Sussex students pass motion in support of posties

So what do people think about this? Is it even remotely interesting? Does it matter that some lefty students' union has passed a motion about striking posties? Do people think that this is something that lefty students should be pushing for at their universities?

I've got my own opinions on this but will hold back for a bit (mostly coz I haven't got time to go into it properly but also because I'd like to see what other people think first).

If it's anything like my old university then monst students will be unlikely to ever know.
Passing motions is to a large extent useless, but if it does serve to improve awareness then it has achieved something.
The students at my uni had a meeting and passed some resolutions, but unless they pass on to more substantial action nothing will come of it. Although the train strike looks to be dying down it's still holding in part although it was only supposed to be a one day strike on thursday, if the EDF and the rest come back out then we could be looking at a sustained period of strike action. I've seen reports about rail workers voting for all out strikes although I'm not sure how accurate they are.

Discussion about this on Royal Mail Chat here

there are two 'anarchist' orgs in sussex uni, sussez autonomous and black cat group. i use the quote marks cos autonomous are pretty vague politically, though ed can give you more info on that. black cat are libertarian communist and got this motion passed. its not perfect cos i wrote one originally as a statement from the black cat group, and didn't realise it would be put before the union so it was rewritten last minute. But i think this is a pretty good development, but in itself won't do anything to mobilise the student body.

One thing could be to pass a motion banning scab employers from advertising/recruiting on campus. Although I'm not sure if that would mean anything or if you could enforce it.

I think that it is worse than useless. I agree with Catch in that it doesn't mean much, but it does convince people that they are doing something, and is a diversion away from class politics.

Devrim

I'm glad those kids in Sussex are supporting us. Support from any direction is a bit thin on the ground just now so we're hardly in a position to pull it to pieces when it does come along.
At least the Sussex students who passed this motion aren't crossing picket lines like sudents did in 1926 and this motion might make the scabs at JMU think about what they're doing.

This was the Liverpool Guild of Students, who are the union for Liverpool Uni. Basically, there was a bit of a tussle on the guild council between the lefties (mostly trots and left liberals, afaik) and the tories, the lefties were slightly outnumbered by the tories, so a motion was passed condemning the striking lecturers for the assessment boycott while "supporting in principle" that they should be paid better. The lefties wrote a short leaflet signed as being from a minority within the guild, which they distributed on the picket lines and within the uni, explaining their objections to this, and were forced out as a result. This isn't really relevant and as I understand it, it's pretty standard student politics, but it seemed worth clearing up.

In any case, JMU student union (where Workbank's office is) is a completely separate organisation, so you'd be better directing any letters at them, though what with the wildcats already being over in Liverpool, I'm not sure what the situation is with Workbank.

Devrim, while I'd agree that student politics and student councils are generally a waste of time, if they can funnel some money from the NUS to cover the cost of their leaflets and pamphlets (which is the impression I'm getting), surely that's pretty useful, depending on the content of the leaflets, obviously.

Student unions are not quite the same as actual, TUC unions though, their function is completely different. Which isn't to suggest that they're anything other than a pile of wank, but they're much easier to manipulate than real unions. Personally, I wouldn't bother, partly for the reasons you point out and partly because I can't stand student politicians, but I can see why the Black Cat lot are doing this.

I guess this would depend on the situation on the ground. Say, for instance, if the only lefties at Sussex were involved in the SU and spent their time passing motions through the union for all sorts of shit (which does happen at Sussex admittedly), then I would say the difference would be none. However, as there are quite a few class struggle oriented activists at Sussex who should be able to use this motion to fund and publicise various events and/or agit prop, I think it does differ.

To my knowledge, there is already an article in the next issue of the student paper about what scabbing is and why students shouldn't do it, this is a direct result of this motion. Of course we could have just printed leaflets ourselves but it seems easier to do it this way so that the union could print it for us in a bigger quantity then we could have and distribute it more efficiently than we could have.

I'm sure (or I would hope) that this would be the beginning of further dissemination of working class politics, which the union will help with funding and publicity, at Sussex uni. But I dunno, maybe not. What do you reckon (revol, Devrim and others)? Do you think this approach (of using the union to fund the projects of radical students at Sussex) is fundamentally flawed because its asking the union for money? Do you think that articles in student media, paid for by the SU, about the importance of workers' solidarity are useful at all?

Er, this motion was passed because recruitment agencies came onto campuses in liverpool specifically to recruit scabs, If there was a wildcat in brighto, they would do exactly the same, i hardly see it as wanky and abstract. If a unison branch passed a motion to counter temp agency recruitment of scabbs during a strike that would be all well and good.

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Well duh its realistically going to black cat and co. who print the leaflets, but if the student union supports it, they may give us some of this thing called money, with money you can buy many leaflets, money is pretty neat like that. Not only that but the university will fidit harder to pull down posters and the like.
God this is pretty basic stuff, i mean i know you spent your student days ''hatin the five o'' or whatever but i wouldn' have thought i'd have to go over the basic dynamics of organising a group on a univeristy campus with you. As a political group on campus nine times out of ten you have to engage with the SU, if only to book rooms on campus or lecture theatres for film showings, its pretty much mental to try and pretend the SU just doesn;t exist.

So we can't pass any motions at union branch meetings now, because that would make us ''un-anarchist'' because liek trots do it occaisionally and they're like bad yeah. Jesus what absolute gibberish.

Cantdo, he didn't spend any time at uni whilst he was a student, because he is working class.

yeah when i was at uni you couldn't book a room without being an official SU society. some hoops it's worth jumping through.

i think they will be doing stuff on their own regardless, they will simply also get space in SU publications which have a decent circulation and are usually far less 'chomskyised' (i.e. ideologically uniform) than the corporate press since they're desparate for content. i don't think that represents some unprincipled compromise with bureaucracy.