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Labour wrap: Nothing new in university fee protests

Labour wrap: Much less official trade union support for the university protests


By Terry Bell

THERE is nothing new in the current round of university protests about fees, says Terry Bell in his latest labour Wrap.  Eighteen years ago, in 1998, there were similar eruptions where, just as today, the Freedom Charter was quoted and riot police were often used against protestors.

The difference now, he says, is that there seems much less official trade union support for the protests. Yet the labour movement still maintains that responsibility for the problems confronting not only university students, but society at large, rests largely with the government’s liberal economic framework.

Bell points out that the student protests of 1998 were triggered by thousands of poor students being excluded from universities because they did not have the money to pay. However, two years earlier, government met with representatives of students, trade union and civic groups and undertook not to have any students excluded from university on financial grounds.

But this undertaking, says Bell, was couched as an “intention” that would be implemented “depending on circumstances”. In the event, no further consultative meetings were held and students were financially excluded, leading to protests on campus around the country.

Then, as now, the students quoted the promise of the Freedom Charter: “Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all children”, and that “Higher education shall be open to all by means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of merit.”

Since the labour movement maintains that it is government’s liberal economic orientation that is largely responsible for the economic problems now faced, Bell feels that the unions should be beholden to put forward an alternative. And he points out that the three oldest labour federations are, in fact, still committed to the alternative policies contained in the Social Equity and Job Creation proposals they adopted in 1996.

He adds that since the current macro-economic orientation, by whatever name, appears to have failed, perhaps a union-sponsored alternative could finally open the doors of learning and culture.

* Add your voice to the big labour debate.

- Follow Terry on twitter @telbelsa.

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