Universities are an invaluable tool of the capitalist class in preparing the next generation of skilled workers imbued with capitalist ideology. And yet, this offers students no protection from a continual barrage of fee rises, attacks on their education, and deterioration of living conditions. As university education becomes more and more essential to finding work, students are forced to put up with such standards. With no control over means of production and no labour to withhold, effective protest is difficult. Student unions are an essential force that can counter the atomisation of students behind desk dividers and challenge the forces that keep universities in line with capitalist goals. With the benefit of youthful vigour, student unions have the potential to expand beyond campuses and meaningfully participate in class struggle. Once upon a time, this potential was fulfilled throughout Aotearoa. Now, despite much worse student conditions in many regards, our student unions cower in the shadow of what they once were.
The conditions which students are up against are dire. Many students rely on loan payments to fund their education and survive day to day, which racks up tens of thousands of dollars of debt. For many, over half of loaned living payments go directly to the pockets of landlords. Successive governments continue to underfund the tertiary sector, and are now considering slashing Fees Free entirely. University management, committed to the neoliberalisation of universities, force austerity measures onto students and staff, cutting jobs and programmes as fee increases year on year far surpass average wage increases of Aotearoa workers. All the while, appalling decisions on funding, investments, and partnerships continue to be made to further the commercial interests of the university, bypassing concerns of students and staff on issues of militarism and the genocide in Palestine.
In recent years, organising of students in protest against these conditions has been led by grassroots campaigns, in many cases by members of our own International Socialist Organisation. Movements of this kind have rallied students against investments in Israel, cuts to staff and programs, and most recently, the cutting of Fees Free. Despite harsh conditions, these campaigns have been able to win notable concessions. Protests against Labour’s cuts to tertiary education in 2023 resulted in $128 million more funding across the sector (despite much more being needed). Students for Justice in Palestine at Victoria University achieved the university’s total divestment from Israeli companies and government bonds in 2024. However, maintaining a campaign as a growing movement has proven difficult, and momentum has failed to encompass more than a small sliver of the student body.
Student unions have been glaringly weak and too often totally absent from these student struggles. The current cuts to Fees Free have seen the strongest response by the student unions in recent years, with rallies of students organised either independently or in collaboration with the ISO or the campus wings of political parties. While a departure from the apolitical nothingness of previous years, these rallies have attracted students in the hundreds, far from the mass of the student body who will be affected by this. Such political activities are few and far between for student unions, whose political programmes generally start and end with platforming politicians and encouraging students to vote. The student unions have not established themselves as serious political organisations and have largely failed to rouse political action among students.
But this is not the way things have always been. Prior to 1999, all student unions had an opt-out system, where students were automatically enrolled in the union. While students could leave at any time due to financial pressure or political objection, union membership was high. Student unions were involved in all sorts of political struggle, directed both internally and externally to the university institution. VUWSA (Victoria University of Wellington Student Association) was involved in large campaigns against the Vietnam War, the Springbok Tour, and nuclear weapons. The student association of the University of Otago (OUSA) employed the campaign organisers of the semi-autonomous Education Action Group, which was responsible for the famous clocktower sit-ins against fee increases. Circumstances began to change when, in 1999, legislation was passed which allowed student unions to introduce voluntary student membership (VSM) with a majority student vote. VSM meant that students by default were not enrolled in the student union, and those who wished to be must proactively seek out membership. By student vote, this was only implemented at the University of Auckland. However, on 28 September 2011, ACT Party Heather Roy’s Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill implemented mandatory VSM across all student unions.
This legislation dealt a massive blow to student organising and activism throughout the country. The number of students enrolled in student unions dropped dramatically. In order to remain functional, student unions signed Service Level Funding Agreements with university managements, which means that money no longer comes from students directly but conditionally through the university administrations. This means that students pay a mandatory Student Services Fee or Levy to the university, which is then doled out to the student union as the university management sees fit. Students lost all control over the funding of the student unions, which exist now at the beck and call of the university. As such, student unions continually toe the university line, fearful that riling up university management might result in funding cuts. Student unions are no longer independent organisations capable of standing against university management. Instead, they act as spokespeople and partners of the university, sucking up to the vice chancellors for fear of losing their funding.
Inactivity and apathy has since prevailed among the student body, with few participating in the remnants of student democracy that exist. In the 2026 OUSA student election, only 1,467 students voted, less than 8 percent of the student body. We stand far away from a student union in which students are democratically engaged, capable of mobilising large sections of the student body in protest against political decisions that go against the interests of students and the working class, both internal and external to the university. Independent student unions are a forgotten whisper from the past. Despite the initial outrage at its passing, in 2025, 52.9 percent of votes were against OUSA launching a campaign to repeal VSM.
But what could an independent student union look like? Student unions have the money, resources, and credibility to mobilise thousands of students in rallies and demonstrations. With no labour power to withhold, however, students lack the crucial bargaining chip against bourgeois governments and complicit university management. When we strike as students, industry does not grind to a halt, and no one loses out on profits. But as we saw in the 90s, large displays of protest can make change. Universities rely on student enrolments for their funding, and conflict with the student body threatens their public image. Calling attention to decisions which are meant to pass unnoticed forces management to explain and justify itself, whether it be for dodgy investments, fee increases, or staff cuts. Student protest is not limited to the scope of the university. With almost 400,000 university students across Aotearoa, a mobilised student body can have massive sway on government policy and activity, and lend support to workers’ struggles and strikes. Students have a great potential to engage in periods of revolutionary upsurge, and student unions with a history of supporting the working class are in a better position to do so positively.
The value of experience in protesting, organising, and activism, which can come through a militant student union, is also not to be underestimated. Through student unionism, students can build skills and confidence in planning rallies, arguing politics, speaking, writing, and creating propaganda, chanting, occupying, and blockading. Wins gained through collective action can cut through the apathy resulting from the slog of life under capitalism and leave in its wake empowered and hopeful, politicised fighters. As socialists, we must be constantly intervening in student movements to carry them further and constantly push the class analysis of the struggle. Strong student unionism provides the opportunity to draw people into our organisation and increase the skills of our members, which is of invaluable importance to a small propaganda group. We must therefore be in active support of movements to repeal voluntary student membership and bring back real student unionism.
Caption: Occupying students barricade the Otago University Registry Building, 16 August 1996. Credit: SocialistWorkerNZ, (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
