Student unions and beyond

Comment by Arun Pradhan and Anne O'Callaghan University student union elections are here and for many on the left this automatically means gearing up for an election campaign. Student unions can play a vital role. In the late 1980s it was the left wing unions on Queensland and Curtin Universities that led a successful national boycott campaign against the federal Labor government's attempt to introduce up-front student fees. But today, running for unions is often the sole focus of left activists. Even those who win positions commonly discover that they can do little if there is no hint of broader struggles outside the union. There is a wrong perception that unions are the motor force of change on campus. In reality, it is the activity of broad numbers of students in campaigns that effectively fights attacks against education and raises other political demands. It is the need to build such struggles which is the starting point when deciding whether to and what sort of campaign to run for the union. These questions were posed on Curtin University this year when the Resistance club and other independent activists initiated a ticket called DIG (Democracy In the Guild). The Curtin union has been run by the ALP right for the last five years. They suppressed campaign initiatives, political activities and even stalls on campus. At the same time many students wanted to get involved, particularly in the No Fees for Degrees campaign. We decided that running in the elections could play a part in taking such campaigns forward. We aimed to win the elections but we also had other goals including:

• to build a campaigning left on campus

• to expose the negative role the ALP right plays in running the union

• to argue against the current "service based" role of the union whereby Curtin is the most profitable union in the country but fails to acknowledge its political role with the consequence that only 14% of students have bothered to join

• to highlight the destructive role that NUS has played nationally and in WA where they condemned a 300-strong occupation at the first National Day of Action and failed to support the most recent NDA despite having budgeted $4000 for it.

With around 35% of the vote DIG did not win executive positions, and won 4 out of 12 council positions. We were able to achieve many of our goals. Our lecture speaking profiled the Curtin Women's Collective and we have put pressure on the union representatives to be active and support campaigns. Through our policy statements, we also emphasised life beyond campus politics. We also acquired some first hand experience of "the ALP machine" in action. Its use of dummy tickets, for example — at one point there were five presidential candidates running on the "real" ALP ticket, three ALP fronts and DIG. The ALP used one dummy ticket specifically to attack us, with the slogan "put the communists last". This demonstrated the marked difference between our attitude towards the elections and that of the ALP which focussed on sewing up deals and avoiding a political election campaign altogether. For instance, DIG was approached by the current union president and another ALP right member (who currently works in Kim Beazley's office) and offered two Council positions and the Women's Department in exchange for NUS preferences. We obviously declined the deal. We are now also clearer about the relationship between running for student unions and broader campaigns. Much of the electoral support we received came from our work in building the National Days of Action against fees and the Curtin Women's Collective. And running in the elections allowed us to build these campaigns further. Too often, left students run in elections without question, or worse, run an apolitical image contest. The question of what can be gained besides getting "a few positions" is generally not raised. For DIG, a perspective beyond winning office was critical from the outset. Our election campaign has helped expose the role of the ALP right; it has raised questions about our $60,000 a year relationship with NUS; it has profiled issues of fees, women's rights and racism; and it has helped bring together students who are prepared to campaign around these issues. It was a success. (Arun Pradhan was the DIG presidential candidate, Anne O'Callaghan is a newly elected DIG guild councillor. Both are members of Resistance.)