None of the current students ever applied to be members of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU), but all students are automatically enrolled in the SU and have to pay for their membership. I am surprised by such disregard for common sense and the law at Trinity. I won’t burden the reader with juridical references, as there are various legal precedents in Ireland confirming the right of individuals to associate and dissociate themselves as they choose. For example, “Under the Constitution, a citizen is free to join or not to join an association or union as he pleases”. A student may not want to be associated with the SU for various reasons. I will outline just a few of these, although mandatory membership is inherently wrong regardless.
TCDSU has repeatedly threatened and caused financial and reputational damage to the college, whose students’ interests it was supposed to defend. Students may well question why they must fund, let alone be members of, an organisation that is ready to intimidate their college under any pretext its leadership fancies. Take, for instance, the confrontation over the minuscule 2% fee increase for some completely voluntary MA programmes, which is well below the Irish inflation rate.
Students are obliged to contribute to the SU budget, which exceeds €1 million. Yet, there is no clear information on how much SU membership actually costs. When I asked the SU and the academic registry, I was told that I needed to calculate the amount myself as there is no fixed number. Furthermore, the SU’s expenditures are a mystery to anyone who tries to read their yearly financial report, as they group all spending into broad categories like salaries and officers’ expenses without providing further clarification. Effectively the SU forces students to fund their enormous budget without even caring to clearly outline how much the membership costs or bothering to explain their spending.
The SU has engaged in political activities that many students find controversial and which are contrary to its constitution. It is unclear why students need an email from the SU telling them how to vote in a national referendum. Students eligible to vote are adults and can decide for themselves. Another issue is the SU’s preference for a divisive political agenda. Waving a Soviet flag at a student event may feel edgy and cool for some, but for others, it represents tens of millions of people who were killed, imprisoned, or deported, and it brings back tragic family memories.
In the 2023/24 academic year, attempts to officially remove constitutional restraints on the political activity of the SU failed several times. This year, they stubbornly push the failed proposal again. The aim apparently is to create a peculiar political organisation with mandatory membership and no opt-out option. Inevitably, 20,000 students will always have different political views, and an attempt to unite everyone under one banner is naïve and, in fact, divisive as it marginalises dissenting students.
The main issue with the current SU, for me, is their false pretence of representing all students while aggressively disregarding critical voices. For instance, I attended a student council meeting where a motion against the SU president was proposed for breaching the SU Constitution. After hours dedicated to other issues, those in favour of or against the motion were given five minutes per group to present their arguments. Then, within the next two minutes, the SU president and president-elect, along with their supporters, simply walked out of the room, breaking the quorum. This was rude and disrespectful. How is the SU supposed to represent students if they can’t even listen to them for five minutes at an official meeting?
The SU’s statements in the press are a self-praising echo chamber about their victories. But such ‘victories’ were mainly against the college or their fellow students, not over some alien invaders from Mars. Currently, there is a great imbalance of power between dissatisfied students and the SU. On one hand, we have a team of well-compensated officers with informational resources who have no classes for the whole year; on the other hand, there are unconnected students loaded with their studies. If a regular student today wants to change something in the SU, they will face either a counter-campaign or an informational blockade from the SU. When an impeachment of the president was proposed—a significant sign of distrust—it was ignored by the SU email list, even though they sent dozens of emails for other campaigns or pizza discounts.
One might reply that the reasons I mentioned are just the product of recent unfortunate circumstances. However, the issue of mandatory union membership has a long history, as a quick Google search can confirm. Students at Trinity and across Ireland have aspired to freedom of association for many years. TCD and the SU are long overdue in upholding this basic right for students.
Some students dislike the SU and seek to reform it or simply opt out, while the majority of students don’t care what is going on there. Voter turnout for the last sabbatical election was around 13%, suggesting that most students are merely formally listed as members of the SU, and some may not even be aware that they are members.
The solution is to offer membership as an option to students, allowing them to choose whether or not they want to join. Similar to TCD societies, those who wish to join can apply and pay a specified amount each year. This would be a much fairer system than collecting funds from students who never wanted to be members of the SU. Moreover, implementing this change could potentially encourage the SU to be more responsive to students’ real needs and concerns.
