YUSU to campaign against portering cuts
A mandate was passed at a Campaigns Committee meeting on Wednesday night regarding YUSU’s decision to protest against the current lack of 24-hour portering.
94% of people voted in favour of the motion. YUSU Welfare Officer, Ben Humphrys did not disguise his opposition to the proposal. At last week’s Union General Meeting (UGM), he said that it was “unrealistic to require the University to be both prudent in its finances safeguarding our degrees and not impose careful budget restraint across the board.”
This follows news that last year’s YUSU President, Tom Scott, informed the incoming sabbatical team and the current group of JCRC Chairs in June that the cuts were both “inevitable” and “not too bad”. Scott added that the porters are not to be expected to act as welfare providers.
Currently valid Union Active Policy explicitly demands that YUSU and Union Officers must “campaign against any decision which would mean a cut in the number of hours residential lodges are staffed in relation to the staffing of October 2006.”
Jason Rose, YUSU Campaigns Officer, said: “Open discussion and debate is essential before the implementation of any policy – as the portering problems have shown – and it’s great that even if both sides argued, only 18 out of over 500 students voted against the motion. It’s a great mandate and sign to the University that students are adamant about this.”
A discussion took place last night regarding the timing of any future demonstrations. The Committee elected to stage such a protest opposing portering cuts at Heslington Hall, at midday on Thursday 19 November. Furthermore, a decision was made to repeat the previous over-night sit-in in Vanbrugh College on Wednesday 18 November.
YUSU Campaigns Officer, Chris Etheridge, expressed at last week’s UGM that the University seemed “short sighted and ignorant of the views of students,” regarding the University’s decision to reduce the campus portering provision.
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This article seems somewhat confused.
The first sentence refers to the YUSU Campaigns meeting held on Wednesday 10th October. At the meeting, the Campaigns committee voted in favour of a holding protest next Thursday.
The second sentence then jumps to the latest UGM. The sentence suggests that at the YUSU Campaigns meeting 94% of the committee voted in favour of the protest – when in fact the decision to procede with a protest was unnanimous. 94% is the percentage of students who voted in favour of the Porters motion at the UGM.
The third and fourth sentences are also misleading. They suggest Ben Humphries spoke against the idea of a protest at the YUSU Campaigns meeting, which is again untrue. He infact provided critical information, and advised the committee on how best to conduct the protest.
Spot on post above.
This year’s reporting so far has been poor to awful, both in terms of how the story has been related as well as the actual facts of the story. They seem to have people writing about stories when they aren’t fully sure of what’s happening making articles sound confused and misleading. Poor journalism. Again.
Just confusion about phraseology and as someone writing an article without being an organiser of the campaign, mistakes are going to happen. Mr Chris Venables, who has been helping to run the thing the entire time, said in the first reply to this thread “10th October” when the month is in fact November… we all make mistakes
Hopefully this will be The Last Battle – like that bit at the gates of Mordor where the dark tower crumbles. We need to have a permanent solution on this – and one that actually helps students – and the media are vital to helping us save *our* porters!