On Monday 11 October we had our first Union Executive Meeting of the academic year. During the meeting, the Sabbatical Officers and Part-Time Officers meet to discuss matters you bring to the table. Union Exec meetings are a culmination of discussions taking place in the Welfare and Community Zone, Activities and Education. The zones are where you can submit your ideas, attend the meetings and see that idea become policy. That idea then needs to go to Union Exec to be ratified.
During the most recent meeting, we had three policy proposals to be discussed at Exec: switching the Students’ Union banking away from Barclays because of their contributions to climate change, lobbying UCL to include an ethical criteria for sponsorships, and the upcoming UCU industrial action.
As Chair of Union Exec my role involved facilitating the conversation and our engaged students played a huge part in ensuring we had a constructive and comprehensive discussion - despite it being for many of them their first time engaging with our democratic zones. After hefty discussions, here’s how we voted.
Cease banking with Barclays
In this proposal brought forward by a student, Students’ Union UCL’s Board of Trustees were advised to move the SU’s money from Barclays Bank to an ethical banking provider like Nationwide. This motion was passed unanimously with a slight amendment (we would start banking with a more ethical bank by the end of the academic year rather than by the end of 2021). There’s a lot of things to consider and change when it comes to changing banks for such a big organisation such as the Union but by the end of the year we hope to have made significant progress.
The proposal document
What will be happening
Supporting UCU industrial action
Another policy was passed for the Union to not support the potential nationwide strikes by UCU. This was focused on making the case for students not to endure further disruption to their lives and education. Read our longer update on this here.
The proposal document
What will be happening
End UCL’s relationship with arms companies
This policy was introduced by the Welfare and Community Officer. Amendments to this policy had already been made during the Welfare and Community Zone so those were ratified during this meeting. During the Exec Meeting, members decided to vote to mandate the Union into lobbying UCL to make sure it’s sponsorships, including those it makes to companies who are complicit in human rights abuses, are more in line with the ethics UCL has for investments. We will also be encouraging UCL to invest in more ethical companies, with values consistent with UCL’s reputation as a humane, progressive and respectful organisation.
The proposal document
As always, you can submit an idea to be discussed and voted on by Union Exec via this page.