Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 7. 11th April 1973

Student Labour

Student Labour

Students spend a quarter of their year away from the university in vacation jobs. They compete for work as individuals, not as an organised group. In key industries like the freezing works, students have often been used by companies as scab labour during disputes. In the public service students are used as a source of cheap labour and paid extremely low wages.

The AGM decided that in future the Association would negotiate with employers and unions to see that students most in need of work get it, and to prevent any future use of student labour by employers to break strikes. Debate on this motion showed up the middle class prejudice of many students towards workers and their ignorance of the fact that co-operation with trade unions would mean more holiday jobs for students.

The Tenants' Protection Association, which has been extremely successful in organising exploited tenants to fight landlords, was granted $200. However few students showed any real interest in actively working for the T.P.A.

Another proposal which attracted little interest was a decision to introduce Equal Pay into the student catering operation in one year instead of the five years allowed under the Equal Pay Act. The AGM did not face up to the question of whether or not it should let a subsidiary of I.T.T., the American monopoly which is notorious for exploiting workers in the Third World, run its cafeteria inefficiently.

The main debate centred around political strategy, and whether money should be given to groups using tactics which have no popular base of support, e.g. marching for the repeal of the abortion laws. A majority of students felt that a march would be a totally inefficient method of agitating against the present laws. One Executive member suggested that a doctor be found to perform an abortion in the Student Union Building and the police invited to stop it. The Executive was given $100 to spend on activities aimed at repeal of the abortion laws.