Petty politics mars council meeting

In the first SU Council meeting in the wake of the elections a number of constitutional amendments were passed as well as the inclusion of two new societies. The meeting also featured a heated debate between a number of councillors over an emergency motion relating to the upcoming UCU strikes on the 21^st and 24^th March.

The first issue of business of the meeting was the unanimous decision to send a wreath to the funeral of the family member of Dominic Doherty, QUB SU Deputy General Manager, who was unable to attend the meeting and so was replaced by Damien ??????. In addition it was announced Councillor Ryan Cushley would be stepping down from his position in Council.

The first new society to be proposed was the QUB Rotaract Society, a fundraising body who have already raised money for such diverse causes as leukaemia research and the Simon community. The second proposed new society was the formation of QUB Labour Students. The group was proposed by current council speaker Joe Corina, and so for the duration of the proposal councillor Sarah Wright acted in the role of speaker. Both societies were ratified unanimously by council.

The majority of the constitutional reforms on the agenda for the meeting were proposed by VP Community Jay Downs. The first issue was to delete the constitutional clause which required amendments to be ratified by Union General Meeting or by Referendum prior to submission to the Senate. The motion was opposed by VP Education Nathan Anderson on the grounds that to say referendums and general meetings were unnecessary was against the democratic principles of the university. However the amendment was carried by 38 votes to 21. The second amendment was to change the process by which referendums happen so as to make it easier for them to garner enough support to get over the lower threshold for ratification (10% turnout needed). Despite the fact this amendment was passed unanimously, a number of senior councillors were unhappy with these two proposals, calling them a contradiction of interests. As the first amendment called for a severe reduction in the number of referendums at Queen’s, the second was designed to make these easier and more workable tools for the Union’s disposal, therefore making the decision to largely remove referendums as “stupid” according to one councillor.

A further amendment was to make all questions directed at the sabbatical officers or any senior member of the SU as being ‘professionally relevant’. This was passed unanimously without much serious debate. The next amendment proposed regarded the introduction of anonymous questions directed towards the Sabbatical officers. This amendment may have been in response to the fact that so far this academic year there have been no questions directed at the Sabbatical officers from council and therefore they have not been held to account as well as they should. The amendment was passed with only two opposing it, although one of these was Jason O’Neill who had stated that this set a “dangerous precedent” for future years. O’Neill also opposed the introduction of an amendment which would lead the way to performance related pay being introduced for next year’s Sabbatical team. Saying that it would “open Pandora’s Box”, O’Neill expressed concerns that it could lead to future animosities being expressed in council. The motion however was passed by 46 votes to 4, though the fact that O’Neill will be in charge of the distribution of PRP next year may yet be an issue.

The final amendment of the evening was universally well received, and that was the introduction of end of year reports by Sabbatical officers to aid in the transfer between various years’ teams. This vote was unanimous in its approval.

The final major issue of the evening saw an emergency motion proposed by Lorcan Mullen being passed after a significant and heated debate between certain members of council. The emergency motion regarded the forthcoming UCU strikes, and it called for the SU to take solidarity with the UCU and support their strikes by urging students not to attend classes. At one point of the debate a councillor accused the motion of being “pure socialism”, and also Jay Downs revealed that if fees do not increase then the university will cut 400 jobs and that this is why we need to show solidarity with the unions, but after two proposed changes regarding a paragraph referring to Tory cuts and the rhetoric used to describe this, the motion was eventually carried with only 4 opposing it.