The University and College Union (UCU) has announced that strike action will be paused for two weeks following ‘breakthroughs’ in its negotiations with the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA).

The breakthroughs are said to encompass disputes over pay and pensions. The UCU says it will use the two week pause on strikes to hold “intensive negotiations” and hopefully deliver a final agreement. The decision to suspend the strikes in favour of a “period of calm” is supposed to enable “the most positive environment possible” for the negotiations.

This comes as the UCEA is apparently recommending to its own members that they give it a mandate to end the use of involuntary zero hour contracts. The UCU heralded this as potential progress on “one of the worst forms of insecurity” and a “down payment on real change”.

The UCU acknowledged that members might be wondering if they can trust these developments, but set out to reassure members that “[n]obody at UCU will be fooled” and “[t]his progress is for real and the threat to our employers remains”. The announcement stressed that the aim of the strike action had always been to reach a resolution, and that the UCU did not want members on the picket lines “for a minute longer” than needed.

The UCU stressed that they would resume strike action and be prepared to escalate further if the UCEA did not follow through in the negotiations. On Wednesday, members will be asked to ballot on whether to give the UCU a mandate for another six months in case further action is needed.

The Oxford University Student Union’s VP Women, Ellie Greaves, has resigned from her role this afternoon. She states that she has done so “to prioritise my health and wellbeing” and will officially leave the post on 17th March.

Following the SU’s reshuffle of sabbatical officer roles last year, the position of VP Women will be replaced with VP Liberation and Equalities next academic year. In Michaelmas 2022, Greaves told Cherwell “I think there’s a risk that the removal of VP Women will send the message that “sexism is solved”, when it really isn’t”.

However, she subsequently issued an apology that her comments in the article contributed to a “bio-essentialist, narrow-minded narrative of what being a woman is”.

In her resignation today, Greaves said: “My time as VP Women has been challenging and I have learnt an incredible amount along the way.” She added, “I hope that we continue to see a culture of respect and kindness grow throughout the Oxford student body … I wish nothing but the best for the entire SU team and for the newly elected officers in their upcoming year.”

Last week, Kennedy Aliu was elected to the new role of VP Liberation and Equalities.

This article will be updated as more information about the resignation of VP Women becomes available.

Student voter turnout in the Oxford University Student Union elections last week was just 10%, despite numerous pledges by past and present sabbatical officers to “improve SU engagement”. Similar to previous years, this figure amounts to just 2762 students out of a total student body of 26,000 at Oxford University. So what does the SU actually do for the average Oxford student, and why is there such a significant failure to engage with it?

In a series of polls set up by Cherwell to gauge SU engagement, 69% of the 122 students who responded felt that the SU’s engagement with the student body was either poor or non-existent. A mere 3% voted that it was good, and 28% that it was passable. 

With six sabbatical officers, each paid £25,000 a year, pay costs the SU about £150,000.

At present, SU’s primary methods of communication with the student body as a whole are through weekly emails, social media, and four council meetings held each term. However, of the students who engaged with Chewell’s polls, 52% said they immediately delete SU emails. While 45% said they read SU emails occasionally, only  3% of voters said that they read SU news in detail. In addition to this, of 157 voters, 138 claim never to have been to a student council meeting. 

One student who participated in the survey told Cherwell that they find the SU “completely pointless, as JCRs fulfil all the functions an SU would in a unitary university.” They raise the question: Is a student union necessary in a collegiate university?

When asked whether people found the SU important in a collegiate University almost 10% of those polled claimed to not know what the Student Union was, and were therefore unable to answer the question. 51% voted that they didn’t, and  just 15% agreed that the SU was important in a collegiate university. 

Cherwell also polled college JCR presidents, receiving responses from the presidents of Balliol, Brasenose, Exeter, Jesus, Keble, Merton, Oriel, St Catz, St John’s and St Peter’s. 60% of the JCR Presidents who responded to the survey felt they could “definitely” do their duties without SU input. The other 40% voted it was ‘likely’ they could. 

One JCR president said, “systemically the SU is pretty useless when it comes to fighting colleges, or pushing the central university to control the colleges more (which in my own opinion is why we have so many of the systemic issues that we have in Oxford).”

Meanwhile, another JCR President told Cherwell: “I’d love for there to be more SU engagement, there’s potential for it to be a really strong student voice, but right now it’s so detached from JCRs that I don’t think it’s representative or useful for most students.”

80% of the JCR President respondents said that the SU engagement with their JCR is ‘poor’. 

One JCR president told Cherwell, “The Oxford SU clearly has a massive engagement issue… If all the SU can provide is occasional workshops for JCR Committee members, it’s hard to see how this benefits the whole of the Oxford student body, and justifies paying the sabbs wages.”

JCR presidents, when asked what support they received from the SU, mentioned rent negotiation training, college comparisons, and the option to access more general policy and procedure advice. Yet some JCR presidents told Cherwell that even the rent negotiation workshops were poorly organized. One claimed they were given only 2 hours notice before the workshop took place, characterising this as “negligent organisation”. Some colleges missed the workshop. Another JCR President told Cherwell the rent negotiation training came “a little late” for them as they had already negotiated with college and come to an agreement just as the help had been advertised.

60% of JCR presidents who responded voted that they did not find SU services and communications efficient. The SU writes on its website that they “work closely with JCRs and MCRs across the colleges with lobbying support, training, wellbeing products, and more,” with eight student-led campaigns “fighting to improve [the] student experience and build communities along the way.”

However, when asked how supported they felt by the SU, 98% of the students surveyed by Cherwell said they felt unsupported. The reaining 2% felt somewhat supported.

Despite student dissatisfaction with current SU-JCR relations, 70% of the JCR Presidents who responded voted that they would still prefer to ‘support initiatives for greater SU engagement’ as opposed to the options of disaffiliating the JCR from the SU, or keeping the relationship as is. 

Responses among the JCR Presidents about what the SU could do to improve engagement included ideas about improving convenience of the student council; in its current form, it is “too long and feels too ineffective to motivate people to attend.” 

Further thoughts focused on “making their presence better known with students,” with one President saying there needs to be “more outreach and visibility on what the SU actually is.” They suggested hosting an introduction to the SU in freshers’ week. However, they added “the JCR communications channel selectively, by picking projects for which engagement is essential. This gives the SU a means of getting to students more efficiently, but only works if it is not overloaded.”

One JCR president feels the SU would benefit from having “a more unified goal each year” as, whilst they recognize that the sabbs and SU are working hard, they feel they may be doing “too many things,” so “it feels like none of them are truly meaningful.” This “creates an environment where students are unsure of what they even do, which drives engagement down.” Another mentions the idea of “more involvement towards common goals that are set out as a whole” to improve SU engagement, and “for them to be more proactive in fighting colleges than the central university.” 

When asked for comment on how they could improve engagement, the Sabbatical Officers told Cherwell they would “encourage any student to come along and see first-hand the work that we as a team are doing.” During these student council meetings “student members can come along and ask questions, pass motions and hold sabbatical officers to account.”

In response to the ongoing environmental disasters caused by recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, Oxford’s student societies have sought to raise funds for aid and greater general awareness.

The ‘Turkey-Syria Earthquake Bake Sale’, spearheaded by the Oxford University Turkish Society and Oxford Syria Society, was an initiative with mass student participation that raised huge donations in order to help assist the relief efforts. Between the 10th and 13th of February (9 am to 5 pm), in the Radcliffe Square, over £9000 was raised. Further funds have been raised through QR codes displayed on posters, allowing people to directly donate to the AHBAP and White Helmets charities. 

Individual colleges, too, have taken independent action to support Turkey and Syria. Initiatives such as pantry fundraising by the Balliol JCR hope to be able to make a meaningful impact for those on the ground. 

For those at Oxford, issues concerning the wellbeing of affected students has been recognised by the administrative body of the university. The university’s official email of support illustrated external points of contact for help and guidance, as well as offering internal welfare and counselling services. 

Mina Yücelen, an active member of the Oxford University Turkish Society, told Cherwell that she appreciated the email from the university and the support she was getting from tutors. Nonetheless, she wishes that more diverse, proactive and instant access to mental health professionals would be made available to all those who are adversely affected by the earthquakes.

The devastation of the earthquakes in large parts of Turkey and Syria has continued to be felt in the week following their occurrence.

The first, striking with a magnitude of at least 7.8 on the seismic magnitude scale, followed hours later by another of 7.5, are already being considered as some of the most destructive earthquakes of the modern period. The reported death toll has already far exceeded 35,000 and is expected to continue rising amid international rescue efforts.

Recent UNICEF analysis indicates that in Syria alone, the earthquake has affected more than 10.9 million people with as many as 5.3 million people displaced and totalling an estimated 23 million people directly affected. 

In an official message sent out by the University of Oxford, the university offered their ‘deepest sympathy’ and the provision of support to any students affected by recent events.

The Sustainable Careers Week, an initiative organised by Oxford’s Careers Services, has come under fire from the Oxford Climate Justice Campaign (OCJC) due to greenwashing concerns. Despite an initial collaboration, OCJC decided to boycott the programme as a result of the Careers Services’ “continued refusal to engage with fossil free career demands”. 

Spanning across last week, various panel discussions and information sessions took place to help students explore sustainable career paths in sectors such as conservation, policy, energy, food, development, and law. 

OCJC acknowledge that the Sustainable Careers Week was “well-intended and introduced a variety of environmental careers to students here”, yet they claim that the Careers Service continues to promote careers in the fossil fuel industry, citing British Petroleum, Equinor, and Glencore as examples. 

The Careers Service collaborated on their events with multiple societies, including a number of environmental ones. Their ‘Careers in Energy’ panel discussion, was jointly organised with Oxford’s Energy Society, who is, amongst others, sponsored by British Petroleum. OCJC said that this blatantly emphasised “the refusal to sever ties with the fossil fuel industry”. 

Their boycott can further be explained with a talk during the week titled ‘Can a Corporate Career Ever be Sustainable?” OCJC calls this both “somewhat insensitive and somewhat callous”, given the current climate emergency. 

According to OCJC, the greenwashing runs “much deeper than a superficial plenary discussion”; they allege that the Careers Service is “exploiting and transferring the virtue associated with sustainability onto themselves, without taking sufficient action to move towards the goal of Net-Zero”. 

The Careers Services’ refusal to accept the Fossil Free Careers motion, which would demand that all new relationships with oil, gas, and mining companies should be denied, is another reason for the boycott. Both OCJC and the SU, who were mandated to support this motion following a Student Council vote last year, have been lobbying for this. 

OCJC told Cherwell that halting complicity with the fossil fuel industry is a “reasonable and wholly feasible process which the [C]areers [S]ervice can quickly and easily undertake with sufficient willpower”. In the past, the University has already split with the tobacco industry and therefore fossil fuel companies “equally, if not more so, warrant a similar severing of ties”.

Oxford’s research guidelines for collaboration with fossil fuel companies also violate the University guidelines of receiving funding from “illegal or unethical activity” according to OCJC, due to the industry itself being “unethical at its core”. 

The research guidelines entail that working selectively with companies that are committing an increasing and meaningful part of their resources towards decarbonising their products will allow the university to contribute positive ideas and innovations to the climate crisis. However, they also acknowledge that any collaboration in this regard will lead to accusations such as greenwashing. 

Another initative, Oxford’s first Green Action Week, is set to run from the 20th to the 24th of Febraury. Organised by the Universities Environmental Sustainability Team, over 50 events to empower and celebrate environmental action will take place throughout Oxford. OCJC believes that this “shouldn’t just be another opportunity for greenwashing”.
Anna-Tina Jashapara, the SU VP for Charities and Community, told Cherwell she hopes that the Green Action Week will be “a chance for lots of students to engage with sustainability”, without losing sight of the essential institutional change.

Oxford Student Union announced this week that it is to hold a referendum on NUS disaffiliation on Monday 27th February. 

Polling will be open at 8 am on Monday 27th February and will close at 6 pm on Wednesday 1st March. According to Oxford SU there will be at least one Open Meeting where both the proposition and opposition campaigns can be heard and questioned. Two Campaign Leaders will be announced on the Oxford SU website once selected. Anas Dayeh is likely to run the YES campaign in support of NUS affiliation, while Ciaron Tobin, proposer of the motion, and Caleb van Ryneveld, NUS delegate elect and former Oxford SU Presidential candidate, will run against each other to determine the leader of the campaign to disaffiliate. The two successful chairs will both be given £50 by the SU to run their respective campaigns. 

The results of the binding referendum will be announced at 7 pm on Wednesday 1st March.

This is the second attempt to call a referendum after the first such motion was withdrawn by the proposer Ciaron Tobin, and the seconder Mundher Ba-Shammakh, both elected NUS delegates from Oxford SU.

The first attempt was dropped in the Hilary Term 2023 Week 1 meeting after members debating the proposal reached a consensus that withdrawing the motion would allow for consultation with students likely to be affected. The 3-hour debate in Week 1 brought to the fore the lack of communication between the proposers and JSoc representatives. 

At the Hilary Term 2023 Week 3 meeting, Ciaron Tobin and Mundher Ba-Shammakh again proposed a motion to hold a referendum and this time it passed, with amendments, 26 votes for, 3 against and 2 abstaining. The motion acknowledged that: “The report of the independent investigation led by Rebecca Tuck KC into allegations of antisemitism in the NUS found that it had failed to sufficiently challenge antisemitism and hostility to Jewish students within its organisation.”

Asked whether he thought the new motion had addressed concerns of a lack of communication with JSoc from the Week 1, the motion’s seconder Munder Ba-Shammakh told CherwellI: “The motion as it stands is outlining a broad range of important concerns and putting forth a motion to disaffiliate. The subsequent campaigning is where I feel the wider consultation must now take place, the work done by Ciaron and I was to bring the disaffiliation motion to Oxford students and we have achieved that goal. It’s now the work of the campaign leaders to ensure a diverse range of opinions and concerns are addressed in the lead up to the vote to ensure all student voices are heard and voters can make more informed decisions.”

Jojo Sugarman, President of the Oxford Jewish Society (JSoc), speaking after the referendum’s announcement, told Cherwell: “Antisemitism within the National Union of Students has been a deep concern to members of Jsoc, with very many feeling unrepresented.”

He said there had been a consultation on the Week 3 motion, which was appreciated. 

Discussion at the meeting focused on presenting the referendum “in a way that allows neutrality” and “reiterates the importance of purely stating facts and leaving the judgement to the votes”. One member expressed concern on antisemitism being used as a driving force for the disaffiliation of the SU to NUS, while another stated that “there are many reasons to leave NUS”. The motion passed in week 3 was rephrased to say “this council believes it is it’s  duty to refer the question of affiliation to the whole membership.”

Anas Dayeh, an Oxford SU NUS delegate, told Cherwell: “The SU should be impartial to each side in order to allow the fair campaigning of both sides.”

However, Dayeh himself is emphatic that the SU should remain affiliated with the NUS. He told Cherwell: “It campaigns for the issues we care about, connects us with other students who share our values, and provides us with resources, training, support, and opportunities. It has achieved some big wins for students in the last two years alone, such as securing more hardship funds, rent relief, grade fairness for A-level and BTEC students, and ending NDAs in sexual misconduct cases in 54 institutions so far!

“The NUS is our union, and we can make it better by staying engaged and involved. If we leave the NUS, we will lose our voice, our power, and our impact. It is the best way to ensure that we have a strong, united, and unstoppable student movement that can make a difference for ourselves and students across the UK.”

The motion passed in Week 3 makes clear that “[SU] Members have the right to be properly informed in any referendum by the campaigns as to the advantages and disadvantages of affiliation, and the consequences of disaffiliation.”

The selected campaign heads will have to identity “alternate arrangements, to the extent they exist, for representation of students at a national level; the extent to which it is politically feasible to address the concerns above both within and without the NUS; how resources could be used within the SU after disaffiliation; and the extent to which historical problems in the report continue”.

Ba-Shammakh told Cherwell  he will not be participating in the campaigning as he is “currently rusticated and working a very demanding full time role”, and feels he could not “give this task the dedication it deserves”.

The motion that passed also noted that “Oxford SU contributes £4,095.60 to NUS Charity and £20,478 to NUS UK in membership fees”. While debating the first motion in Week 1, some members of the council meeting spoke with frustration of limited SU budgets, especially for the Disabilities Campaign and the LGBTQ+ Campaign. However, others expressed concern that disaffiliation would dilute the SU’s influence on student issues that extend beyond Oxford.

Asked what he would suggest as a new way forward for national representation of the SU, Ba-Shammakh told Cherwell: “This is a question that I feel must be asked of all students first and foremost and of the new wonderful team we have just elected to the SU. But on a personal level I feel there needs to be a greater focus paid to issues concerning financing for students, rent reductions on a more organised basis and increasing in lobbying for student support. There’s too much time and effort currently dedicated to national issues concerning social campaigns and general divisive matters, which while important in their own right, they often aren’t directly related to students which is what the SU ought to be concerned about.”

Joe Bell, Oxford SU Returning Officer, commented on the announcement “[i]t is my sincere hope that all debate remains respectful at all times, and I look forward to the passionate, sensitive and reasoned discussions which will doubtlessly play out in the next few weeks”.

He noted that “if the student body vote not to remain affiliated with the NUS, Oxford SU’s membership would likely only cease at the end of this calendar year, for contractural reasons”.