Student victory
Students across New Zealand have voted against making membership of students unions voluntary. Zanny Begg The referendums were carefully con- the student population structed by the government to encourage participated in the referendum and 72% a vote in favour of voluntary member- voted for compulsory membership. ship. Student unions were forced to At Otago the student union began the spend a dollar convincing students to campaign against VSM 12 months agoAs support voluntary student unionism for a result, 57% of the student population every dollar they spent convincing voted, of which 77% supported compulstudents that student union membership sory membership. According to Skinner should be compulsory. The ballot paper one the strongest bases of support came informed students that if they voted for from hostel students (residential voluntary membership they would be colleges where supporting compulsory refunded their student union fees. The unionism became the "thing to do" government prohibited students from The student movement only lost the paying for their fees out of the student referendums at Waikato and Auckland loan scheme. universities. At Waikato University the
Media, politicians and the trade union student association has been dominated leadership told the New Zealand Univer- by far right organisations since 1996. A sity Student Association (NZUSA).that campus referendum on voluntary memthey were fighting a losing battle. bership was passed in 1996 and again in
Despite these hurdles NZUSA laun- 1997. By 1999 the student union had ched a massive campaign to defend completely collapsed. Skinner explains students unions. As NZUSA co-president this meant that many students "had never Karen Skinner explained "we were not seen a functioning student union and did going to take VSM lying down". not know what there was to support".
The result? Five of the seven univer- Only 98 votes separated the union sities voted overwhelmingly against from victory at Auckland university, VSM. At Massey University in Palmers- where only 51% of students participated ton North, 46% of the student population in the referendum. Skinner is defiant: voted, with 65% voting against VSM. "We do not consider that voluntary
Skinner was particularly pleased that membership has a mandate at Auckland so many of Massey's 14,000 external We will contest the result by gathering a students rejected VSM-despite their petition from 10% ot the student populacurrent, low level of contact with the tion calling for a new referendum"
According to Skinner, the student
Lincon and Canterbury universities union at Auckland University used the had already promised to guarantee stu- wrong tactics. They put a major emphasis dent union funding if VSU is introduced. on the importance of services provided But this did not stop students mobilising by the student union. But it is hard to to defeat voluntary membership. convince students that these services will
At the relatively conservative Victo- be lost under a voluntary arrangement. ria University, in the capital, Welling As soon as the right mobilised and tried 30 International Viewpoint #312 June 1999 to tell students that services would be maintained under a privatised environment our arguments fell away. We were able to mobilise people only when we explained the political nature of VSM.
We had to explain to students that what they would really loose under VSM was their voice. Pushing the services line was one reason why we lost".
"One of the most convincing arguments we used in the campaign" Skinner explained "was to look at the timing of the legislation. VSM was meant to come in May. The month after a whole raft of new attacks on the tertiary education sector are going to be released by the government. Before the end of the year the National Party government has to go to the polls. VSM was about silencing student opposition to the government".
Skinner attributes a large part of the
"against the compulsory vote to a vote government" and "a victory for students and for the left. It sends a clear message
Cl to the government to "butt out' of student affairs. We don't like them interfering and we don't like their privatisation agenda in the tertiary sector, we don't like rising fees we don't like what they are doing to New Zealand".
According to Skinner students have played an important role in defending
Pro people's living standards, and have won
Chi support because of that. When the VSM the legislation was announced student unions priv received numerous offers of support because of the "activist role we play"
In A
The teachers union distributed leaflets
Peo urging high school students to vote rub compulsory to all school leavers at the end of last year. People donated money pro to the campaign and NZUSA built
Cer alliances with trade unions and other
Chi
NGOs. Skinner believes all these groups
(CC have been "empowered by the victory against VSM".
Zha
The government's response to the referendum results has been to lie low.
1.
Although the education minister helped of l draft the legislation no government
Zedo official would publicly comment on the to theo
It was left to backbencher Tony Steel prop to debate Skinner on radio. He tried to insinuate that student unions had reneged the ease on the agreement to spend equal amounts
Mari on the voluntary and compulsory the campaign and that the results would be in th challenged in court. Skinner laughed this
2.
off "we carried out the campaign totally above board and won convincingly"
new limir
The next fight facing New Zealand insis students will be the government's attempt with to remove student and staff representamai tion on university councils. Skinner says syst the campaign has already started: "We stat have a strong mandate to be here and to syst fight. We will not be silenced because we to l are even stronger then we have ever mor moc
3
Source: Green Left Weekly, May 12.
China * retail sector. These statistics were provided by Deng Liqun, usually seen as a hard-line Maoist, in Contemporary Thought, June 1998.)
Of course, the state continues to pump investments into state-owned enterprises. The fixed assets investment had increased from hundreds of billion yuan in previous years, to 1,082 billion yuan in 1996, to 1,342bn. yuan in 1997. The fixed assets of the state-owned economy were 6,589 billion yuan in 1996, far larger than the private sector of the economy.
If the nature of a state is primarily determined by the relations of production and property relations, then China would still be a deformed bureaucratic workers state, rather than capitalist. However, over the last two decades, state property has been eroded and undermined,