WSU
May 14th, 2012 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarA reader writes:
Because of the new VSM legislation, the WSU is no longer allowed to force students to join their union. Because the union no longer represents all students, as some students choose not to join (64% have not joined despite membership being free) the university no longer sees them as being representative of all students.
This has resulted in the WSU losing its default seat on the university council, and the university holding its own elections. The WSU has elected to stand a candidate in this election. There are three other candidates. Voting is done online, and the university has done a terrible job regulating and enforcing the election.
The WSU has found a way to get around the VSM legislation which stopped them forcing students to pay their fee’s by simply becoming a “service provider” for the university. This allows their fee to be charged to students via the student services levy, regardless of whether they join the union or not. As part of this agreement the WSU is funded to provide services such as student media – Nexus Magazine.
The student union clearly decided that the biggest election on campus was not news worthy and failed to run profiles etc of the candidates to inform students of their options, however, felt it was appropriate to have their candidate, Sapphire Gillard (the WSU President), promoted in the magazine with a full page. No other candidates were advertised.
The WSU also felt it was appropriate to have paid WSU staff campaigning throughout the election, with laptops set up, and posters advertising the WSU candidate plastered behind on a backdrop, offering cake (which the president apparently paid for herself) and tea, coffee, and hot chocolate (which the WSU paid for) to students who voted. This raises questions of fairness in the campaign, given some of the other candidates are WSU members.
What value to students get from this campaign?
Clearly this is not a service the university funds them for?
This is not the first time the WSU and Waikato University have acted unethically.
Students at Waikato voted three times to be voluntary in the 1990s. Then one year the university (when former UK Labour MP Bryan Gould was Vice-Chancellor) scheduled a fresh vote on whether to have WSU voluntary or compulsory. They gave only around three working days notice of the vote and scheduled it for study week when almost no students are on campus. Hence a small number of compulsion touts managed to make WSU compulsory again.
It is outrageous for WSU to use money granted to it from the university, to support their own candidate in an election, rather than allow a fair election.
My view is that if universities have enough money to help fund partisan election campaigns, then they need no more funding from the taxpayer.
May 14th, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Should make it illegal for Universities to charge students for a service that they do not want or use. In fact someone with a law degree could look into it to see if it illegal to charge someone for a service they do not use or want.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 12:19 pm
The WSU was stacked with bunch of dirty smelly hippies and commies of indeterminable sexuality when I was there. And they stole all the fees money, allegedly.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Mark
I might want to get the sports channels on Sky, but to do that I have to pay for the basic package as well. Should Sky be forced to change their business model?
I understand where you are coming from but it’s a slippery slope.
The university should have put its service providers out to tender.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 12:27 pm
David Farrar’s obsession with student unions is getting to be borderline weird.
Fact one: Student unions provide a range of useful functions universities don’t want to provide directly. They will therfore come up with all sorts of clever and ingenious end runs around invasive and proscriptive laws that try and stop them doing what is convenient for all parties. After all, universities do tend to be full of clever people who come up with ingenious plans. The harder you try to thwart them, the more slippery the arrangements to slip through his grasp become.
Fact two: Most students don’t give a shit either way these days – When asked they like the stuff the student union provides, don’t like compulsion and wouldn’t care if there wasn’t a student union but don’t mind being charged for the fact that there is one. All contradictory, largely because they don’t care. the only people who really care are the clever clogs at the universities, and they’ve got a lot of time to plot the downfall of Mr. Farrar’s various fiendish combinations than he has to think up loopholes that need plugging.
Let it go. You are a successful middle aged man. Obsess about something more age appropriate and where you are more likely to succeed.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Fuck you fish boy DPF is well qualified to speak on this subject and you would do well to sit down, shut up and listen for once in your life.
Did you know DPF is a life member of the Young Nats? So even when he is 80 he will be well qualified to speak on youth issues for that reason alone
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Indeed.
Fish_boy gives a nice example of the sort of entitled thinking you’re up against – claiming that most students don’t mind being charged for a student union, even if they don’t want to join. Evidence please, Fishy.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
I think universities need to do a better job of articulating the services and the procurement model.
For example, cafeterias. These should be procured the same way other similar services typically are:
– set a minimum standard
– run a tender to see who wants to operate the cafeterias, and on what terms
– pick the best proposition, as assessed based on food quality, price, timeliness, service, and level of subsidy (or rent)
As another example, student media. I suspect the answer on student media is that it should always be self funding – if you cannot manage to make student media advertising supported in this day and age then you’re not trying.
Try another example, student gym. Classic case of user pays.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 12:57 pm
The student unions are great training grounds which ultimately provide us with legislation like the EFA – Labour will crumble without them – It’s great eh.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
DPF – I thought you were all in favour of removing limits on candidates’ rights to use their own resources in election campaigns. Isn’t that what happened here? If membership of WSU is strictly voluntary, why should it be required to use its own resources to promote other candidates for election to the university Council?
[DPF: WSU is not truly voluntary. It is funded by the university, and used that funding to rort the election in favour of its candidate.
Why are you against the simple principle of allowing a free and fair vote]
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Nick R: the problem isn’t that it used it’s own resources, the problem is that it is acting as an arm of the university for a series of things – such as the student newspaper. If the university is funding the student newspaper, then the student newspaper should be even handed.
The right answer here is that the university shouldn’t fund the student newspaper. Then there’d be no conflict of interest.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
“…Fuck you fish boy DPF is well qualified to speak on this subject and you would do well to sit down, shut up and listen for once in your life…”
Goodness me, someone straight from the David Garrett school of Athenian rhetoric (note to David Garrett – no, this isn’t a gay slur so sit down)! I think that to find a more bracingly honest and direct reply one would have to search far and wide on Kiwiblog. Why, I do believe I would have to tediously scroll through at least three comments in this thread to find something even approaching your matchless prose, timeless logic and devastating wit. Or should that be half wit.
My dear boy, did your parents not teach you the value of maintaining a wider vocabulary? Such a potty mouth, but I fear all too typical of the modern right. Angry with foul mouths. Still, perhaps with a login of “Daigotsu” you may be a recent Asian migrant who was taught by some local fellow, by way of a harmless but amusing diversion, that “fuck” is a European honorific to be liberally applied when seeking to compliment someone?
Another interesting point from your post is you assumption of your knowledge of me. If I may speculate for a moment, I would suggest you have but momentarily been aware of my corporeal doings, and even then this is entirely via the medium of this forum, so it seems entirely reasonable for me to imagine you have little knowledge of my ready ability to obediently absorb information without the instructor fearing interjection or remonstration on my part.
Hence, your claim “…for once in (my) life…” seems an excessively extravagant assumption on the long span of my existence even by the generally applied permanent standards of right wing amnesia that exist in the New Zealand right wing blogsphere.
Of course, it is possible you may simply exist in a state of permanent now – an unfortunate head injury at some stage cannot be ruled out on the prima facie evidence – in which case I apologise to you.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
fish_boy: amusing.
I call into question your facts, and I in particular call into question your general assertion that we shouldn’t pass laws if there are people around who may be smart enough to circumvent them. By that logic much of our tax law should never have been created.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 2:14 pm
I’m certainly not against a free and fair vote. I just question why WSU has to provide it or promote it. It isn’t their election.
As for misusing funds provided by the University – that rather begs the question of what is being funded, doesn’t it? If the University has funded the student association to promote Council elections, and it has failed to do so in a fair and impartial way, then there should be (at the very least) an investigation. Otherwise – the remedy is either to vote out the executive at the next election, or form a rival student association, and demand funding from the University.
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
How do you know she didn’t just buy an ad with her own money?
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Based on my experience at Waikato, having a compulsory student union sucked (loons used it as a platform to promote their personal politics), and having a voluntary one sucked (it’s social functions were curtailed). What happened to the days of responsible student unionism, where the function of the union was to promote the consumption of alcohol and promiscuity?
Vote:May 14th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
FWIW: As a student at Waikato during 2010-2011 (and yes, I did graduate), I found the WSU a strange organisation, and said as much to the then Manager, while querying its political affiliations. The ‘official’ line is that WSU is NOT political, rather it was created from a bunch of organisations ‘way back when’ which found that they had more clout collectively than singly when dealing with UoW management. The key word ‘union’ is not as in ‘trade’ but rather as in ‘to join together’. Supposedly they are a-political, although it was noticeable that red was the colour worn by some members of the Union at various events. Although it nominally provides ‘support’ for students, and gets discounts for them within the town, for the average student, the WSU is effectively the ‘party provider’, and, especially during ‘O-week (Orientation week; the ‘getting-to know the Uni’ intro), makes its presence known publicly by organising ‘social’ events with a very high emphasis on the consumption of large amounts of alcohol, things involving sex and sexual-health, and odd-ball sporting events. Aside from these. those who are in control of the WSU are very low-profile and at times do come across as being completely disorganised, with the average student being given very little info about exactly what it is they actually do (seriously) or what facilities are to be had in respect of such things as the mature Students Room, Women’s Room etc.! Curiously, the WSU is also the campus agent for Tica-tech event-ticket-purchasing which must be a reasonable income earner. Close observation suggests that the only ‘political’ events tend to be when WSU elections are about to occur and then it’s more in the nature of a ‘game’ than anything else Sadly, the ‘alternative method of funding ‘ doesn’t surprise, although the average student at UoW probably couldn’t care less ; to many other distractions around , not all of them academic !!. As I said, FWIW.
Vote:May 15th, 2012 at 12:32 am
Fishboy is wrong on all counts. WSU was probably the worst of the lot when it came to student democracy and participation.
I remember their purchasing of crazy things like accomodation and TV frequencies, hellbent on spending as much of their compulsory acquired funds as they could. There were so many incidents of failing to follow the constitution and they thought consultation was a joke.
Making something compulsory doesn’t solve anything. What you’re essentially saying is that events and fun doesn’t happen if people aren’t forced to join a club. What utter rot. Students will always organise themselves, and you’re seriously undermining your fellow students abilities to do so. Such is the arrogance of the self interested few at WSU.
Vote:You never did address the fact that the only way WSU could become compulsory again was due to a very dodgy “election”.
May 15th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
David you forgot 1995, when the no confidence won the presidential election, the WSU called a second one with the same incumbent candidates, when a ticket called “Student Choice” ran against the incumbent candidates the returning officer changed a ruling a few hours before the deadline which declared there nomination in invalid, he then extended the deadline to ally them to reapply, and the next day due to political pressure reverted it back. This lead to a legal challenge to the election requiring the whole process invalid and a third election was called. Student Choice won by a landslide and then several members of the exec claimed it was rigged and tried to force a fourth election in the holidays but failed to get a majority.
Someone should document the history of dishonesty by this organisation.
Vote:October 13th, 2012 at 9:36 am
A similar thing happened again for the 2013 election just held. Don’t have the results yet but there were two candidates…both members of the WSU but only the President was promoted by the WSU. The current member of council (Sapphire Gillard) sent an email encouraging all 10,000 union members to vote for the president. This is the only email that has been sent by WSU all year. Last week the vice-chancellor gave students an opportunity to talk to him at a meeting held to discuss the 4% rise in student fees. The WSU didn’t send an email letting us know about that but they send an email telling us to vote for their president. Also, the email was full of mistakes and misinformation but the other candidate was not allowed the opportunity to rebut the email. It appears from the way things are done with the WSU that they need a muppet that can work on their behalf in the council and that is why they choose one person who they have control over.
Vote: