the most selfish and unfair of all of us”

              Those were never my arguments. I never suggested only those with a collective mindset may attend, and I don’t want universities to be a government sponsored socialist indoctrination centre, nor did I call you selfish.

              I was just pointing out the contradictions in your view.

              Our universities are funded by the public, so you have used those *collective* resources to improve your individual capital. The bloke down the street on minimum wage helped pay for your (and my) education – so we have benefited from a collective educational system…but then, while you are at your state sponsored educational facility, you have the nerve to claim you don’t want to be part of the student association.

              You are wanting collective benefits for yourself, but then you don’t want to contribute towards the collective association, which is really there to protect the most vulnerable (ethnic minorities, people with learning difficulties, disabled, etc).

              You should just enact your ‘freedom of choice’ by not going to university if you are so concerned about it.

              And for the record the last thing I’d want a university to be is a ‘government sponsored socialist indoctrination centre’. At the moment they are nothing more than government sponsored capitalist indoctrination centres, which is slightly worse. I want them to be places of critical thinking

              • Indeed, universities are government sponsored capitalist indoctrination centres.
                So that those students that make a success of their studies can become successful tax payers.
                So that their tax can contribute towards the collective association, which is really there to protect the most vulnerable (ethnic minorities, people with learning difficulties, disabled, etc).
                Contrary to popular socialist doctrines, there are no free lunches. Someone needs to pay for them.
                And you have the nerve to lecture others about morals while you are just another ‘collective’ parasite who want to suck his fellow students dry with forced fees.

          • “But I don’t understand why you would want to use it in regards to student associations within an institution.”

            Don’t you? Really?

            Ok, it goes like this. Person A attends University. A union is not necessary to either the university or to Person A’s education. A union wishes Person A to join their club, and pay fees for the privilege. All good. Person A should have the choice of whether to join this unnecessary organisation or not.

            Simple really.

            • “Simple really.”

              I’d call that neoliberal simplicity.
              You have reduced the definition of what a university is, and should be, to suit the privileged. Your logic of getting rid of anything which isn’t considered “necessary to either the university or to Person A’s education” has been applied to NZ’s universities over the past 5 years and our post secondary education has become an embarrassment.
              Universities work better when all departments are strong and students have agency. The bureaucratic top down model you seem to have a boner for has failed us, we need more voice from below again and student associations are must be strengthened again for this to happen.
              Check out how we’ve slipped down the rankings thanks to the ideological drive of shaping our universities in accordance with a neoliberal corporate model:
              Massey
              UOA
              Victoria
              Otago
              AUT
              Canterbury
              Waikato

              It’s understandable that you have no faith in our collective ability (I’d aim low if I was you too), but the rest of us think we can do better.

    • Mike

      You are supposed to read more than just the last paragraph. A university (or other tertiary education provider) is an institution larger than the individual. Or do you not think lecturers should be required to comply with registry criteria?

      Your ignorance knows no bounds!

      • Having lecturers meet certain criteria imposes nothing on a student. Compelling a student to join an organisation they don’t want to most certainly does.

  2. The response from the Left – rather than rolling over and letting National get away with this – should have been to point out that many Student Unions already had procedures in place where if a student disagreed with the activities the fees were being used for, then they could present their opposition and could nominate a charity that fee could be sent to instead.

    Problem solved.

    The left did exactly that. They didn’t roll over, they fought this more than they fought anything else that has happened over the five years of this National government. They delayed and delayed the bill, and they repeatedly made the argument you make about the option for conscientious objection.

  3. (down with etc). The left-wing govt. should immediately make voting compulsory for all citizens–which is a contradiction of ‘freedom’ not to vote–but it would make this a true democracy. Then implement Universal Student Memberships to ice the cake.

  4. Compulsory union membership violates Part 2, article 17, of the NZ Bill of Rights – Freedom of association.

    • There is freedom to not be associated with the student associations – don’t go to the university. Some university students don’t deserve an education – for example the Libertarian students who think it’s OK to study at a place which is collectively funded, and then live their life as a selfish individual.
      Every university student will be paying for parts of the university which they don’t use, such as carparking, bars, events, recreation centres, technology etc.
      Student associations are part of university. The problem is not there existence, but it’s what they do. Most student associations these days just put on parties; as if students need assistance for that.

    • Tell that to the various professional associations that require a person to be a paid up member in order to legally practice.

      Student union fees weren’t like that. They were effectively a tax to pay for things that individual choice would not, due to market failure (which libertarians are too stupid to understand). Some of these included advocacy services and student clubs. The existence of all these things made the campus a nicer place, even if you didn’t use them. The student’s union I belong to was only in a lesser sense a political organisation – it was primarily a friendly society aimed at collectively improving student welfare.

      But those days are now gone. We just don’t have the same sort of student at university any more, and the ones we do have don’t have the same sort of leisure time.

  5. The current student association at the University of Canterbury actively dumb down the students. They have completely depoliticised themselves and don’t represent students at all. Whenever there are cuts to some departments, the UCSA say nothing.

    The UCSA has a history of corruption and the representatives do all they can to further a culture of idiocracy.

  6. Also the opt out provision was at the discretion of the union and it was weird you couldn’t actually get your money back and it had to go to a charity.

  7. VSM had little to do with it.

    Allowing more people to come to university meant it had to be dumbed down and made vocational.

    The student loan scheme and increasing fees means that students have to worry more about vocational training and many have to take jobs to get by, leaving them no time for much else, especially politics.

  8. It’s a pity we can’t ” opt out” of the neo-liberal paradigm as easily as the neo-libs covertly force us to conform to their “new world order” of corporatism, Individualism, and unbridled consumerism…

    • There is really nothing stopping you from opting out. If you want to set up a voluntary collectivised economy then go ahead and do it. Set up businesses which are worker controlled and pay wages you feel are ‘fair’. The truth is you really don’t want a voluntary one. You want a forced collectivised economy paid for by the capital of people who don’t agree with you.

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