A summary of Warwick SU’s Autumn 2022 All Student Vote motions

With the next Student Union ‘All Student Vote’ taking place this week, the Boar has put together a guide summarising the 5 motions. You can find the motions in full here. 

 

1. What stance should Warwick SU take on the Universities College Union (UCU) strike action?

This first motion follows the UCU’s plans to strike in response to the collapse of talks between the UCU, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), and Universities UK (UUK). These talks largely surrounded pay, pensions, and working conditions, with this motion asking you to vote on the SU’s position in response to any industrial action.

The UCU represents approximately 120,000 academics and other professional staff operating in a variety of educational institutions including universities like Warwick.

According to the motion brought forwards in support of the strike action: “A series of below-inflation pay offers has resulted in a 25.5% pay cut for university staff since 2009”.

Further, the motion notes that: “There has been a 316% increase in staff access to counselling services at the University of Warwick, with the report mentioning that UK universities have become ‘anxiety machines’ where staff suffer from excessive workloads, precarious contracts and a culture of workplace surveillance.”

The SU motion in favour, therefore, argues that the SU should “stand shoulder to shoulder with staff members” and that “victory for staff in their industrial dispute is, therefore, the only possible resolution to this dispute in the interests of students.”

The motion against strike action argues that: “Since the Coronavirus pandemic began teaching has been disrupted every year with it being reduced, cancelled outright or moved online” before going on to point to other UCU strikes that took place in 2019, 20202, and 2021.

2. Mitigating the impacts of strike action on students

The second motion is linked to the first and acknowledges that: “Strike action is likely to occur this academic term” and will “result in teaching being cancelled and staff not being available for students to access”.

The motion would require that the SU work to mitigate the effects of any disputes between University staff and management on students “as much as possible, in line with the SU’s position”, regardless of whether the SU supports the strike or not.

3. Suspending parking fees for selective students and staff for 12 months

This motion, if passed, would support parking fees on campus being scrapped for a year for students with disabilities. Said fees are usually around £7 a day.

Staff who have children that use the nursery on campus and other buildings would also receive free parking.

The motion says that this is needed in wake of the cost of living crisis and that parking is adding extra financial difficulties for many in the Warwick community.

It adds that it considers the £35 a week charge for parking at Warwick to be “a large amount”. People should not have to choose between driving to University and paying their bills, it adds.

The motion proposes liaising with University House in order to implement this scheme.

4. Support the continuation of self-certification and oppose efforts to end it

This motion suggests that the SU should unequivocally defend self-certification on campus and oppose all department efforts to end the practice.

It says that self-certification came as a Covid measure to help students through the pandemic. The proposers say that many of the reasons for self-certification during the pandemic – such as mental health, stress, anxiety, and illness – still apply today.

They note that Warwick Law School recently announced it was ending its policy of self-certification.

The motion calls for the SU’s Vice-President for Education, Chih-Hsiang Lo, to lobby departments to keep self-certification as policy.

5. Reaffirming the SU’s current partners

This motion asks the student population to approve the SU’s list of partners for the year ahead. They are as follows:

1. NUS (National Union of Students)
2. BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport)
3. AdviceUK
4. CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group)
5. NCVO (National Council of Voluntary Organisations)
6. UKCISA (UK Council for International Student Affairs)

You can read the full motions on the Warwick Student Union website available here.

Voting on the ‘All Student Vote’ motions will open at 9am on Wednesday 8 November and will close at midday on Friday 11 November.