A document that Hamish Common, ICU President 00-01, once said was “The most important document in the union”, could be amended at the next ICU council with disastrous consequences. So what is the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and what does it do?
Basically it is a written agreement between college and the union, as required by law, which governs the entirety of the relationship between the two. At the moment Imperial College Union is a completely separate identity to Imperial College, with separate finances and full control over itself. However plans within the revised MoU that were leaked to Live! yesterday show that this could soon change. Basically the Union could soon lose its independence, which has huge implications for everything ICU does.
Some of the key points that have come out of the document show that if the new MoU is passed, then the union will become a department of the College. This will allow college policies in any area (e.g. finance, Senate, random committees, etc) to be binding on the Union, whereas at the moment ICU only has to answer directly to college council.
However some of the most disastrous proposed changes are the ability for college to gag student media. College will have ability to recall Felix, and to censor anything that they don’t like, with the decision of censorship resting with the College Secretary. This "Code of Practice on Defamation" will be run on a "guilty until proven innocent" system.
Live! has learnt that Senior union staff have expressed dismay that the union’s freedom will be lost to the College if this MoU goes through at council. Ironically it seems that most of the amendments may have come from a previous Union employee, who now works for the College.
Mustafa Arif, ICU President elect, told Live! "If this is true, then this is outrageous and should warrant a disciplinary investigation by the Council Chairman. When was the consultation period for these changes? Members of Council cannot be expected to agree to such significant changes to the MoU having seen the document only at the meeting."
The amended MOU will apparently be pushed through the next ICU council in June. Although it must be passed twice in a row by Union council, Sen Ganesh plans to push it through by claiming that it was looked at the last council which took place in the locked offices of ICU so not all members could attend. Despite this being very dodgy and in fact illegal, one has to wonder what has Sen got to gain from signing away the independence of the Union? - Maybe a job?
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