The Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) confirmed to postgraduate students late last night that it would stand by amendments and motions passed at its EGM last week.
In an email to postgraduate students, the GSU clarified the motions and amendments had passed during the EGM, which has come under question after non-members of the union were reported to have voted during the meeting.
The email – signed by the GSU President Gisèle Scanlon, GSU Vice President Abhisweta Bhattacharjee and the GSU “team” – stated that at a meeting of the majority of the union’s executive committee last night, “oversight” deemed the motions and amendments passed as “correct.”
“We are now focused on the most important task which is to work hard lobbying on your behalf to action a living wage on campus, contracts for our researchers and partial fee refunds in light of COVID,” it added.
The email means that the union intends on standing by the substantial changes to its constitutions that were passed on the night, as well as a number of other motions passed. These include the introduction of a new sabbatical officer position, and mandates to campaign for a partial fee refund and a living wage for postgraduate workers.
The GSU also said in the email that an amendment to some of the constitutional review’s amendments – which would have retained the procedure for removing members of the executive committee in the old constitution and removed a limit on what elected members could focus on – had been erroneously passed at the EGM.
However, the amendments in question pertained to a constitutional review amendment that had not passed in the first place, and were therefore voided.
In addition, it stated that a motion to divest from the union had passed. In a subsequent email, the union said: “An earlier version of this email contained an accidental typo.”
Both emails, however, said that the motion to divest had passed, even though a majority of people at the meeting voted not to divest.
In a subsequent email today, however, the union clarified that the motion had not passed.
Multiple members at the meeting called the validity of the votes into question, since there was no verification process to ensure that those voting with the link provided were actually GSU members.
The University Times subsequently confirmed that multiple attendees who were not members of the union had voted during the meeting.
In the past week, petitions have circulated among postgraduate students to trigger a vote of no confidence in Scanlon and Abhisweta.
Yesterday, the TCD Postgraduate Workers Alliance – an advocacy group backed by the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) – signalled its support for the petitions.
In a press statement, the group said that it was “aware” that the petition related to Scanlon had reached the requisite 60 signatures to trigger a vote of no confidence, and that the GSU Oversight Office David Donohue and Dean of Graduate Studies Martine Smith “have been alerted to this”.
It added that it would raise the issue with Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) and the Capitation Committee, which gives Trinity’s capitated bodies – including the GSU – its funds.
