Voluntary Student Membership First Reading

Big News has a post about voluntary student membership, trying to argue it is not about membership.  Apparently the bill is about to get its first reading.

Being absolutely anti anything union, it is a subject dear to my heart.

Commenter Heine says it all.

'This debate is entirely about membership. It's discrimination to say that you can't get a degree unless you join the union.'

For those of us who have never darkened the doorstep of the varsity, or more recently a technical institute, the debate is entirely about forced union membership.

To take up and complete a tertiary course externally via correspondence I am compelled to join a student union delivering 'services' I will never use.  That I can actually complete the said course without setting foot on the campus or even holding a student ID confirms the issue for for me.  I will never get to listen to campus radio or read the student rag.

Big News argues that you are not compelled to join any union.  His line is 'if you do not want to join a union, do not study'.

Not studying because you have to join the union is a value worth pursuing to stop unions being funded directly through forced membership or alternatively via backdoor methods from the government for 'student services'.  It is indeed an ethic I have used, apart from where work has compelled me to do so, to actually not study because I would have to fund a union.

I do hope this bill passes, removing the forced membership and funding of unions from the taxpayers purse.  Also I look forward to being able to do courses of study without having to fund a union to which I do not wish to belong. 

And, incidentally, a corresponding drop in course fees.