In the last YUSU Union General Meeting of the year, the main focus of attention is upon Langwith Chair Cem Turhan’s proposal that the Union should lobby the university for a “Social Catering Building” on Heslington East.
Three other motions, “Annual NUS Affiliation Referenda”, “Re-Defining Quorum for Union Referenda”, and “Repealing YUSU’s Gaza Policy” have been proposed by campus campaigner Peter Spence.
At Thursday’s Big Talk, both Turhan and Spence spoke in support of their motions. Whilst there were no speakers against the Hes East motion, all three of Spence’s proposals received some criticism, most notably from YUSU President Tim Ngwena, and Democracy and Services Officer Dan Walker.
In March, Vision revealed that the residents of Heslington East will not get their own campus bar until 2014 at the earliest, and potentially not for another 20 years. The motion suggest that the union should make it a priority “to support the planned social/catering building being continued”. This echos the sentiments of Goodricke chair Nacho Hernando, who has previously told Vision that when Langwith moves to the new campus, “there will certainly be no excuse not to have a bar in Hes East.”
Spence’s first suggestion was that YUSU’s Gaza Policy should be repealed, as it is “entirely ineffective”, and “foreign policy should not be on the table for a Student Union or a Union claiming to represent student interests.” Despite being described by Turhan as “a complicated issue but not one we should just ignore,” it is expected that this motion will pass due to the failure of student unions, thus far, to affect foreign policy anywhere, with no evidence that this is likely to change.
Spence’s second motion suggested that NUS Affiliation Referenda should be conducted on an annual basis, rather than once every three years as it is currently. However, Tim Ngwena rubbished the proposal, citing that “in our constitution, the issue of referendum can come up at any time. There is no actual barrier”, before suggesting that “this motion misses the point slightly”. Democracy and Services Officer Dan Walker criticised the motion because he claimed research undertaken by YUSU has shown that “students do not like being asked the same question over and over again.”
The proposal to re-define quorum for union referenda was also slammed by the sabbatical officers. Ngwena again spoke out against Spence’s ideas, suggesting that the thought of only counting ‘Yes’ votes, and discounting ‘No’ votes and abstentions from the quorum would be “a really bad philosophy to be instilling into our students”, whilst Walker described himself as being “vehemently opposed to this motion.” There was some confusion regarding the wording of this proposal, and it is looks likely to be a confusing motion for students to vote for or against.
Due to the shift to Assemblies referenda in YUSU’s recent democratic review this could potentially be the last ever UGM. Voting opens for Friday 17th June at noon, closing Wednesday 22nd June, again at Noon.
I struggle to see why the NUS affiliation referendum got so much negative attention. When speaking to students about the NUS the vast majority either don’t know what it is or what it does. Pro-NUS types often tell me they think they could better communicate the good things the NUS does to students, and by having the debate more frequently the student body can be kept better informed. Both of the issues surrounding the NUS and which things they want their NUS delegates to support. We vote for NUS delegates annually, but we only ever discuss the NUS as a Union every three years at present.
Regarding the quorum motion, as I laid out during the UGM my issue is the failing of the current system in forcing some students to vote tactically. The proposed change to quoracy would remove that problem.
Oh, and I didn’t do much of the speaking regarding the Gaza policy motion. That was done by the Chair of StandforPeace, Chair of the United Nations Association and the current YUSU LGBT Officer.
I’m surprised an officer elected to promote democracy supports a quoracy rule which creates a disincentive to vote.
This year, there’s been plenty of times where a motion has passed, but would not have reached quoracy and thus would have failed if the people who voted no did not vote.
Surely the YUSU officers can see its simply ludicrous to say we’ll allow this motion to pass, but only if enough people go on the record saying they don’t want it to pass in order to meet the quoracy requirements”
The proposed quorum rules seem, to me, to be missing the point of the quorum requirements in the first place. The quorum is there simply to ensure that enough students have responded that we can infer as a union that the vote is representative of the will of its members (you can of course argue that the quorum should be larger or smaller). Why should voting against or abstaining from a motion be discounted as not being representative? If a motion fails to reach quoracy, that doesn’t tell us that students don’t want it. It tells us nothing, as we haven’t got a large enough sample.
In any election held anywhere, every voter is increasing the perceived legitimacy of that election. The price you pay for having direct democracy on simple yes/no issues is that you don’t always get what you voted for.
Alex has hit the nail on the head with this one.
If this quorum motion were to pass, it would also render abstentions useless. Quite often I choose to abstain on issues that I feel I don’t have the knowledge or personal experience to vote on and thus give greater legitimacy to those who it might affect (e.g Issues that may affect a college that I’m not a part of, or issues that affect minority groups of campus that I’m not a part of). This is a vital part of our Union democracy and this motion would damage that immensely.
The problem is that both of you are forgetting is incentives. If you oppose a motion, there is no incentive to vote against it. Anyone acting rationally would not vote at all, in the hope that the vote doesn’t achieve quoracy. At a time where YUSU is trying to increase participation by rightly changing the structures to make them worthwhile, it makes sense that these outdated quoracy rules get changed so that greater turnout is encouraged.
Far from decreasing legitimacy, this motion will give policy more legitimacy as it won’t be passed simply because enough people voted against it. I really am surprised that the YUSU lot are getting so up in arms in a motion which effectively says no motion should pass purely because enough people said they didn’t want it to pass. Then again, I suppose it was proposed by an “outsider”.
Alan – what you’re proposing is discounting the voice of all those who don’t agree with something or don’t think it’s a good idea.
For someone who has such a supposed interest in politics you don’t half have a limited knowledge of it.
Alan Belmore: http://bit.ly/9IwSUh
Also it looks like had the motion Cc quorum reached quorum (there are jokes here, surely?) it would have fell anyway?
I’ll conclude in the same manner in which I kicked off: http://bit.ly/jTSmLR