To clarify the details that aim54x originally requested:
- The National Day of Action is on April 28th. The Union will be closing all outlets (ie. Manning, Holme and Wentworth) from around 9am to 2pm to show people what it will be like under VSU without Union food. At 12pm, two events will start:
- The first is a festival on the Front Lawns. This will feature a free BBQ / free food and entertainment from Frenzal Rhomb, Tim Freedman, Wil Anderson and The Chaser. (If you don't like those particular acts, don't complain. That is entirely not the point.)
- Secondly, there will be a march down Cleveland St, up Regent St and then back along Broadway, back to USyd. Along the way, the marchers from USyd will meet with people from UTS and UNSW who will come back to the festival with us.
- After the festival concludes at around 2pm, the focus will shift to Manning where the Union will be providing various discounted food and drink and further entertainment. - The University Senate is in support of the action. They have recommended that faculty staff show "suitable leniency" to students who aren't at classes. Considering that the National Tertiary Education Union (ie. the union which most lecturers belong to) is also a major supporter of the NDA, it is possible that lectures will be completely cancelled in some faculties. However, even in those ones which are still run, you won't be penalised for going to the festival / rally instead.
To address some of the points that have been raised:
1) "If the Union & SRC go bankrupt under VSU, it's clearly not providing enough value to students" and "The SRC are wasting my money on running left-wing campaigns".
This is not the case. Contribution levels will fall not because people don't enjoy the services that they get, but because they will try to get them without paying for them. In the absence of a system of complete discrimination between members and non-members, people who didn't pay will think that they can go into Manning and watch the same free lunchtime bands as people who did pay - so why would anyone fork out at the start of the year?
Additionally, many of the services are things which aren't directly sustainable, because while they are essential, they are not glamorous and people don't recognise the value of them. For example, the SRC runs things such as welfare support, subsidised childcare, assistance with academic appeals, and - God forbid - political campaigns. Now, yes, some of the campaigns run by people are too extreme. But the SRC is an open body, where anyone who wants to can run a campaign on a particular issue.
In any case, these campaigns have achieved substantial gains for student rights in the past. You might decide you want to save some cash by not joining up to clubs, but if you support the Government's model of VSU in order to do this, you're also throwing away your only voice for student rights ... the people who fought (and successfully reduced) HECS increases, and who are conducting a campaign against ancillary course fees (which has been somewhat sidelined by VSU). When Xayma says the SRC doesn't conduct campaigns on student issues, he's conveniently overlooking these things, plus the glaringly obvious example of the VSU campaign.
2) "The SRC is not representative of student interests, because not everyone votes."
Here is a quote from ABC News (America) that might interest you:
WASHINGTON Jan 15, 2005 — Deep divisions over the war in Iraq and intense voter registration drives pushed the 2004 presidential election turnout to 60.7 percent, the highest level since 1968, the Center for the Study of the American Electorate said Friday.
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Link
I don't remember anyone calling the US un-democratic because not everyone votes. In any case, you can scarcely blame the SRC for the fact that not everyone votes. That's not their fault. Perhaps if more people were interested in issues that affect them and everyone else on campus, the SRC would be an even more vibrant political body. But don't persecute it for the apathy of the general student body on these matters.
3) "VSU gives me the choice to join and pay for just the clubs that I want to."
Yeah, well that's all well and good if those clubs manage to stay afloat. The fact is, most won't, and the ones that do will only manage to do so by charging a lot more for membership. As in, upwards of $30-40 (based on the amount of Union funding they'll lose under VSU), which of course no-one will pay because no-one can see themselves getting value for that much money upfront. So all the clubs will die, and people won't have the choice to join anything.
4) "Private enterprise would be cheaper for us all."
Well, there are a few private enterprises on campus already. BB's, Donut King, and Azzuri's are all privately-owned (you'll note they don't take the orange member card). It's not a coincidence that they're all more expensive. Generally, they're actually more expensive than the non-member price at Union outlets, so this whole argument that the Union doesn't know what it's doing and is full of inefficiency, whereas private enterprise has an obvious commitment to low prices, is flawed. Why would a business not answerable to the student body want to cut prices for no reason? Some people say 'competition', but there already is competition, both with each other and with the Union outlets. Also, consider that during uni holidays for 3 months of the year, these private enterprises would get no business. Most companies wouldn't be willing to take that sort of hit when they could just locate themselves nearby to the campus and get business all year round from both the student body and general population.
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Everyone just needs to think about whether saving this amount of money at the start of the year is worth:
- turning the uni from a vibrant, enjoyable place to be into a bland place with no extracurricular clubs, entertainment, or sport (SU Sport will die too, don't forget that).
- losing access to essential services that YOU MIGHT NEED one day, eg. welfare, academic appeals, legal and health services.
- depriving the student community of its ability to organise, be informed and have a voice on important issues which affect them (eg. Youth Allowance, which the student movement fought to retain as a payment rather than a loan, which the Government wanted to turn it into; also HECS increases, ancillary course costs and VSU). This will affect your rights in the future, and could make you liable to be paying more in terms of ancillary fees, HECS and other course costs if the Government is able to raise them without opposition.
- raising prices in all the shops in campus, or losing them altogether.
Yes, there are some flaws with the current system, but the Government's model of complete VSU is NOT THE SOLUTION. It's too harsh in its attacks on both campus life and the rights of students. It's simply not worth it.
