Anti-Privatisation Win in York – Uni Pulls out of INTO outsourcing plans

It doesn’t happen a lot, but once in a while there’s some good news for lefties in the UK.

After a brewing underground uproar by students and staff, the University of York has decided not to go ahead with its controversial plans to outsource the recruitment and English-language teaching of international students to part-hedge fund-owned INTO University Partnerships, a multinational firm.

Despite assertions in student media that the plans wouldn’t amount to privatisation (since the university would retain a 50% stake), many saw through it. There have been rowdy Senate meetings, mass leafleting by union activists and strong cases made against the proposals in joint union/management forums.

The idea was worrying from the start. Currently in-house staff would have been transferred to the company, and once the private-sector pressure grew too intense, it was likely that that they would leave and be replaced by people on worse contracts. Even the head of INTO has admitted himself that rates of pay are worse at the organisation.

That’s not the only reason it was always a bad idea. I was contacted by a member staff from another UK university INTO works with when the plans were announced. They warned of the disaster that the INTO contract had been, saying the York plans “threaten the fabric of your university.”

INTO contracts which started at other universities with just student recruitment are now allegedly spreading into other areas of campus management. Outsourcing is a “slippery slope”, I was told. Once you lose the capacity to run services in house, it’s more difficult to take them back under university control when companies fail.

The UCU’s briefing at York noted that at Exeter University, where INTO run international student recruitment, “the university council recently expressed concern that students coming via INTO were now of a lower quality than those recruited by the university” – all to reach targets and make a profit.

That’s not all. “In January this year, UEA pulled out of a joint venture in London having lost £2.5 million over two years and written off a further £3 million that it invested late last year trying to save the project,” the document pointed out. The same thing has happened in many other campuses across the county, including Queen’s Belfast, City University, and Manchester College. In Joint Ventures, profits and losses are shared equally. So where the company messes up, students take the hit too.

“Prevent it and you will inspire others” – that was the message from the concerned member of staff at another partner university. We should be congratulate the UCU branch at York for campaigning to prevent this undemocratic and ideological scheme from going any further. They have shown that the outsourcing tide is not irreversible.

A member of staff who would be affected at York told me when the plans were going through their “faith in the integrity of our leaders on campus [was at an] all-time low.” Now, hopefully, their faith can be a little bit restored.

Universities should be run for students, not for private company profits. The message we can learn from this saga is that, when concerns become ever louder, the university has to take heed of this fact. It’s hard to say it, but hats off to them for listening. Although maybe, just maybe, they feared the anti-privatisation unrest that hit Birmingham and Sussex Universities recently could visit our little Northern city…

Greens Make Social Justice Central – Reflections on Spring Conference

It’s now been over a week since the Green Party of England and Wales passed what is arguably its most significant philosophical change for decades. Some good points have already been made on the move (see Left Foot Forward and Bright Green) – a move which has been described as the party’s ‘Clause IV moment in reverse’, in reference to Labour’s ejection of a commitment to socialism at its 1995 conference.

Last Saturday was, incidentally, the party’s 40^th ‘birthday’. So a pretty good date to consolidate the Greens’ position as the party of social and environmental justice, then. If life begins at forty, the party has a good few years ahead.

But as attractive as the comparison to a reverse Labour Clause IV moment sounds, far from being an unexpected ideological power-grab, last week’s ‘Philosophical Basis’ change – which has finally and officially put social justice in the party’s core values statement – reflects the progressive development of the party over the past decade, particularly since the monumental election of Caroline Lucas MP in 2010.

As Salman Shaheen stated in his Left Foot Forward piece, ‘for those who have been immersed in Green politics for any length of time, this will only be a formal recognition of a much longer struggle.’ Many members at conference said the change was ‘long over-due’ and ‘about time’. Almost all opposition to the motion centred on the fact that not everyone had read or heard about the change before arriving in Nottingham for Spring Conference. Others picked up on a couple of contested words. But when it came to the vote, 71% of conference attendees voted for the change, an incredibly positive result.

The exact changes are, admittedly, fairly modest, but at the same time take the vital step of enshrining the Greens’ place on the left. The old preamble to the Philosophical Basis – the ‘core principles’ of the party – began:

Life on Earth is under immense pressure. It is human activity, more than anything else, which is threatening the well-being of the environment on which we depend. Conventional politics has failed us because its values are fundamentally flawed.

With the new one reading as follows:

A system based on inequality and exploitation is threatening the future of the planet on which we depend, and encouraging reckless and environmentally damaging consumerism.

“A world based on cooperation and democracy would prioritise the many, not the few, and would not risk the planet’s future with environmental destruction and unsustainable consumption.

Importantly, a new first clause has been added, which explains the inter-linked nature of the crises we face;

The Green Party is a party of social and environmental justice, which supports a radical transformation of society for the benefit of all, and for the planet as a whole. We understand that the threats to economic, social and environmental wellbeing are part of the same problem, and recognise that solving one of these crises cannot be achieved without solving the others.

Not particularly Bolshy stuff, but simply a shift which reflect where the party is today, with a young and vibrant activist base. As Peter McColl said in his Bright Green piece, the move amounts to a ‘realignment with those who will benefit most from Green politics’, presenting a ‘positive vision of Green politics as a radical force‘.

This was reinforced by other major motions passed at the conference – a unanimous vote to oppose NHS privatisation in England, new policy condemning pay-day loans, and overwhelming support for the  No Dash for Gas protesters who face bankruptcy for direct action against energy giant EDF. And Green Party leader Natalie Bennett’s speech backed the on-going Sussex University occupation – an encouraging statement to those saying ‘no more’ to privatisation and outsourcing.

Last weekend’s conference was a telling sign of how far the party has come over the past decade, to become a serious party of social and environmental justice, in the face of a vapid and ideologically-vacant Labour Party. Looks like a progressive life for the Green Party has truly and officially begun at forty.

[Update – some decent coverage of the change is now also up on the Climate & Capitalism site here, an international online journal from across the pond]

Why the Green Party’s Philosophical Basis Needs Overhauling

As technical and unread as they may be, party mission statements do matter. They form the backbone of the party, and they are the bases on which parties are built. The Green Party has come on in massive strides over the past decade, with our first MP elected, our councillor count steadily increasing, and thousands of new members joining. All this happened, I believe, because our stereotype image of being a single-issue party is dropping away and people are beginning to see us as a viable party of the left, with a real and palpable belief in social justice and a big shift in favour of ordinary people.

We need to cement this shift and send a message to all those disillusioned with politics, all the disaffected Labour voters, all the students looking for a political home, all the betrayed Lib Dems and all those on the progressive side of the spectrum that we are serious about social change. And I think the best way to do that is to cement our values of social justice at the centre of our party’s core statement – the Philosophical Basis – 10 points of principle we hold to be vitally important to our politics.

That’s why a bunch of us at the University of York Green Party are putting forward a change to the Philosophical Basis for the next Spring conference in February. The changes we’ve put forward are modest and don’t seek to detract from our ecological message – environmental and social issues go hand in hand. But a well publicised change in the constitution to cement our radical social justice ideas could move the party even further forward and be a beacon out there for those who have lost their political home – whether after the reactionary years of New Labour or the cowardice of the Lib Dems.

I’ve posted below the full change and preamble from the members’ website – the link is here (you’ll need to be a member and sign in) http://my.greenparty.org.uk/forum/3633

The current Philosophical Basis can be viewed here: http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/philosophical-basis

Comments, seconders and amendments (friendly or otherwise!) are hugely welcome.

———————————-

Green politics and the politics of social justice and equality go hand in hand. Without the former, the planet will become uninhabitable. Without the latter, the fight for green politics will be lost. The Green Party’s constitution should reflect our social democratic, or indeed socialist, principles and put our struggle for equality and democratic control of resources at its heart.

The proposed changes to the Philosophical Basis below are a modest shift towards incorporating the values of social justice into our constitution. The current Philosophical Basis is out of touch with how the party has shifted over the past decade. It needs to reflect the reasons why thousands have joined over the past few years – because we represent a radical economic alternative that also recognises the huge challenges the planet faces.

Proposed by: Josiah Mortimer, Nick Devlin and Alfie van den Bos

Supporters so far include: Sam Coates, Sebastian Power, Lisa Camps, Duncan Davis, Ed Mason, Lewis Coyne and others

Further proposers and seconders are extremely welcome, as well as suggestions for improvements and friendly amendments.

The proposed changes are as follows:

————————————————–

PB001 A system based on inequality and exploitation is threatening the future of the planet on which we depend, and encouraging reckless and environmentally unsustainable consumerism.

A world based on cooperation and democracy would prioritise the many, not the few, and would not risk the planet’s future with environmental destruction and unsustainable consumption.

The Green Party isn’t just another political party. Green politics is a new and radical kind of politics guided by these core principles;

1. The Green Party is a party of social and environmental justice, which supports a radical transformation of society for the benefit of all, and for the planet as a whole. We understand that the threats to economic, social and environmental wellbeing are part of the same problem, and recognise that solving one of these crises cannot be achieved without solving the others.

—————————————————————-

[The current 1st clause would be moved to clause 2, and the others renumbered accordingly. The current clause 9 would thus become clause 10, with the current clause 10 incorporated into the new one via the insertion of the phrase: ‘, including lifestyle changes, to help effect progress,’ so that the new clause 10 would read:]

10.  Electoral politics is not the only way to achieve change in society, and we will use a variety of methods, including lifestyle changes, to help effect progress, providing those methods do not conflict with our other core principles.

The Green Party and Class – 2012 Leadership Race Survey

Despite positive steps forward, there is clearly a perception among the public that the Green Party is a ‘middle-class’ party. And there is a problem of class in wider politics too; the percentage of working-class people in Parliament and council chambers has plummeted from the 1980s to today across all parties (just 4% if MPs now come from manual working-class backgrounds), creating a crisis of political representation for the vast majority of people who are state-educated and have not worked in journalism, the senior civil service or for think tanks and similar ‘elite’ institutions.

In response to this crisis of representation the University of York Green Party has created a short questionnaire for the 2012 Green Party leadership race which aims to raise awareness of the need to change the party’s public perception and to draw out candidate’s views on the issue, as well as their life experience and own perceptions of class in the modern era.

Other parties, notably Labour (at long last) are beginning to address the issue of working-class under-representation – the Green Party, a radical and fast-growing party, cannot be left behind. The proposal coming up to Green Party conference for the leader to be paid a wage is a positive development – one of the main demands of the Chartists in the 19th Century was that MPs be paid so that working-class people were able to stand and be elected. The same should go for party leadership.

So candidates have been emailed being asked to write a maximum of 100-words for each of the five questions on the topic of class.

This is intended as a contribution to the debate around the future of the party, in the candidates’ own words. Please share the results, when published here online, around your local party groups.

Voting begins at the start of August – this is hoped to be a positive contribution to the leadership race and the debates around it.

Responses will be published initially exclusively at the York Young Greens blog and here early in August when voting begins.

The questions are as follows:

1.       What steps, if any, will you take to improve working-class recruitment, representation and election both inside and outside the party if you are elected? E.g. national recruitment strategy, shifting emphasis in interviews etc.

2.       Do you agree with recent proposals (outside the party) for working-class shortlists/quotas to improve the representation of ordinary people in politics?

3.       What life experience do you have that you believe would make you appeal to ordinary people? E.g. working on the minimum wage, living in affordable/council housing, state education etc.

4.       How would you define yourself in terms of class, and do you see this as important to your politics? (Please write a,b, c, d, other/NA and your explanation below)

5.       Have you:

a) Ever attended a Russell Group university such as Oxford/Cambridge?

b) Ever attended a private school?

Caroline Lucas and others line up to back campus Living Wage campaign

[This article is from a press release published here at the Yorker]

The University of York Living Wage Campaign continues to grow as Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and co-author of ‘The Spirit Level’ Richard Wilkinson became the latest to sign a pledge of support for the cause.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party leader, with the Living Wage pledge

The figures’ backing comes as a petition for the Living Wage at the university has acquired over 800 signatures in the last few weeks.

The Living Wage campaign on campus was formed in response to FoI requests which found that over 100 members of staff, and up to 640 including casual workers, currently receive less than the Living Wage.

Campaigners are soon to meet with senior management to discuss the implementation of the £7.20 pay rate deemed by the Centre for Research in Social Policy to be the necessary amount outside of London needed in order to enjoy a comfortable standard of living.

Fourteen London universities have already implemented the higher rate of pay, and the campaigners feel that York should be the next to implement the scheme to tackle what many have called “poverty-pay”.

Lisa Camps, chair of the University of York Green Party, said: “The fact that we have distinguished members of parliament offering their support just goes to show the national importance of the Living Wage campaign and compels senior management to listen. At a time of economic hardship, paying the Living Wage is the right thing to do.”

Camps added: “In the UK, only the pay of those at the very top has risen in real terms for the last three decades, hopefully this will be a step forward in redressing that balance.”

Campaigners argue that awarding the Living Wage to staff at the university will help to decrease the growing pay gap that currently stands at 16:1, with Vice-Chancellor Brian Cantor earning around £260,000 – which equates to £5000 for every week of the year.

Commenting on the campus campaign at the launch event on March 5, Richard Wilkinson, an expert and author on inequality, said: “I’m quite sure you will win this.”

Attendance at Living Wage events held at the University of York has been growing as the campaign builds and has attracted the attention of Heslington Cllr David Levene and YUSU President-elect Kallum Taylor, who were among the attendees of the launch event on the 5th March.

Labour Club Chair Rhiân Davies commented: “The reception we’ve had from students has been overwhelmingly positive, people really appreciate that everyone deserves a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.”

The Living Wage campaign is a cross-party campaign, with Labour, UoY Greens and the Liberal Democrats all involved, and the committee meets at 14:15 every Thursday in V/122.