On the face of it, the news that Ireland’s national student movement is lining up with business federation IBEC suggests that the era of campus radicalism is well and truly buried.

But David Quinn, the Trinity Students’ Union president, who originally proposed the USI motion, says the latest move by the organisation is not driven by politics. “We’re not getting into bed with IBEC,” he insists. “We’re not aligning ourselves with them. This is looking at student unions as employers.”
The text of the motion passed by USI’s national congress in Bundoran urged that “USI cease its current relationship with SIPTU” and “develop relationships with IBEC so that COs [affiliated unions] are offered necessary employment rights protection and information.”
According to the outgoing USI president Colm Hamrogue, it’s possible for USI to have a foot in both camps.
“Both SIPTU and IBEC have a role to play,” he argues. “We need to have a link with SIPTU to help students with part-time jobs. But student unions are also massive employers so we need advice and back-up from IBEC.”
David Quinn is among those who doubt that a link with SIPTU is useful for students, however. “There may have been a time when there were benefits, but it’s becoming hard to see the advantages for our members,” he observes.
Student unions increasingly play a dual role, representing their members as campaigning organisations but also providing services. The latter role has seen a number of student unions clash with SIPTU, as it represents their employees.
“One of the biggest problems we had this year was in staffing,” says David Quinn. “We had problems with SIPTU because we had to let a couple of our staff go and we ended up in the Labour Court. If trade unions are based on solidarity, we weren’t getting that solidarity from SIPTU.” Quinn also notes that there have been tensions with SIPTU in NUI Galway and UCC – not to mention USI itself.
SIPTU, meanwhile, has strongly criticised USI’s handling of a former employee’s case. According to Chris Rowland, the union’s education branch organiser, USI has failed to implement a decision made by the Rights Commissioner last September, awarding compensation for loss of earnings. “Such blatant disregard for fair procedure flies in the face of statements issued by the USI demanding that employers afford workers their fundamental rights,” Rowland charges. “Yet for a number of months, USI was found to have treated a member of its own staff in a ‘grossly unfair’ way.”
At the national conference, Paul Dillon, a former UCD student union president, argued against the motion to break USI’s link with SIPTU. He says that SIPTU have nothing to apologise for. “There have been recommendations made by the industrial relations machinery of the State,” notes Dillon. “SIPTU are perfectly right to expect those recommendations to be followed by USI.” During his time as a student leader, Dillon didn’t have the same negative experience recounted by David Quinn. “I didn’t have any problems with SIPTU,” he insists. “In UCD, I had the experience of working together with SIPTU members on some issues and they were very helpful.
“There’s definitely a broader ideological issue here,” he adds. “You’ve had people arguing that there are cut-backs in universities because of the pay increases given to education workers under bench-marking. I had the opportunity to work for a trade union for some time and I saw in the meat industry for example some very anti-union employers, but I never saw anything like the attitudes to trade unions from the student leaders at USI congress.”
The controversy over the SIPTU link ties in with a wider debate about the role of the student movement. Some student leaders advocate a move away from the tradition of campaigning and protest. “There may be a shift in the way student unions are looking at things,” says David Quinn. “We’ve found that protesting is not as effective as it used to be. Our central plank here is providing services for our students.”
Colm Hamrogue believes that pragmatism is the bottom line for USI’s approach. “Different situations call for different approaches. We need results – protesting or negotiations are just tools for achieving results,” he insists. “Sometimes when negotiations don’t work, we have to protest.” Hamrogue points to a successful demonstration organised by USI last year in St Patrick’s teacher-training college, as an example of student mobilisation.
It’s almost five years since education minister Noel Dempsey threatened to abolish the free fees scheme for third-level students. While Dempsey’s plan was withdrawn after nationwide protests, the OECD has since urged the Government to replace free fees with a student loan system. “I wouldn’t bet against the re-introduction of fees after the general election is out of the way,” says Paul Dillon. “The question then is, can the student movement respond to that challenge? There is a capacity there on the ground to resist fees. Whether that can be done by student leaders, who don’t seem to believe that a student union is a union, is another question.”