by Stella Christou and Guy Howie (UCLU Marxist Society treasurer)

Central to my role as Education and Campaigns Officer would be campaigning
against all fees and debt imposed on students. The costs of fees and student living
shackle us with debt at a time when graduates are finding high-level employment
harder and harder to come by. The cost of university has also put many prospective
students off higher education, at an even greater cost to society.

As has been revealed in the plans to build a new campus in Stratford and to redevelop
extensively in other areas, the money is available for UCL to do away with tuition
fees and to provide a living grant for students. This money, however, is in the hands
of private investors, who will only fund ventures through which they can make a
return for themselves.

Disparity

The hike in tuition fees has already been damaging to the level of financial equality
reflected in university admissions. Where students cannot afford to study, others who
can will take their place.

This disparity will inevitably continue after university into the job market. This is
especially the case in London where graduate jobs are more widely available and
better paid than average, and yet it is difficult for those on lower wages to cope in
such an expensive city. Many low-end jobs are still below living wage.

That such an inequality could result from tuition fees and living debt is untenable, and
must be fought against.

The Only Option

To oppose all tuition fees and living debt is the only real choice open to students.

If tuition fees are accepted as they are, then it must also be accepted that they will
increase further. The global economic crisis is cutting deeper and deeper into Britain’s
public institutions. On the basis of capitalism, there is a growing need to cut the
national deficit and the increasingly involved private businesses seek a larger slice of
university takings. Furthermore, as rent prices and living costs rise, so too does the
burden of debt facing students when leaving university.

Campaigning for a concessional reduction in fees from the government, often
proposed as a more ‘realistic’ struggle, isn’t a viable option either. To suggest this
campaign line is to forget the increase in fees in the first place, and the fundamental
reasons behind it. Fees and student debt will increase as long as our economy is based
on crisis ridden capitalism, which offers only decades of austerity. Students should
not suffer according to the decline of an unstable economy they have played no part
in harming, and yet the rich are intent on making the poor and the youth pay for their
crisis.

We must not stray from campaigning against all fees and student debt.

Mass Campaign

The issue of student fees and living debt applies to the overwhelming majority of the
student body. Almost all of us will begin our lives as graduates already owing tens of
thousands of pounds in an economy digging itself deeper into the same hole. This is
not something any student should simply accept.

Our union must be accountable to us. In a campaign against fees, I will make sure
that the student body as a whole understands what it is fighting for and stands united,
so that the campaign is not simply limited to an already radicalised but small layer
of students. Our university cannot continue to diminish the needs of students and put
our education second to profiteering, something which is detrimental to everyone on
campus.

The campaign of UCLU against fees and living debt must also be linked to a wider
campaign against fees. The platform for this must be the body which represents
students nationally, the body which any mass organisation of students would most
naturally incline towards – the NUS. By making our voices heard in the NUS, I will
take an anti-fees campaign further into the larger problems in society as a whole. We
must also link UCLU and the anti-fees movement to the local and national trade union
movements.

We need a national movement of workers and students against the destruction of
public institutions, for free education and student living to benefit the whole of
society. Ultimately, we need to fight for a different kind of economic system – a
socialist one based on nationalised and democratically planned production – for only
that can plan the economy in accordance with need, not profit.

Vote Stella #1 for Education and Campaigns Officer!

During this year’s election campaign students may have noticed that there are two clear left-wing candidates running for the Education and Campaigns Officer position. Inevitably this has raised some questions amongst the students. What do we have in common? Where do we differ? What implications does this have for a left candidate getting elected?

Programme

To say that myself and Keir Gallagher are both running on a left-wing programme does not say very much and remains very abstract. What we should ask is what do we concretely stand for?

I stand on a clear programme stating the need for socialist policies to fight the Tory education cuts. The question cannot be solved within the confines of the UCL campus. The cuts in education and the rise of fees are not problems of UCL, but consequences of the capitalist crisis.  I think it is important to be clear on this question as any reforms cannot be achieved or defended without coming into conflict with the limitations of capitalism.

Therefore, it is important to make no artificial distinction between the politics of UCL and the politics of the national student movement. That is why I also emphasise the need to have a healthy attitude towards the NUS. I am opposed to any attempts to split the NUS or create a new student union on a national level. The key to creating a fighting student movement will not be found in splitting our forces, but linking them up and rejuvenating them through an alliance with the labour and trade union movement.

It is only through such an alliance that students can effectively campaign for the abolition of all fees and student debt. Our campaign should not stop short at opposing an increase in fees, but should go all the way to abolishing all fees and introducing a living grant for students. The wealth exists in society for all education to be free, it’s just in private hands.

I fully endorse Keir’s position against the UCL Masterplan. He is correct in pointing out the undemocratic nature through which this project arose. As he correctly says, it "...does not represent the needs of the entire UCL community" 

What it does represent are the interests of big business outside of UCL and their lackeys in the UCL management. This, once again, shows that one can only address the problems of UCL by tracing their roots in the current system.

The problems of “late and unhelpful feedback, overcrowded seminars [and] inadequate postgrad stipends” are extremely important issues. This is why I have raised two key demands that go to the root of these problems. 

Firstly, we must defend lecturers. The cuts don't only affect services and facilities, they also threaten our lecturers. As I say in my manifesto, fewer staff means larger classes, thus lowering standards.

Second, student rents - particularly in London - are too damn high! And this has a direct effect on education, increasing the stress of students. This also forces them to take up precarious jobs that reduce their study time, and generally damages their student experience.  

The fact that postgrad students are having to take on employment during their studies to supplement their stipends is a question of rent costs, and living costs in general. That is why I have identified in my programme the need to reintroduce a living grant for all students in higher education.

Splitting the left?

It might be argued that two left-wing candidates should not run against each other, as this would split the progressive vote in UCLU. However, with the preferential voting system students can vote for more than one candidate, meaning that the left-wing vote will not be split.

On the contrary, two left-wing candidates can reinforce each other, adding diversity, stimulating debate and making the campaign more dynamic. All the above will increase participation in the elections for student representatives.

I don't believe that students are hard to mobilise or disinterested in politics. The accusation that has been levelled at young people for years, that they are apathetic, is a slander against the youth.

If you talk to people today abut concrete issues such as tuition fees, cuts to housing benefits and hospital A&E wards or the general policies of the coalition government and its austerity programme, people have opinions. But that does not mean that they take an interest in Westminster politics, which many feel unrepresented by. The same is the case for UCLU students. If they feel let down by the politics of the union, this does not mean they are apolitical.

Therefore I think that if either Keir or me were to step down in this election, this would be a loss to student democracy. Keeping the Tories out will not be achieved in this way. There are no shortcuts to a victory for the left. The way forward is a bold, positive campaign for socialist policies!

     
Vote Stella Christou #1!

Vote Keir Gallagher #2!

For Education and Campaigns Officer

As Education and Campaigns officer one of my main policies would be to launch a campaign against profiteering in student accommodation and bad student living standards in general. Housing is one of the biggest problems affecting the quality of student life and education.

University provided accommodation for students is a step in the right direction in tackling this problem.

However, rent charged by the university must be capped at running cost price. This includes maintenance and staff - who should at least be paid the London living wage. Students must not be a source of profit for the university. They especially should not be a source of profit for big business. 

Allowing the market into student housing means re-creating the disparity between rich and poor, inside university dorms, that prevails in society at large. It drives down quality as private companies seek to maximize their profits by charging high rents and cutting corners on maintenance and staff.

Education and accommodation are social needs, not a business opportunity. Treating them as such worsens student living conditions, and therefore education. Students are forced to take part-time jobs and live far away from campus to save money.

Open the books

At the moment, rent in university provided accommodation increases above inflation each year. There is no justification for this. As Education and Campaigns officer I will campaign to force UCL to 'open the books' on the real costs of running student accommodation, and for rents to be capped at that level.

A success in this campaign would be a real blow to universities and businesses who profiteer from their students up and down the country, and would be an example for other student unions to follow. 

Student tenant unions must be set up by UCLU and ULU (University of London Union). Elected halls reps should be responsible to UCLU council and to the halls they represent. The Halls and Accommodation Representative must look at which landlords have many student tenants, and organise them into student tenant unions.

I will oppose any redevelopment plan that affects students in UCL or intercollegiate halls, that is detrimental to their interests as students.

Officially, the university guarantees all first year students university halls. This option should be extended to all students. But the truth is that the university fails in this promise and some first year students are forced to seek private accommodation at extortionate rents and often of substandard quality.

Rent rises

UCLU must campaign against the scandal of extortionate private accommodation too. Landlords endorsed by the university must set rents at reasonable prices for students. Rents should go up only in proportion to the number of tenants.

If they refuse to do this, then the university should either buy them out or build alternative accommodation, expanding the university controlled supply.

How can we make sure the university does this? Once again, the student union must organise an effective campaign, drawing in the maximum number of students. 

I am in favour of a full-time elected accommodation officer in UCLU, who would be responsible for leading these campaigns. The student union must have the right to know which landlords own a large stock of student housing, especially those advertised through the university. 

We need to know how much they are charging in rent and what quality of service they provide. We need a well organised accommodation department in UCLU which actively listens to students housing complaints and fights for better housing.

Public backing to student housing

The reason that the number of university-provided beds is insufficient is because of cuts to education funding and the relative poverty of many students. The university therefore finds it more profitable to invest in other things, rather than meeting students' needs.

Vulnerable, poor and inexperienced students are thus forced into insecure housing conditions run by dodgy, unregulated landlords. This goes right to the heart of the crisis of capitalism, the housing bubble, debt, speculation and austerity. 

Thus as education and campaigns officer I will fight for socialist policies in the NUS and labour movement. We need a socialist government which invests in public, social and high quality housing for all students and workers.

Vote Stella #1 for Education and Campaigns Officer!

It is not only important to identify the problems facing students at UCL in the form of extortionate student fees and rents, growing class sizes and cuts to staff, departments and services. It is also necessary to point out the source of these problems, that not only affects education but every area of society today.

That is why the opening line of my manifesto states that the fight for education is directly linked to the fight for socialism.

Take rising tuition fees, for instance. Why is it that at one point Higher Education was free and students received grants, and now that is not the case?

One reason is the destruction of industry by the short-sighted capitalist class. A massive increase in the student population in the past 20 years is the consequence of a decline in apprenticeships and skilled labour. Thatcher’s onslaught against the miners, print workers and dockers in the 1980s means that young people today have the choice between insecure casual labour or going to university.

Therefore the rise in university applications puts pressure on the HE system, and that increased demand for university places also means university management are in a stronger position to demand fees.

However, £9,000 tuition fees are only a recent introduction, whilst the university population has been growing for years. An excess of students is not the explanation.

Bank bailouts

The government can no longer make the contributions to Higher Education as it did in the past because it has bankrupted itself trying to bailout the banks in 2008-09. It nationalised, not the profitable enterprises, but the huge holes in financial institution’s balance sheets. The national debt, when we take the nationalised banks into account, is well in excess of £1trn pounds. In percentage terms it is the same size as the Greek national debt.

The government cannot continue to borrow at favourable interest rates unless it shows the international money markets it is taking measures to reduce the national debt. However, even this month, Moody’s have downgraded Britain’s AAA credit rating, demonstrating that even from a capitalist point of view, austerity isn’t working.

Capitalist crisis

Capitalism is a system of boom and bust. It inevitably enters into a crisis of overproduction because, through private competition between different capitalist companies, bosses produce for a market they cannot predict, and do it as cheaply as possible in order to gain a competitive edge.

This means, among other things, reducing the wage bill of working people. But workers are also consumers. By reducing the purchasing power of ordinary people, the bosses sawed off the branch they were perching on. Temporarily they were able to get out of this problem by the issuing of cheap credit, so workers can keep buying commodities. But credit had to be paid back at a certain point, and with interest!

The 2008 financial crisis, the biggest in history, which is still with us five years later, was because working people had been squeezed so much in the drive for profits that banks found themselves with enormous debts that were not going to be honoured. Hence the banking crisis, massive state intervention (taxpayers money - so much for the free market!) to save the banks, state indebtedness and the consequent introduction of austerity at all levels of society, including education.

This is what we mean when we say that capitalism can no longer afford the reforms of the past. The massive extension of credit in the years before 2008 was the equivalent of pumping drugs into a patient on a life support machine.

Ideological cuts?

Some argue that the cuts in education and society at large are due to the ideological excesses of the Tory party. While the Tories may enjoy fostering the elitism that tuition fees introduces into the education system, this misses the point.

The real point is that the post-war boom allowed labour to wrest concessions from the ruling class. This period is now at an end. Capitalism is not expanding, but in a deep crisis of overproduction.

However, this does not mean that nothing can be done. The Economist reported last summer that £750bn of uninvested capital lies idle on the balance sheets of British companies. This amounts to well over half the national debt. Yet no capitalist will invest where they cannot make a return. This money is being sat and not used to develop the economy, or the education system, whilst phD students face the prospect of employment in Starbucks post-graduation.

Socialism

What this shows is that the fight to abolish fees is inextricably linked to the fight against capitalism, which directs everything on the basis of private profit. It therefore means a fight for socialism. Even the attempt to defend the most modest reforms of the past - a semi-civilised form of existence for many people granted by housing and unemployed benefits, a national health service or free higher education - runs up against the limits of the capitalist system.

The fight for free education - the abolition of all fees, not just a fight against fee rises - immediately raises the question: who runs the economy? We should take that £750bn of idle capital, along with the profitable sections of the economy (not just bank debts) into public ownership under the control of ordinary working people.

What can be done?

The crisis in society is already mobilising people and forcing them to question the system. This is the explanation for the Trades Union Congress adopting a position exploring the possibility of a General Strike last September - the first time this has been the first time this has been posed at such a level since 1926. This is why my union, UNITE - the biggest in the country - has adopted the position in favour of the nationalisation of the banks in the interests of working people. This is why 25,000 people marched last month to defend the closure of Lewisham hospital A&E wards.

The crisis itself is organising people and pushing them to challenge the system. When we look at the attacks on Gower Place Practice, the Carpenters Estate, our staff faculties or departmental libraries, these are not accidental events but consequences of a system in crisis.

As Education and Campaigns Officer I will make it my priority to break down any artificial separation between the problems faced by UCL students and the problems faced by society at large.

That is why I say that the student movement cannot advance except in alliance with the labour movement. Not the NUS, and certainly not UCLU on its own. We must broaden out the fight for our basic educational rights, as they cannot be defended in isolation.

That is why I say ‘Workers and Students: Unite and Fight!’

That is why I say fight for socialism!

This evening the Annual Members' Meeting (AMM) of UCLU was convened, following its postponement the week previous. Stella's campaign for socialist policies was present, leafleting outside the meeting beforehand advertising the campaign and our proposed amendment, and intervening in the meeting itself.

Two very positive motions were proposed, one entitled 'No Confidence in the Bloomsbury Masterplan', the other 'NUS conference policy submissions'.

Whilst not perfect, we wholeheartedly endorse these progressive motions and would have certainly voted in favour of them, had we been given the chance. 

The motions recognise the need to fight the 'UCL Masterplan' if it means cuts to such important services as Gower Place Practice or bulldozing Carpenters' Estate, and links this to the need for democratic control of workers and students over redevelopment.

Amendment

However, on one point in the 'No confidence...' motion, we believed an amendment was needed to strengthen the document, and therefore strengthen union policy.

We were told our amendment was out of order. Nevertheless, we went along to the AMM, distributing leaflets with out proposed amendment. We proposed to:

Replace 'UCLU resolves - paragraph 5', which reads:

And replace with the following:

Good Intentions

We believe this point is very important, as it addresses an important question in the student movement - that of the nature of 'Direct Action'. It is particularly relevant in the light of the well-intentioned, although ultimately failed, occupation against the destruction of the Carpenter's Estate in Stratford, that took place just before Christmas.

The original paragraph effectively endorses the policy of declaring an occupation, and then (presumably) hoping others will rally to the cause. It puts no responsibility on UCLU to actively campaign for such actions, but that it will react in support in a reflex manner if a group of people act to 'block' or 'resist'.

Direct Action

If UCLU does not put the time and effort into campaigning and attempting to win the argument among a significant section of the students and staff, then people will not understand why they should get involved.

Furthermore, unless an occupation is endorsed by a group of students and staff with a sufficient numerical weight on campus, and all students have been given the opportunity to participate in discussing out such a decision - again the responsibility of UCLU - then students will feel alienated from the political process. The 'lefts' have it all sown up and appear to be carrying out decisions on behalf of the students.

We should not be enamoured by the wave of occupations of 2010. It may appear to prove the opposite of what we are arguing; that it is only sufficient to proclaim an occupation for students to rally in numbers to the cause. But 2010 was the exception, not the rule. It occurred under specific circumstances of imminent and draconian  fee rises, the apparent betrayal of the Lib Dems and the coalition government of austerity coming to power.

We are not against occupations, only we argue that if you're going to do it, do it right. It is all too easy to create demoralisation and alienation among students if well-intentioned socialists fail to do the leg-work.

Motion Defeated

At the AMM this evening our motion was challenged and defeated. The argument against our motion, put forward by one well-meaning left-wing student, was that the students are not interested, and if we make known any proposal for an occupation, we will compromise our intended actions.

On the latter point, if you do not involve students, you will not be able to occupy and defend a broom-cupboard, let alone a lecture theatre. A real mass of students and staff, intent on occupation, will not be seriously opposed by security - who also should be appealed to on a class basis of solidarity in such a situation. And if you do not involve the mass of the students, they will ignore you. It is very common for left-wingers to moan about the apathy of the students or the working class, when all the while it is that very left-winger that is acting as an obstacle to getting students involved. 

Which leads us to the former argument of the well-intentioned left student this evening - that generally, students are not interested. Well in that case their are one of two answers: either your cause is no good, or you are no good at campaigning for your position. Either way, don't blame the students.

It was ironical to be defeated on such a point in an AMM that had failed, after half an hour, to achieve quorate. Only 30 students were present in the AGM of UCLU.

Therefore it was announced that the union council would taken on the powers of the AMM, and we were allowed to attend as visitors and speak to the motion our amendment concerned. However, our amendment was still ruled out of order. We were allowed to propose the deletion of the original paragraph 5, which we therefore did, as we believed the question of a mass assembly was dealt with earlier in the motion, although not linked to the question of direct action. The union council voted against our proposal, with 3 in favour and 3 abstentions.

If I am elected Education and Campaigns Officer it will be my policy to make the political case for any given campaign, and then seek to have the actions necessary endorsed not only by the existing UCLU structures, but by the widest layer of students.

Socialism needs democracy like the body needs oxygen!

Vote Stella #1 for Education and Campaigns Officer!

This afternoon I spoke to Selen Bozkurt who invited me to present my campaign for Education and Campaign's Officer on UCLU student radio station 'Rare FM'. 

Click here to listen to the audio file of my interview where I talk about my campaign for socialist policies to fight the Tory education cuts, the UCLU Marxist Society and the capitalist crisis in Greece and internationally.