The Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) is to vote this evening on whether it should formally support anarchist campaign group Students4Change.
Students4Change is an independent lobby group with a Marxist, anarchist ideology. It has a dozen members, according to its chair László Molnárfi.
The motion will be voted on at the union’s AGM this evening. Proposed by GSU Environmental Officer Jamie Rohu, it says that “greater team-work and collaboration is needed to advocate and agitate across College for postgraduate reform”.
If the motion is passed, it will mandate the GSU to “adopt a formal, committed stance in support of the Student 4 Change group and their demands for better postgraduate rights and conditions for students”.
“This includes active participation in the campaign and standing with the group’s members who take direct-action.”
GSU President Gisèle Scanlon has already been working with Students4Change, most recently on an open letter to Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly asking that in-person exams be cancelled due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in Ireland. Scanlon and Molnárfi have put out several joint press statements on the letter.
Scanlon also led a GSU delegate at a protest at the Dáil organised by Students4Change.
The GSU and Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) had a formal memorandum of association which lapsed in 2019. No new formal agreement has been signed. GSU members rejected a motion earlier this year to divest from TCDSU.
The union’s AGM takes place this evening, but according to its constitution, was supposed to be held by the end of the first week of November.
Scanlon told this newspaper yesterday that the meeting “isn’t delayed at all”.
The union’s constitution also stipulates that executive elections be held at the AGM, but this year’s executive has already been elected, and is set to be “introduced” to members at the meeting tomorrow.
According to the union’s new constitution, all non-sabbatical members of the Executive Committee “shall be elected at the Annual General Meeting in each year, for a term lasting until the next Annual General Meeting save in extraordinary circumstances”.
The revised agenda for tonight’s AGM includes an “introduction to new officers and representatives”.
Postgraduates were initially told that the meeting would take place on Wednesday, November 30th. November 30th, 2021, is a Tuesday. The union clarified yesterday that the meeting will take place tonight.
The revised agenda was circulated with clarification on the date. The initial agenda included an item titled “apologies” which has been removed.
Also tabled in the new agenda is the introduction of the new GSU Board, which members will be asked to ratify. The appointment of a new board by Scanlon caused controversy earlier this year. Scanlon ordered the board to step down, which the chair of the board has said was unconstitutional.
