YUSU Sabbatical officers have vented their frustration at sluggish progress in last week’s NUS conference on social media.
YUSU President Sam Maguire slammed bureaucracy in the National Union of Students describing it as “interchangeable with bullshit”.
Activities Officer Chris Wall also berated the Union saying: “NUS bullshit and bollocks has once again gotten in the way of many actual motions being discussed.”
The Sabbs were angry at the amount of time spent on setting the agenda instead of debating the actual motions.
Due to time constraints at the annual Liverpool event, York’s representatives were unable to put forward their one-member-one-vote motion, which would see NUS leadership directly elected by students across the country.
He said: “The NUS Conference was extremely frustrating for many delegates (check the #NUSConference) with many people unhappy with the amount of time wasted due to the continual submission of procedural motions and importantly the absence of electronic voting.
“The time wasted due to all the procedural motions and to having to do manual counts meant that there was only time for one item to be discussed at the AGM which was the controversial decision made by delegates not to introduce a full time transgender officer.
“This meant that the YUSU submitted motion of one-member-one-vote was not discussed despite support from many other unions.
“This was extremely disappointing and a copy of the speech I was going to give can be found online at www.facebook.com/YUSUPresident.
“However motion 303 that YUSU submitted with a number of other unions calling for greater financial support for students while they are at University did pass which we are delighted about.”
The NUS Conference lasted for three days, starting on Tuesday 21st April.
Sam Maguire was accompanied by an elected delegation of people last week including Chris Wall, next YUSU President Ben Leatham and Welfare Officer Jemima Busby.
What is OMOV?
OMOV stands for ‘One Member, One Vote’ and is the motion the YUSU President was trying to get passed at this year’s NUS conference.
Although, there wasn’t time for the rest of the country’s delegates to hear the motion, there is time to read it here.
The OMOV policy would change the voting system for electing Officers at the National Conference.
It would see a move away from the delegate-based system which sees less than 0.0001% of the UK’s student body elect their national representatives, to a system where, theoretically, every student in the country could vote for their National President.
The policy would still see the NUS’ Liberation Networks retaining their autonomy.
Sam Maguire wrote in a recent post: “Give our officers the full backing and mandate of 7 million students rather than 700 from a room in Liverpool.
“I ask you again, a national union of student unions, or a national union of students?”
I’ll tell you what is bullsh**, and that is the Sabbs advocating membership of the NUS, which is inherently bureaucratic, and unchangeably so, and then getting surprised when things like this happen.
Hard knocks. If only they were so ballsy when it came to matters on campus. It’s easy to get all aggressive to an NUS machine which they play a tiny part in. Hard nots.
The clue my friends is in the name: National UNION of Students. Unions are always bad — as a proponent of the free market and anarcho-capitalism I will never support the NUS.