More Marxist student activists have been elected as delegates to next year’s NUS conference, where they will argue the case for clear socialist policies. Help us transform the NUS into a fighting socialist union.
Last week, NUS delegate election campaigns were held in Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and Leeds University. Marxist students ran on a bold socialist programme in both universities and were successfully elected.
These Marxist delegates from MMU and Leeds will join delegates from SOAS, UCL, UEA, Swansea, and Sheffield at the NUS conference in Glasgow in April 2019. Together, these Marxist delegates will argue for the NUS to be transformed into a fighting socialist union: one that really represents students.
All over the country Marxist students are pushing resolutions on free education and precarious work through their student unions. These will be debated and voted on at the NUS conference. Radical policies like this are the only way for the NUS to make itself relevant to the lives of the students it is supposed to represent. And is the only route to recovery from the £3 million deficit the NUS currently faces.
With more elections still to come before the conference in April, we are confident that even more Marxists will be elected to represent students this year. This will be an important step on the road to a fundamental transformation of the NUS into a fighting socialist union.
This year’s NUS Conference will take place on 8-11 April 2019 in Glasgow. It will play host to more Marxist student delegates than ever before, including from UCL, SOAS, Swansea, UEA and Sheffield, with many more elections still to take place.
The conference is set to deal with the £3 million deficit in the NUS budget. We will be arguing that financial questions are, at root, political questions. If the NUS wants to attract more support, including in terms of financial contributions from its members, then it needs to represent students by fighting for their interests.
With that in mind, Marxist students are currently working on campuses around the country to get the two motions below passed through their local student unions and on to be debated at the NUS Conference in April. One of the motions has already been passed unanimously and unamended through a SOAS UGM, meaning it will be on the agenda for the conference.
Come along to the Marxist Student Federation annual conference in London on 16th February 2019 to discuss the fight for a socialist Labour government, the struggle against precarious work, and how to organise on your campus.
Model motions for NUS conference
Get in touch if you would like to help the Marxist Student Federation pass these two model motions at your university, or if you would like to organise with Marxist student activists on your campus or at NUS conference.
End precarious work
NUS Conference believes:
- Precarious employment has become a typical feature of our lives under capitalism.
- Over 10 million people in Britain are currently considered to be in precarious employment.
- Low pay, poor working conditions, zero-hour contracts and minimal rights have become standard.
- This leads people to be barely able to live off their wages and are living in a desperate social and financial situation.
- At Universities, the result of this has been recent campaigns to bring cleaners and other staff in-house.
- The Conservative government has been promoting and encouraging precarious employment.
- An upsurge in precarious work is a natural product of capitalist crisis.
NUS Conference further believes:
- We have the technology, resources, and ability to plan the economy so that no-one has to work in precarious employment.
- All workers should get a real living wage, fixed-term contracts, and full workers’ rights.
NUS Conference resolves:
- To support, with financial help and active participation, the struggles of precarious workers.
- To help organise a joint committee of union representatives of all precarious workers at universities, colleges, and schools.
- To make the case for and participate in joint union action, on a national scale, in defence of the rights of precarious workers.
- To campaign for the election of a government for the many, not the few, that will fundamentally transform society so that the economy is planned and run in the interests of need, not profit.
Fund free education by expropriation
NUS Conference believes:
- Society benefits from having an educated population.
- The quantity and quality of education available to the public has always been a general measure of social progress.
- There have been several attacks on and cuts to education in recent years.
- The quality and availability of education is being limited by these attacks.
NUS Conference further believes:
- Education should be free and accessible to everyone, throughout their lives.
- We have the resources in society to provide free education for all.
- Profit should have no place in education.
NUS Conference resolves:
- To campaign for free education, to be funded by taking the entire education sector and the 150 biggest businesses and banks into the democratic ownership of the working class.
- To campaign for the national co-ordination and democratic planning of education and research based on the needs of society, not the profits of the rich.
