UCDSU Union or Service Provider?

pretty*monster

To avoid incurring more of peachy's wrath, I thought I'd make a new thred to answer firespinner.

Firespinner wrote:

To the majority of students it is nothing more than a service provider. Ents is probably the most well-known position FFS. The whole point of the union (currently) is to serve students. That means pubs, shops, condoms, parties etc. The "campaigning union" is the wet dream of a minority, a left-over ideal whose sell-by date has long-passed.

Oh and the union should connect with students not sit back and wait for them to come to it.

'The union' are the students. I assume you mean the sabts and exec (because a class rep is there to repsesent her class not to reach out to meds and whatever). They make an effort but there are five of them doing it full time and four juggling exec duties with they're studies, 20,000 students is a lot to connect with. I'm not for a second saying they shouldn't make every attempt to, but the students have to meet them half way.

And I don't mean this solely in terms of an 'active campaigning' union. I mean this in terms of, if the union runs an awareness week the more help the better, the more people who submit to the grinds file the better, the more people who'll show up and sit on representative bodies like Teaching and Learning Board, or Academic Council (at the last BA Programme board only two student reps out of ten showed up, which was a bloody disgrace because Heads of Department were looking for feedback on modularisation of first years and since my self and the other guy were second years we could only tell them what we knew from gossip and hearsay). The more people who go to sabats and say we need a printer credit machine cos ours keeps breaking the better. The union works as far as you use it. You get out of it what you put in. It can't just dispense things, it doesn't have any power without students behind it.

That's what I mean when I say it isn't a service provider.

The sabats don't know what meds, law, arts, whatever want if they don't tell them.
Ok, and from dealing with Arts, who are far less apathetic about the union, I know that even if you ask people what they want they won't necessarily tell you. Example: running up to the modularisation campaign we had numerous open meetings and appeals for students to air their views on the subject, we got a limited response, and of course, after the fact a certain amount of people complaining that this or that view wasn't represented, but I mean, what can you do ff people won't speak up even when you explicitly ask them?

You have to make your voice heard.
Seriously.
That's one of the reasons that I see red when I hear people complaining about 'lefties' directing the union towards their own ends. Those so called 'lefties' are people you can rely on to show up and put in the work. If people of differing ideologies would do likewise I'd be over the moon (in some ways... not so much in others of course .

singingstranger

Kate, might be an idea to add a poll to this thread asking people whether they see the union as just a service provider or not?

dajaffa

Well part of the problem is a lack of awareness among students as to what the union can do for them, though I hear plans are afoot for next year to try and sort this out.

Chinafoot

Poll added.

Stepherunie

Speaking from a rad point of view - we've had to spend a lot of time working with the SU this year over a lot of issues we've had, I won't bore you with the details but anyone who knows any of us will know what i'm talking about.

Without there help a whole load of people would have been forced to repeat a year and a lot of issues to do with other things that i really need work wouldn't have been sorted, admittedly we were also lucky that we also had Prof Powderly nearly being driven mad by our situation but he also helped quite a lot.

Red Alert

Or both, or none.

Currently as i see it the services side works extremely well, and could do better. Particularly books, copying and similar stuff. Ents has done a fairly good job in the last year or so. The shops are excellent, but we need more of them in key locations. The off-licence/cans in the bar should be looked at, in fact a reform of both bars needs to be urgently done.

Campaigning wise the union did score a semi-victory on modularisation, which the college had decided was a done deal. The way i see it the union should be like a lens that focuses the interests of the students it represents. It's not doing that well at all at the moment, and needs badly to work on it.

We need our union to do both of these tasks well IMHO.

Stabshauptmann

Student activism doesnt appeal to everyone, I see it as a service the union provides, just like the grinds file or accomadation office. There if you want it but not the be all and end all of union activities, or even the main one!

But by student activism I mean the likes of the anti-war campaign. Stuff like modularisation and the rip off that effect all students shouldnt be lumped in with abortion for example. That to me is the seperate area of student representation. And isnt that the main critique ppl often have of union activism; namely that its campaings arent about student issues?

The union for me is a student governance body, it provides services for students. Two of the services it provides, representation and activism are often lumped together as one service, wrongly IMO.

scop

I wish I could say it was a Union, but honestly it is a service provider.

Althoguh I realise student unions are not the same as actual unions, I still believe nobody ought to have to join the Union unless they wish to.

They provide some service, and good people down the corridor can do good work.

Activists however worry because they care so much about ideals they wonder why most people are indifferent, the reality I guess is simple, once the wheels keeping moving nobody cares what dodgy deals go on.

Most of us are indifferent until it directly affects us and as nice, middle class university students the list of problems affecting us at a non superficial level is almost non existant.

Stabshauptmann

*Idle musing* If I had made that poll I would have made the options "campaigning union" / "campaigner" Vs "Service Provider" Obviously the SU is a union of some sorts...[sic]

*Idle musings switch to kittens because thats what the fluffy slippers Im staring at reming me of*

*Ends post because of peachys warning about OT posting

*Wonders why Im posting my inner monologue

**Did I just steal that from Scrubs?

*Why are you asking me, I dont know anything you dont?

OmFg! Im TALkinG to MeSeLF!!11111!!!

Chinafoot

Do that again and you can have a week off. I'm not just saying it for the craic lads.

As for the poll, if pretty*monster wants me to change it she can let me know.

Now can we please get this back to the discussion at hand.

humbert

Ah that was funny and not entirely off topic:)

I feel that the union should focus more on smaller more practical things like bikes being stolen, vending machines not working, relaxing the rules about drinking on campus, copy print stuff, doing something more constructive than mounting impotent protests about hilpers prices and less on their stance on abortion, the war on Iraq, banning coke, implementing fair trade coffee and workers rights. I suppose that would make it a service provider but if people really felt the unions primary goal was to make a practical difference they might start to give a shit.

beanyb

humbert wrote:

implementing fair trade coffee

That was actually a world aid thing, the union helped a tiny bit, but the group that met outside world aid context was effectively just world aid again! nice to know our hard work is getting the credit it deserves. :rolleyes:

But back on topic
I'd have to go with the union not being merely a service provider as Firespinner meant it. The campaigns it ran on modularisation this year and last year were important. If it werent for their representation on universities bodies the needs of students would be totally overlooked. Then we'd be royally f*cked.

pretty*monster

Ok... but the problem I have with seeing the union as a serivce provider is that students then treat it as and entity that just dispences things with no input from them.

Then when the union needs the force of it's members behind it (like on a grants campaign, modularisation campaign, fees, *insert whatever issue you care about here*) the students aren't as willing to get involeved because they don't see the union as 'them' they see it as 'the union', other people who do stuff for them.

The point I'm trying to make I guess, is that it isn't about contentious national issues like abortion, war etc. The union can't function adaquatly on things that are indisputably studant issues without the active participation of it's members.

Chinafoot

pretty*monster wrote:

The point I'm trying to make I guess, is that it isn't about contentious national issues like abortion, war etc. The union can't function adaquatly on things that are indisputably studant issues without the active participation of it's members.

I really don't want to get involved in this argument but I will say to that, that for a lot of people I know, the reason they don't want to actively participate is because all they usually see from the Union are issues that they class as not directly affecting them as students.

The national issues are the ones that appear the most obviously and the union are most vocal on them (and thats my opinion from what I've experienced in UCD over the past three years) and perhaps the lack of interest stems from the fact the students would prefer the Students Union to focus on student issues.

And before any starts this "but working conditions of Irish Ferry workers does affect students, what about when we leave and get jobs" yadda yadda yadda.....as far as I'm concerned the SU should be there to deal with issues that directly affect students while they are in the college.

Red Alert

that's true. we'll have unions (if we choose our jobs carefully when we leave). it would be one thing if everything here was hunky dory but it isn't. libraries, res, computing, modularisation, bars, ents, food provision are all in dire need of campaigning and reform. that will only happen if the union focuses on these issues and forgets about protesting about random stuff.

The_Minister

Firstly, Great post Peachy.

Secondly,

pretty*monster wrote:

To avoid incurring more of peachy's wrath, I thought I'd make a new thread to answer firespinner.

Good Idea. I was actually going to do it later but I didn't get off my ass in time.

pretty*monster wrote:

And I don't mean this solely in terms of an 'active campaigning' union. I mean this in terms of, if the union runs an awareness week the more help the better, the more people who submit to the grinds file the better, .......................The more people who go to sabats and say we need a printer credit machine cos ours keeps breaking the better. The union works as far as you use it. You get out of it what you put in. It can't just dispense things, it doesn't have any power without students behind it.

That's what I mean when I say it isn't a service provider.

You see, I would include grinds and awareness weeks in services that the SU provides. I would not include a Coke boycott or paying for the defence costs of someone arrested for being disruptive etc. unless a majority of students had backed the move. I don't mean the majority of 10% but the majority of the actual membership of the union.

This is why I view the union as a service provider. It should not take stances on distant issues from students but should focus on vending machines and getting a McDonald's onto campus. In short it should not be a vehicle whereby a small group air their social angst.

pretty*monster wrote:

That's one of the reasons that I see red when I hear people complaining about 'lefties' directing the union towards their own ends. Those so called 'lefties' are people you can rely on to show up and put in the work. If people of differing ideologies would do likewise I'd be over the moon (in some ways... not so much in others of course .

Maybe other ideologies see the union as an u****ortant service provider. Therefore they pay less attention to it. Therefore it abandoned to whatever political jackels want to live in it. Other idiologies only complain when the unions power is twisted in undemocratic ways to suit the needs of a few.
To give you an example its like a group of people taking over the post office - you don't care until they've done it.


EDIT: Why is u****ortant starred?

humbert

nimp is filtered but that's new???

singingstranger

Firespinner - nimp is starred because it was part of a virus-like sig a while back. Unimportant never made it into a filter to be allowed.

Not to go off topic though, I'd like to see where this discourse is going...

The_Minister

singingstranger wrote:

Firespinner - nimp is starred because it was part of a virus-like sig a while back. Unimportant never made it into a filter to be allowed.

So how can you sat ****? Is it like how some others say **** without stars?

humbert

Cuz we're nimping better that you!!:D

dajaffa

Firstly; fock, feck, bollocks,sh1t

just want to see what gets the ******** treatment.

I reckon this year has been both, the s+m campaign, + the night bus was a great service

pretty*monster

Firespinner wrote:

You see, I would include grinds and awareness weeks in services that the SU provides.

Perhaps the problem is with the term service provider, because yes you can see grinds and awareness weeks as services, and if you were being cheeky you could class action over Irish Ferries as a a 'protesting service that the union provides to those who wish to protest'

Ok... but see... the point I'm trying to make is the distinction between active and passive involvement in the union is what is at stake when we think of the union as a service provider.

Like... Ok, my bank is a service provider. I expect my bank to do stuff for me. And send me letters about more stuff it could be doing for me. And generally not screw me over (alright, suspend disbelief for the purposes of that point.
I do not expect my bank to ring me up and say, hey can you give us a hand postering about this new credit card we're bringing out.
Or email me and say, hey the government wants to *insert whatever it is governments do to banks* can you come to an open meeting tomorrow to discuss how we should respond.

Do you follow me? (Say if you don't cos I'm having trouble making this point clear)

The SU is not a service provider in the way that my bank is a service provider. The banks power and authority comes from the bank. The union's power and authority comes from the students.

Lets leave aside, for a moment, all the non-student issues we love/hate so much. (Because as I've said before those issues take up a teeny-teeny amount of the overall time/effort/money of the union)

Take the modularisation information campaign.
Ok, it went well in my book. But, it could have gone so much better, it could have run so much smoother, and at the end of the day more people could have been happier with the outcome had we had more student participation in it.
We held a lot of open meetings on it, put notices in the paper, lecture addressed, passed out flyers... we was litterly gagging for student input on either side of the debate. Ok partly because it would have been a relief to have more people share the workload, but mostly because a diversity of opinion is what you need when you're dealing with an issue that affects so many.
But the responce I seemed to get was, don't care (which is fair enough, I'm not superwomen, I have no plans to rid the university of apathy any time soon) or it's the union's job to deal with it.

That's the kind of attitude I'm talking about that's distructive to the union in anything it tries to do, whether it's representation on college boards, trying to up the quality of food in the resaurant, getting the night bus to service mpre areas, whatever the hell it is that the students want, as long as the majority of people see the union as 'other people who provide us with services', as long as students see problems in ucd as fundamentally the job of someone else, then the union can't function efficently, or to even close to the best of its abilities.


That's what I think, from the inside anyway.

Am I wrong?



(waver: I'm not trying ot say 'damn stupid students seeing the union as a service provider and only involving themeselves in it passivly. There's work that those who are currently active in the union also need to do to make students awatre, both of the value of the union, and of student's responsibility to the union... hmm... there's a paradox in there somewhere unfortunatly.)

The_Minister

pretty*monster wrote:

'protesting service that the union provides to those who wish to protest':D

Ooooh you cheeky little minx.
I have no problem with people protesting as long as they don't mascarade as having the authority to use my voice.




I see your point, but not everyone can get involved in the union (too many cooks). Most people will only use the facilities or pay the fee and that will be their entire participation in the union. That's OK. If something happens that they really care about, then they will rally. Shouting at them and telling them that they should be annoyed does not work because most don't care and they have a right not to care. It is for sad little oinks and in-denial meglomaniacs to run the union until it is needed for something other then cheap rubbers and cheap booze.
If modularisation was a big thing then they would have cared enough to do something. They don't. Deal.




I can say the comments on people running the union because I might run next year.

pretty*monster

Firespinner wrote:

If modularisation was a big thing then they would have cared enough to do something. They don't. Deal.

And yet people cered enough to complain after the fact. Funny that.

Firespinner wrote:

It is for sad little oinks and in-denial meglomaniacs to run the union until it is needed for something other then cheap rubbers and cheap booze.

As one who has a small part (and is well know to have had aspiriations to a larger part ) in the running of the union I take quite a bit of exception to that comment.

singingstranger

Firespinner wrote:

It is for sad little oinks and in-denial meglomaniacs to run the union until it is needed for something other then cheap rubbers and cheap booze.

TBH so do I but to a much lesser extent, only being one of those behind-the-wheels-I-take-minutes-not-all-that-important types.

I think, as per usual, it boils down to a fundamental difference of opinion. The people who care deeply about international issues and wider-ranging issues that don't have a direct influence on the day-to-day life of a current student (I'm thinking a little bit about Irish Ferries, and don't get me wrong, I understand the logic that says that employment conditions will affect us all eventually) will always feel passionately enough to try and get the weight of a Union behind whatever cause. Those who don't therefore get frustrated because this stuff is being done in their own name.

Ideally the masses would probably be more satisfied if the people who did campaign on these issues did so in personal capacities rather than taking advantage of a Union that would otherwise be perfectly representative of their own apathy.

pretty*monster

*deep breath*

As I've stated several times I'm not actually talking about protesting on mational.international issues.
I'm not even talking about protesting as such.

singingstranger

But, you see, that's how most people of the non-campaigning type would define a "campaigning Union". I don't think anyone would complain about the Union campaigning for, say, extra Daedalus hours.

Essentially I think it boils down to people getting frustrated (Firespinner being a prime example) of action being taken in their name. Which, I guess, is the problem when councillors don't consult their classes before a vote on one is taken at Council.

pretty*monster

singingstranger wrote:

But, you see, that's how most people of the non-campaigning type would define a "campaigning Union". I don't think anyone would complain about the Union campaigning for, say, extra Daedalus hours.

Yeah, but but my point is. If we were campaigning for extra, say, Dedalus hours I really think no one would help. I think most people would see it as, 'something the union is doing for me'... not necessarily in as callus a way as that.
I mean ffs, half the reps don't even do their job. As I mentioned before (on this tread maybe another one). Ten students are supposed to sit on the BA programme boards (presumably a similar number sit on the other programme boards). Three showed up to the first one, two to the second, (ok the third is in the middle of my exams, so I'm missing that). And these are places you can get stuff done before it comes as a big disaster-surprise thing.

I mean, the apathy and the laziness of people, even those with pretensions of active involvement (even those who have the gall to run for sabat and exec (I should probably add that I'm not talking about a certain B.D. here, just before anyone accuses me of being bitter, I don't sit on any boards with him so I don't know what his attendance is like)) simply beggars belief.

And to be honest I think it comes down to more than just frustration that the union acts on 'non-student issues' (c'mon lads, one day at an Irish Ferries Protest, a few hours holding placards for McDowells visit... it's not really eating up anyone time).
I think it's just another symptom of a culture where no one wants to muck in and everyone expects things to fall onto their lap, and do nothing but complain if it doesn't

singingstranger

pretty*monster wrote:

I'm not talking about a certain B.D. here, just before anyone accuses me of being bitter, I don't sit on any boards with him so I don't know what his attendance is like)

In fairness, I can vouch for his impeccable attendance at those boards; anything to do with the School of Business and Law and B.D. will be there.

pretty*monster wrote:

I think it's just another symptom of a culture where no one wants to muck in and everyone expects things to fall onto their lap, and do nothing but complain if it doesn't.

Welcome to Ireland, have a pint...

Mr.Nice Guy

Here's my two cents on this matter.

UCDSU attracts a large number of students who are very committed to political interests. They view the Student Union as a vehicle with which to express their own strong political viewpoints.

The problem is, these people don't realise that the majority of UCD students, who the UCDSU are actually supposed to represent, are not interested or impressed with their student union being used as a mouthpiece by certain Union members whose ultimate aim is to use it a stepping stone for a later political career.

These political types have got away for too damn long with making the Union a haven for lefties who want to hit out at that "big nasty world, man" and as a result, we are now witnessing a backlash from that by students.

Not a fan of Coca Cola? Not a fan of McDowell? Not a fan of how the Irish Ferries dispute has been handled?

Fair enough...BUT DEAL WITH IT ON YOUR OWN TIME.

Leave the political stuff to the politicians. Leave the industrial disputes to SIPTU. And here's a whacky idea...leave the UCD STUDENT UNION to STUDENT MATTERS.

Is it really that difficult to grasp?

pretty*monster

singingstranger wrote:

In fairness, I can vouch for his impeccable attendance at those boards; anything to do with the School of Business and Law and B.D. will be there.

As I said, I wasn't questioning his commitment and effort and the like, but there are definatly some who aren't bothered to put the work in. I'm sure you know yourself

singingstranger wrote:

Welcome to Ireland, have a pint...

What can I say, I'm an idealist, I'm not content to just leave things as 'that's just how it is'

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

Not a fan of Coca Cola? Not a fan of McDowell? Not a fan of how the Irish Ferries dispute has been handled?

Fair enough...BUT DEAL WITH IT ON YOUR OWN TIME.

Leave the political stuff to the politicians. Leave the industrial disputes to SIPTU. And here's a whacky idea...leave the UCD STUDENT UNION to STUDENT MATTERS.

Is it really that difficult to grasp?

Right so. Please, please please tell me how I can convince students to care enough to act on issues that I constantly here them moaning about. Crap food in the restaurant. Not enough Books in the library. Grants. Ques for computers. The fact that there's no ventilation in the LGs...
And issues that they don't care abou but should (really, was I the only one a bit... worried by the results of this survey
http://www.ucdasa.org/