Letting down students

The unholy alliance that exists between the leadership of many student associations and staff unions has always baffled me.

We saw this recently in Wellington where they marched to demand lower fees AND higher wages for staff. Hello – have we all failed standard four mathemathics!!!

Now it has got even worse. Staff unions are threatening to withhold students’ first semester marks, unless they get their 10% pay rise.

Any students’ association worth its salt should be out there defending the interest of its (generally compulsory) members and saying that such an action is totally unacceptable, and that such a move would destroy the goodwill to the staff. If the students’ association will not stand up for the interests of students, then who will?

But instead we have the WSU President (2% turnout in their last election) saying they supported the staff doing this!!!!

Let me say that I will be very disappointed if we do not have voluntary membership of students’ associations within 90 days of a National-led Government sworn in. With voluntary membership you would not be able to have the association leadership ignore the interests of their members, as they would lose all their income if they did.