Congress 2006 address by Gemma Tumelty, NUS President

Congress 2006

Key documents:

Programme of business

Final agenda

General Council Report

GPC report & composite motions

Fringe events guide

Congress decisions so far

Attending Congress:

Visitor tickets

Media passes

Congress Focus:

One-in-Five campaign

Green workplaces

Congress 2006 address by Gemma Tumelty, NUS President

Speech to Congress by the President of the National Union of Students. 11 September 2006

Congress, it is an absolute privilege to be invited here to speak today, an invitation that I hope reflects the growing relationship between the National Union of Students and the trade union movement.

It is also a privilege to be stood here representing the largest democratic student organisation in the world, a movement that encompasses over five million members in further and higher education, a diverse movement made up of individuals that are not just your 18-21 year old stereotypical student but students who are second chance learners, parents, carers and ultimately workers too.

This is going to be an historic year for NUS and the trade union movement. Just recently we signed a protocol agreement with the TUC. By signing this agreement and dedicating resources internally, via our Trades Union Partnership project, we are demonstrating a serious structured long-term commitment to promote collectivist values, social solidarity and trade union membership amongst young people.

Congress, education is the key to social mobility, to breaking down years of class inequality. With the introduction of top-up fees and student debt at an all time high, so many talented individuals are being deterred from entering further and higher education. Whilst the costs step up and up, the likelihood of education remaining a preserve of the wealthy does too. I have to place on record my gratitude to the TUC and to all of the individual trades unions who have supported our campaigns; and I thank you for standing in solidarity with us in our fight for a free, fair and funded education system.

In October, thousands of students will take to the streets of London to protest against the continuing marketisation of our education system and the damage to access that this causes. We are asking you to join us because education is just the latest in a long line of public services being marketised and privatised. That process that is ripping apart the very fabric of our country must be stopped.

So our commitment is also born out of practicality, out of a very real understanding that the financial position that students now find themselves in means they are almost inevitably workers too and they need the protection and solidarity of trades unions like never before. But let us be honest. Trade union membership amongst young people is just too low. As the joint TUC/NUS report @All Work Low Pay@ shows, only 4 per cent of students aged 18 to 25 are trade union members. The report also showed the massive growth of students working to fund their studies. Many of these jobs are low paid, highly exploitative and many working students are unsurprisingly from the poorest backgrounds. It is a fact that the more hours a student has to work the more their studies are likely to suffer.

Our project aims to work with unions to facilitate access to our membership base, to recruit and develop the members and activists of tomorrow. An NUS that is serious about representation of our members on and off campus should work with trades unions; and trades unions who are serious about increasing membership and activism amongst young people should engage and target students and work with NUS because the people we represent on campus are the people you can represent at work. The people we reach are the people you need to reach.

Congress, my fight is your fight. We need a real and lasting partnership between my union and your unions. We need thousands of new student activists and trade union members injecting our society with our shared values of democracy, collectivism, equality and social justice, but this vision needs to become a reality.

To develop a student community and the trade union activists of tomorrow it is crucial that we develop an organising culture. To do this we are learning from you, moving from a servicing national union to an organising one, a union that is genuinely owned by its membership. Working with the TUC Organising Academy we hope to learn so much from your step change in the way you organise and develop your members. Imagine in the future the government target is met. If 50 per cent of school leavers go on to higher education over half the population will have been a member of a students' union at one time in their life -- half of Britain. That is our opportunity to empower and influence my members to shape and form our country's future as your members. We should seize the opportunity open to us by organising them, encouraging them to challenge power and enabling them to change not only their course but their workplace, their campus and their community too. We have immense influence and power in our hands and it would be a tragedy to waste it.

Congress, there are so many opportunities through our joint work that will, if recognised and exploited today, secure our future, determine our legacy and cement our values in the Britain of tomorrow. Thank you.