Students’ Union should be disbanded

The Students’ Union should be dismantled and reforged as a separate entity without a symbiotic relationship to university administration. The simple fact of the structure of the SU prevents it from operating as a collective bargaining unit on behalf of undergraduates. It’s only from a more radical posture that any replacement for the current incarnation of the SU could hope to lobby earnestly in favour of students’ rights.

Far from amplifying the voices of discontentment, the SU is a playground for boosterism, egomaniacism and plain vanity. To submit one’s candidacy for a SU governing position is to declare oneself the best puppy at rolling over and playing dead. The entire apparatus seems to hold the steady conviction that it has been chosen by the student body for the purpose of seldom lobbying for anything concrete; and forget any meaningful form of collective bargaining. We need an SU that truly harvests the radical power of our collective, an SU that can interact with university admin on equal footing. Simply being told what will happen is the politics of diktat.

But how can we expect honest and effective leadership from people whose decision to have themselves nominated for the executive jobs was motivated by gaps they noticed in their CV? An effective political body must maintain an antagonistic relationship with admin, not a cooperative one. We must re-vindicate our right to strike. We must hold our ground when the system abuses us with wanton fee increases and program cuts. Our disposition must change not only towards the university admin but all levels of civic government. The potential for meaningful collective representation exists, but no hope remains for a broken quagmire like the current SU.

A new iteration of the SU would necessarily have to draw on grassroots support across faculties and base itself on the unity and strength of the undergraduate polity. The conversion of power into authority catalyzed by strong student support would give a new SU the legitimacy to expand its menu of options.

In 2012 when the expiration of a tuition freeze was announced, our compatriots in Québec demonstrated their discontent in the streets. Conglomerate Students’ Unions organized over half of Québec’s student population in a general strike. They were joined shortly thereafter by sympathetic labour unions, and members of the left-opposition. When a new government formed later that year it was forced to accept the condition of the general strike and re-institute a tuition freeze. In Alberta our instructional fees are locked through the 2016-2017 academic year; but what happens when that legislation expires and students are again victimized by abbreviated funding? If our Students’ Union decides that negotiation and eventual capitulation is the best strategy for defending undergraduates from fee increases, it will be time for a new syndicate. We’ll need a new organization with the audacity not only to call for a general strike but to reassert our franchise more broadly.