Systematic failings are rapidly becoming clear in the implementation of guild council mandates.
You may have read about the recent guild T-shirt error. First reported by Tom Guise VDPR and then by student media here on the Radish and later here in redbrick . In which the guild accidently used fruit of the loom for its freshers week T-shirts.
Another similar failing was when the guild accepted last January a company for a promotion without doing the research guild council has mandated “The Guild shall always look into the ethical standing of any company before a promotion is accepted. Such as its working practices, the nature of its business, and the supply chain of its products as well as taking into account its majority shareholder and their ethical practices.”– The company turned out to be an arms company which had illegally sold weaponry to countries in breach of international human rights laws and engaging in illegal wars.
Cases like these are just the tip of the iceberg and probably are just the examples we know about. I recently asked for copy of the guild environmental and ethical policies. Both of these policies which staff are suppose to refer to contain serious errors and are massively out of date going backwards chronological through these mistakes.
Shell is still Boycotted – this was overturned by guild council last term
Fruit of the Loom is not boycotted – guild council mandated it to be boycotted in March
Staff and exec flying – this still reads “No Guild officer or member of staff shall use air travel for any Guild business, unless in case of emergency.” This should have been changed allowing staff and exec to fly by the “fly me to moon motion” last winter.
Entering into contracts with companies against whom student groups have campaigns – “The Guild shall endeavour not to enter into contracts with companies against whom its campaigning societies are currently running a campaign.” This was also removed by guild council.
Oil companies – “or any other company engaged with the extraction of oil such as BP.” all oil companies are according to the guilds copy of the ethical policy banned, this was before my time but I know it has been overturned long ago.
These are policies to which staff at the guild use. Mistakes like these would make them liable to make massive errors even when acting in good faith.
Another issue emerging is reporting back to Guild Council on implementation. For example policy reads that the guild will stock fair-trade items in its clothing shop. Anyone who may have visited zest will have noticed this is not the case.
There is no mechanism for reporting back to students when a mandate has not been achieved. This may seem odd to you because if you were told by your boss told you do something and you could not do it for reason A, B and C you would go tell them asap, why? Because they are the person above you! Students are the governors of the guild…. Well at least nominally in practice clearly not.
I’m just reporting here on ethical and environmental mandates other areas are the same. This is not in my opinion a break down in communication as I have seen reported to students in redbrick and on blogs.
Guild council is totally sidelined and ignored its motions have little effect on the guild not because of poor communications but rather because of its integration within the guild. It is to low ranking and too separated from other key decision making bodies in the guild to have a impact.
Thing have gotten so bad in my opinion that the guild staff or the officer team quite simply can’t deal with these issues internally and need to sit down in open meetings with students and discuss reforms.
If you think the guilds structure needs reform and you want this process to be open and democratic involving all students let it be known! Comment here and e-mail this to these addresses-
president@guild.bham.ac.uk;vpdr@guild.bham.ac.uk; vpea@guild.bham.ac.uk;vphc@guild.bham.ac.uk; vps@guild.bham.ac.uk;vpw@guild.bham.ac.uk; vpsad@guild.bham.ac.uk; e.bauer@guild.bham.ac.uk
Dear executive,
I’m concerned about the failure to implement guild council motions. Recent events and past failures show drastic problems with the current system. I want to be heard please start a working groupopen to all students to tackle these issues and bring in real reform.
Sincerely
Concerned student
Leaving Counter-Strike behind
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Last year I wrote a post about how I needed to take some time out, due to
me developing physical anxiety symptoms. It’s fair to say that many things
got on...
2 months ago
Posts
1) The first reporting of the fruit of the loom incidence was in fact here: http://tomguisevpdr.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/welcome-week-t-shirts/ This shows that the current Exec want to have a debate. Good on them!
ReplyDelete2) Could you be a bit less vague about the arms company story?
3) Have our Exec been flying anywhere?
4) What have the officers said when you approached them with these concerns?
5) Exec reports back on implementation every month through resolutions extant
6)Cases are the tip of the iceberg? Really? Any evidence that they are not just simple incidents?
7) Have you consulted the Exec about these problems?
Edd, do you not think it would have been better to discuss these issues with the Officer Group and the appropriate members of staff and work on a solution before criticising them on your blog? Whilst you haven't named the staff members involved, it is very unprofessional for an officer to critise staff members and other officers on their blog regardless of how passionate you feel about an issue.
ReplyDeleteI also have to agree with everything that the previous commentor noted.
Anonymous and Siobhan- you seem to want to sweep this under the carpet! Many students have spent hours dying of boredom in guild council under the illusion that it is our democratic voice and therefore we should attend to make oursleves heard. What was, and is, the point in attending? Perhaps a boycott of guild council should be called until we have assurances that the policies we pass are implemented.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to get a bit confused now and hopefully the answers to Siobhan's and Anon's questions will aid my understanding.
ReplyDeleteA few points. Firstly, why do you not raise these issues with the officers in person? You were in the office today and could have easily done so.
Regarding flying, I have actually raised this issue at a meeting where people wanted to have a meeting in Belfast and I started a debate surrounding flying policies as I believe they are important.
Lizzy - sweeping under the carpet? It was Tom Guise who made you aware of the issue in the first place and we have since taken steps to avoid this in the future! I truly believe we we are open and transparent about the issue! Fruit of the loom was no conspiracy against Guild Council but a mistake for which we have apologized.
I am not scared to have these debates (Democratic Structures Review; Fruit of the Loom; Arms companies) face to face and I invite anybody who is genuinely interested to contact me and we can arrange a meeting. I don't mind booking a room in the Guild and having a Q&A outlining what is going on! All you need to do is ask!
Ghandi said be the change you want to see. Let's stop talking about things and actually sit down and discuss if there are genuine concerns!
Ok bear with me I'm writing my reply to Siobhan now
ReplyDelete@ anonymous
Anonymous said...
1)The first reporting of the fruit of the loom incidence was in fact here:
http://tomguisevpdr.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/welcome-week-t-shirts/ This shows that the current Exec want to have a debate. Good on them!
I don’t think I have ever denied that they wanted to work on this problem and have debate, I think it’s fair to say there is consensus among the executive that this needs to be addressed. Obviously Tom Guise reported it first I was thinking of the student media when I wrote that. I’ll change it right away however I think it best to use third party sources when quoting the story.
2) Could you be a bit less vague about the arms company story?
Sorry to be vague I think you will agree that I’m writing considerable amounts here and I don’t always have time to be comprehensive – the Arms Company was QinetiQ at the time I questioned staff and the executive and if you go over the GC minutes for last year you’ll find they apologised for the mistake and said it was a breakdown of communication – I will try and found which guild council it was and post a link to the minutes.
3) Have our Exec been flying anywhere?
Well to my knowledge no they haven’t I don’t quite see your point here? Guild council decided that it was ok (in cases) for the exec and staff to fly last year. The policy that has been circulating is that it is never ok except in emergencies.
Surely if anything the fact that they have not been flying backs me up? I think I can see your confusion, at the time I opposed that motion although I disagreed (and still do), I believe that guild council took that decision democratically and better or for worse that is the direction the guild should follow.
4) What have the officers said when you approached them with these concerns?
I’ve got a mixed response the first reply I got was that the problem had been identified and fixed, the second was that the guild staff chief exec was handling it and it was a internal issue, the third was that it was issue being dealt with in the democratic review (it’s not I checked the minutes) and now today talking with Tom guise is that it’s not just a communication issue but rather a systematic problem.
Tom to his credit is taking strong action, he is putting onto the agenda of the democracy review and bringing back the ethical and environmental staff work groups which had somehow lapsed out of use.
5) Exec reports back on implementation every month through resolutions extant
Officers reporting on their activities are not the story here, it’s not the officers jobs to report back on the activities of guild upper and middle management; they can’t they are far too busy already!
6)Cases are the tip of the iceberg? Really? Any evidence that they are not just simple incidents?
These are clearly systematic problems; they don’t look like random incidents to me. For example these incidents both have same cause. Putting them down as simple incidents would be to lay blame at individual staff and officer’s personal error, something which I’m not doing as I know the people involved are clearly capable people.
7) Have you consulted the Exec about these problems?
Yes I have starting since last year when I asked about what being done to make sure the arms incident never happened again. Have a look at my answer to question 4 if you want to see some of the responses I received on Friday. Today I talked to three officers while writing this post in the non sabb office and I told them what I was writing and none objected to its writing.
I don’t see your point again; it’s not my role to talk privately about issues with executive it is the EEO role to communicate to students what is going on. I haven’t talked to all the exec but they are very busy hardworking people and very hard to find.
Lizzy I don't think it's fair to say that I don't want the issue addressed nor students involved, that's not what I've said in my previous comment at all. I just don't think that it's very productive to criticise other officers and members of staff on this blog for what they have or have not done. If change needs to be made within the Guild because of what the people who run the democratic structures of the Guild are or aren't doing, then surely the first point of that plan would be to discuss with these people what can be done to address that situation, and of course this should involve the views of students.
ReplyDeleteAs for a boycott of Guild Council I personally don't believe that that is something that Guild Councillors should carry out nor be encouraged to do because surely that's counter-productive. They've been elected by their constituents to represent them at Guild Council and by not being there you can't represent them. Surely it would be more productive to sit down with the officers, as Fabian has suggested, and work through a way to take Guild Council and the democratic structures of the Guild forward, which is something that the previous VPDR started to do with Guild Council Review.
Siobhan in what way was am I criticising the officer group and members of staff in this blog?
ReplyDeleteIf anything those who say this was a breakdown in communication are blaming individual staff members. My view as I have written in the post is that the member of staff whose job it was to communicate to guild staff guild council mandates had an impossible task. I apologize for not being clear enough, my point is that this is a problem with the system not an individual.
I have had this time and time again that criticism of the guild systems and structures are somehow personal attacks upon officers and staff, those students who do criticise them are nearly always met in return with attacks that are genuinely personal such as yours “it is very unprofessional” ( thanks very much).
This has driven many students to write Anonymously or not at all. I have talked to students to timid and afraid of verbal flak to say what they really think. This very unhealthy for the guild and has been perpetuated for too long now.
I am discussing these issues with the officer group and will raise them at every opportunity I see them, I will however to continue to rely all information back to students as is required in the EEOs job description....
“The Officer will work to ensure all decisions that have ethical and environmental implications are fully considered within the Guild. The Officer liaises with the University and their Sustainability and Environmental Task Force, works with relevant student groups and communicates all information back to students.”
@ Fabian
ReplyDeleteI hope my answers have helped, I did talk to Tom Guise this and Brigid Jones on Friday, today I also talked to Tom again about this, Matt Ward and Ed Sparkes. I actually looked for you at one point and asked the other officers were you were but you were busy. If you’re around tomorrow morning there are a few things I want to talk to you about.
I believe however that the first people I should consult on all issues are students not the officers and I intend on doing so all year on this blog, at the E&E committee and at societies .
Please do not think I am complaining about the guilds flying policy. Rightly or wrongly that decision was taken and I will work to protect its implementation. If you are going to start that debate I would encourage you do it publically on your blog or at guild council.
Ghandi said be the change you want to see. Let's stop talking about things and actually sit down and discuss if there are genuine concerns!
I agree I want to sit down and talk about these things... but on equal terms not in a Q&A, a forum or a private face to face.
Edd you are criticising the officers and staff in the blog by saying that they can't deal with the issues internally, that they don't allow GC and its motions to have an impact upon other key decisions made within the Guild, saying that the officers are not feeding back motion implementation to GC, and saying that they're allowing companies who have been boycoted by GC to enter into a contract with them or allowed to promote themselves within the Guild. Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with what you've said in your blog post, you are being critical of the officers and relevant staff memebers. I don't believe that an officer should use their blog to criticise their fellow officers or the staff members, and I'm sorry if you thought me calling you unprofessional was a personal attack on you - it wasn't intended that way at all.
ReplyDeleteIf officers are failing on their mandates, then it's up to the students to hold them to account. Does the Guild need a better feedback system? Yes it does, whether that's through the medium that Fabian has suggested or through publicising the comment box on reception. I'm not sure if the box is anonymous but if it isn't then it should be, and the Guild should look at a way of feeding back this feedback and any responses to it, to the whole Guild.
On a more positive note, what I will say is that whilst I don't neccessarily agree with everything you say on here Edd, yours is one of the few officer blogs on which there is often an active debate, and that is something that can only be encouraged. I still feel though that you should speak to the whole officer group and the relevant staff memebers about how best to approach the situation and work on a solution before blogging about it.
I don’t think I’m criticizing the staff, It was only one staff members responsibility to do this work and his task was absurd, he could never have done it and it is not his fault.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that democratic reform is a job for staff and saying that they shouldn’t do it is no criticism of them. Would that not be the same as saying that it would be the civil services job to change the democratic structures of Britain?
Criticism of my fellow officers? I’m not sure what you are talking about. We haven’t had a guild council this year how could I be criticizing my co-executive about not feeding back into GC properly? This is besides the point even if the officers do feed back properly through the resolutions extant the feedback wouldn’t be effective enough it’ too weak and obscure students don’t see it.
A better publicized comment box! Thank god we are saved all our problems are over – why didn’t I think of that myself!
I talked to a few officers and Tom guise even requested me not to send a e-mail to all staff requesting they have a brief read of the ethical and environmental policies something which I didn’t do (I would like to); it would be madness if I was to ask permission from the whole team before I do the smallest thing and serious hindrance on my work – did you when were a officer?
You've raised some good points here. Moreover, as we both discussed last week and today (and I also brought up with Brigid and Johnny), the Guild is suffering from serious bereaucratic failings as much as it is suffering from democratic failings.
ReplyDelete1. The Fruit of the Loom incident was a result of policy not being circulated, due to some breakdown of communication. To my knowledge, at least RockSoc and even our own Sabb team had unwittingly violated this policy as a direct result.
2. Guild Council minutes are supposedly recorded at this URL http://www.guildofstudents.com/content/188425/your_voice/guild_council/, but only a few minutes are ever available and most are far from comprehensive. Tom Guise was good enough to dig through the archives and find me the Fruit of the Loom policy for me the other week, but this only reinforces Edd's point. These minutes should all be available, online - in a more portable format than Microsoft Word - within a set timeframe from the Guild Council meeting in question. Furthermore, the responsibility of circulating Guild Council minutes is an *additional* part-time responsibility taken on by a single member of staff. This is quite frankly unfair on that one member of staff, poor management and can clearly have consequences - case in point: Fruit of the Loom - and MUST be addressed.
3. The situation with non-sabbatical officers receiving no help, support or encouragement from the Guild staff over the holiday was utterly unacceptable. Fine, I think they should have been more proactive in chasing up the staff for email and blog access; however I acknowledge that Edd and I have the benefit of experience from working in the Guild and/or other office-orientated organisations. We're used to chasing people up to get things done, they were not (and it's more difficult in the Guild than it is in ANY other organisation I've worked for). Admittedly, some of the staff - Lisa Clark, Jim Alcock and Jane Healy to name a few - were tremendously helpful in helping me get what I needed but we were, for the most part, on our own. I get the distinct impression that the powers-that-be are so fed up of past non-sabbs being so uninvolved, we're now being harshly prejudged as being just as lazy and useless as some distant predecessors.
4. The issue with Non-Sabb training being "cancelled" without properly notification represented a serious breakdown of communication which I was naturally pissed about at the time - HOWEVER, the Sabbs have clearly worked hard to correct this mistake, quickly rescheduled the training and provided good notice to all non-sabbs, which I'm more than happy to acknowledge and appreciate.
Since the Sabbs are obviously being very proactive in sorting the various problems out, we really should raise these with them and formulate some specifics to bring up at the next Guild Council. As you know I was planning on email the CEO directly, but I'm no longer sure that doing so without Sabb support would yield anything but the lasting contempt and ignorance of high-level staff. Edd, I should be around tomorrow but mostly in the LGBTQ room if you want to talk then.