What is going on with UCDSU??

pljudge321

Dwaegon wrote: »

incompetent on a national scale!

That should be USI's slogan. The entire organisation has an extremely tenuous mandate to do what it does. It doesn't represent my views on fees or third level funding at all, I never voted for any of them and instead of engaging the government with any sort of reasonable level of debate they seem to prefer the childish approach of pulling stunts like this.

delta_bravo

Students’ Union Returning Officer Morgan Shelley today confirmed that an SU General Meeting would be held next Monday, at 7pm, in the Astra Hall. The motion to be put to the Union concerns “whether to overturn the decision made by the Union to close the Print Bureau”, says Shelley, continuing, “I understand [the last time such a general meeting took place] was in 1988 … There certainly hasn’t been one in UCD in my time, which is since 2001.”

In order for the motion to pass, a quorum of five per cent of the UCD’s student body must vote for the meeting to be valid. Shelley explains, “Five per cent of the members of the Union have to vote at the meeting. Hopefully, I’ll be able to ascertain on Monday the exact number that that is. So, it’s not the attendance of the meeting, it’s the number of people who vote. So you could have a situation where a quorum of people attend the meeting, but not enough of them vote.”

While a total cost of the Meeting is yet to be confirmed, eight stewards and four security guards will need to be hired, as well the cost incurred from a minimum of 1,200 ballot papers being printed. UCD SU Campaigns and Communications Officer Brendan Lacey commented “I think we have tried to clear up with the student body the facts, as opposed to misinformation, surrounding this issue. We will continue to do so at the UGM, my only hope is that it doesn’t prove to be too large a further cost to the Union.”

Regarding the cost, the motion’s proposer, Karl Gill, stated “I just discussed it with the returning officer – he was saying it could easily be three thousand euro, considering for staff and ballot papers and stuff like that … I know that is a big cost, in particular with the climate of the Union, but in the grand scheme of things it isn’t actually that big of a deal considering that we’re saving the only educational service provided by the Union.”

Should the vote pass, the Union decision to close the Copy Bureau will be overturned, subject only to a referendum. A campus-wide referendum may be called to supercede a decision made at a Union General Meeting.

Security measures will be in place to ensure that only UCD students can participate in the Meeting, with Lacey stating, “Student cards will be checked on the way into the venue, it’s important to uphold the democratic nature of a UGM by ensuring only UCD students are in attendance.”

I think this is going to end badly. Firstly its more expense the union cannot afford. Then you have the whole issue of quorum. My understanding is that there is about 22k students in UCD so 5% would be about 1100. I cannot imagine the activists organising this managing to get 1100 students to attend a meeting on a monday night so essentially the union could have spent 5 grand for nothing.

Even if it is overturns what happens then? The college has survived this semester without the copi-print service and I think this may be giving the old staff false hope. The union is financially screwed, there should be a general meeting about that - not this issue though.

Raphael

Hm, that's awkward. Not sure if I should go along and vote against or stay clear to help that motion fail...

Also, Copi-print != Copy Bureau. Is an important distinction, as Copi-Print is still around, and is actually an extremely useful service to the entire college.

Edit: Also, only 5% of members needed to overturn a decision made by the objective. What a bull**** system.

Bluefox21

What a complete waste of time

Weepsie

Raphael wrote: »

Edit: Also, only 5% of members needed to overturn a decision made by the objective. What a bull**** system.

It's going up to 10% with the new constitution I believe, which I still thought was too little.

Raphael

Oh, also, just realised something - Astra Halls capacity is 600 people. As in HALF THE ****ING QUORUM. ARGH!

kkumk

Not sure if this is relevant at all but i seem to remember something similar when voting for a motion for a big society, a large percentage of the members had to be at the meeting to vote but to get around it the auditors printed out forms that were then signed throughout the day and at the meeting itself they just counted the votes that had been taken earlier. Don't know if the SU will be doing something like that but just thought I'd make people aware that it could be a possibility

delta_bravo

kkumk wrote: »

Not sure if this is relevant at all but i seem to remember something similar when voting for a motion for a big society, a large percentage of the members had to be at the meeting to vote but to get around it the auditors printed out forms that were then signed throughout the day and at the meeting itself they just counted the votes that had been taken earlier. Don't know if the SU will be doing something like that but just thought I'd make people aware that it could be a possibility

I wouldn't be satisfied with that tbh. This is a big decision and if the people were genuinely in favour they should attend on Monday. Also the su won't be chasing any signatures I'd say considering they closed the thing.

Raphael

This is all covered by Article 7:

1. The Union General Meeting shall, subject to the provisions of this Constitution, have the power to
   overrule and annul, either wholly or partly, any decision, resolution or any expression by any other
   organ of the Union, except referenda, and to establish policy binding on any other organ of the
   Union, except referenda, providing that no such decision shall have retrospective effect.
2. A Union General Meeting shall be called by the Returning Officers on receipt of a written petition of
   not less than 400 members of the Union, or at the direction of Council, or at the direction of the
   Executive.
3. A Union General Meeting shall be held not later than five days and not earlier than three days
   following the receipt by the Union Returning Officer of a petition or direction for the holding of a
   Union General Meeting.
4. The Returning Officers shall give at least three days’ public notice of any Union General Meeting.
5. The Returning Officers shall nominate a person to chair a Union General Meeting and shall oversee
   the taking of votes at the meeting, such votes to be deemed to be passed only where the votes cast in
   favour of the proposal constitute a majority and not less than 5% of the members of the Union shall
   have voted.

If they try and take votes outside the meeting, I'd argue it as breach of 7.5 - "oversee the taking of votes at the meeting"

unknown13

O' Reilly hall doesn't even have a capacity of 1200

Raphael

"Versatile seating for over 1000 people" according to the website, with some standing room it'd work.

errlloyd

It'll have to be standing room only I believe. Good point from one of the lads yesterday. All you need is 300 union lads in there to abstain and there is no way they'll reach quorum.

pljudge321

Read through the new constitution just there. The new graduate education officer is a decent idea, seeing at how vastly underrepresented they are. Problem is I can't see any sane minded person running for it. Who's going to take a year out of a PhD or a masters to do it?

Weepsie

pljudge321 wrote: »

Read through the new constitution just there. The new Graduate education officer is a decent idea, seeing at how vastly underrepresented they are. Problem is I can't see any sane minded person running for it. Who's going to take a year out of a PhD or a masters to do it?

I will, (I won't), I've only ever been a grad student in UCD oddly enough twice now. If it began July/Aug i'd consider it however.

errlloyd

Now correct me if I am wrong, but the graduate officer is to represent graduates, I.E people who have left. The postgraduate officer is to represent students studying for post graduate degrees. The current postgraduate rep is Martin Lawless.

pljudge321

errlloyd wrote: »

Now correct me if I am wrong, but the graduate officer is to represent graduates, I.E people who have left. The postgraduate officer is to represent students studying for post graduate degrees. The current postgraduate rep is Martin Lawless.

Its the new sabbat office, only final year and postgraduate students will be eligible to vote for them.

kkumk

Raphael wrote: »

This is all covered by Article 7:


If they try and take votes outside the meeting, I'd argue it as breach of 7.5 - "oversee the taking of votes at the meeting"

True, but they could counter-argue that it doesn't say that every vote exclusively has to be taken at the meeting, just that the chair will oversee the votes that do take place.
Just to make it clear I'm not in favour of this method at all, I think its important that people demonstrate their commitment to what they're voting for by actually attending the meeting.

gubbie

Dwaegon wrote: »

Why? What do USI have to do with UCDSU being €1m in debt and firing staff members the week before xmas? It's an internal issue, and USI would have no power over the actual internal operations of UCDSU on a 'business operations' level.



Why would USI cease to exist just because trinity and ucd might pull out? There are dozens of other member unions that are affiliated even if they do! It may have to downsize its operations in that instance, but it would take a lot more than that to do away with USI!

Saving made by firing two staff: €30,000 (From Irish Times

Saving made by leaving USI: ~€100,000 (Calculated from 22,000 x €5 + at least €10,000 for training/congress)

I'm honestly just surprised no one had made the point.

Foxtrol

gubbie wrote: »

Saving made by firing two staff: €30,000 (From Irish Times

Saving made by leaving USI: ~€100,000 (Calculated from 22,000 x €5 + at least €10,000 for training/congress)

I'm honestly just surprised no one had made the point.

Once again, this isn’t an A or B issue. Even without the massive debt an entity the size of the SU cannot keep a non-core (and at this stage completely unnecessary) part of its function going at that scale of a yearly loss, with no hope of the situation for the loss making part improving in the short/medium/long term.

Dwaegon

gubbie wrote: »

Saving made by firing two staff: €30,000 (From Irish Times

Saving made by leaving USI: ~€100,000 (Calculated from 22,000 x €5 + at least €10,000 for training/congress)

I'm honestly just surprised no one had made the point.

Closer to €80,000 actually...Anyway, at least USI provides a function for the SU (Representation on a national level). The copy bureau was just a loss-making service that was being supplied somewhere else. There's no other organisation that provides the service that USI does!

Dwaegon

Dwaegon wrote: »

Closer to €80,000 actually...Anyway, at least USI provides a function for the SU (Representation on a national level). The copy bureau was just a loss-making service that was being supplied somewhere else. There's no other organisation that provides the service that USI does!

What exactly does the USI do? Besides ensuring their own survival, of course. Seems like a dinosaur of an organisation, well past it's sell-by date, that could probably be better served by a single facebook page that alerts students of legislative movements that might affect them.


Make USI contribution non-compulsory, and I'm sure you'd soon find out how valuable an organisation it is to students.

pljudge321

Dwaegon wrote: »

Closer to €80,000 actually...Anyway, at least USI provides a function for the SU (Representation on a national level). The copy bureau was just a loss-making service that was being supplied somewhere else. There's no other organisation that provides the service that USI does!

Last time I saw something which even resembled accounts it was €100,000 in membership fees plus €25,000 for conference attendance/junkets.

errlloyd

pljudge321 wrote: »

Last time I saw something which even resembled accounts it was €100,000 in membership fees plus €25,000 for conference attendance/junkets.

Just to be perfectly clear on this. You saw it in the budget, and it was 110,000 for membership which is as said above 5e per student. Now its important to note students pay that directly to USI, not to UCDSU. So it comes from our fees and goes straight to USI's account. It shouldn't be in our budget.

Congress doesn't quite come to 25,000 but its expensive alright.

They give students political mobility, they're quite an effective lobby group. They're basically like any other trade union. The difference between them and UCDSU is UCDSU have to fight for our rights within the university, USI right for our rights within the government.

Raphael

So, checked on facebook - Result of the vote was 87 for, 69 against. Motion passed with 10% of the 5% quorum present... so nothing happens.

GG Karl Gill.

Blut2

errlloyd wrote: »

They give students political mobility, they're quite an effective lobby group.

Really? The absolute most I've seen them achieve was lip service from certain Labour politicians before the most recent election about not raising fees if they were elected to government. And look how well that turned out. What exactly have they done that has made them effective in the last decade?

gubbie

Dwaegon wrote: »

Closer to €80,000 actually...Anyway, at least USI provides a function for the SU (Representation on a national level). The copy bureau was just a loss-making service that was being supplied somewhere else. There's no other organisation that provides the service that USI does!

Maybe it's the human side of me that would prefer to redeploy two longstanding members of the unions staff rather then have such a large sum of money be given to a faceless union.

Foxtrol

gubbie wrote: »

Maybe it's the human side of me that would prefer to redeploy two longstanding members of the unions staff rather then have such a large sum of money be given to a faceless union.

Why do you keep talking like it is one or the other? It simply isn't. You and others are attempting to muddy the waters by bringing USI, class rep training, stationary etc into the lay off debate. They are completely separate and issues and need to be addressed individually. Talking about keeping A and getting rid of B is extremely childish and short term thinking and wont get the SU out of the situation it is in.

Foxtrol

Raphael wrote: »

So, checked on facebook - Result of the vote was 87 for, 69 against. Motion passed with 10% of the 5% quorum present... so nothing happens.

GG Karl Gill.

In my opinion his actions are an absolute disgrace. He knew they were never going to get the numbers necessary but decided he'd still go ahead with it and really "stick it to the man". Unfortunately "the man" is the SU which is funded by the students of UCD, so all his posturing has done is take away money that would have been spent on students.

Dwaegon

gubbie wrote: »

Maybe it's the human side of me that would prefer to redeploy two longstanding members of the unions staff rather then have such a large sum of money be given to a faceless union.

It's very simple. This issue is not about USI, this is about a part of UCDSU that we KNOW was making huge losses that were getting steadily worse!

It would be incredibly stupid for them to continue to fund that loss. It's like them intentionally throwing student money away for a service most students may not even use!

Tayto2000

In fairness the SU copying bureau was well past it's sell by date, it was crazy to employ two people to run a couple of photocopiers. They were in direct competition with copi-print as well as being increasingly irrelevant in the age of blackboard, laptops and online notes...

Dwaegon wrote: »

It would be incredibly stupid for them to continue to fund that loss. It's like them intentionally throwing student money away for a service most students may not even use!

Yup. It's OK for an SU activity to run at a loss since they shouldn't be in it for profit, but there has to be demand for the service or it's pointless.

I would have voted to retain and redeploy the staff, not to reopen the copy bureau.