Kat Fletcher

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Kat Fletcher

Kat Fletcher was president of the UK National Union of Students between 2004 and 2006, the first to be elected from a political slate clearly to the left of Labour Students, who had held the position for most of the previous twenty years.

[edit] Background

Fletcher was formerly the president of Sheffield College's students' union, where she joined the Campaign for Free Education (CFE) and the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, a Trotskyist group. She later attended the University of Leeds and was elected as the NUS Women's Officer, and subsequently to the NUS Block of Twelve part-time officers.

She was elected president in 2004 in an extremely close election, which she won by only two votes, having lost the presidential election in 2003 by three votes. As a member of CFE, she ran on a leftist platform criticising the NUS for its alliance with Tony Blair's Labour government - though to some confusion, she has been 'outed' as a member of the Labour party herself. Since being elected she has pushed through a process of NUS reform which she claims aim to save the organisation from a looming financial crisis and has broken with the united left slate. She is no longer a member of the AWL, and it and other left-wing activists such as the CFE's successor organisation Education Not for Sale are now in sharp opposition to her.

In 2005 she stood for re-election without any description, winning by an overwhelming majority over the other candidates standing: Conservative Future's candidate Michael Champion and the Socialist Workers' Student Society candidate Suzie Wylie.

[edit] Marking Boycott Controversy

Under Fletcher's leadership, the NUS supported a marking boycott by university lecturers over pay. Although many students initially seemed sympathetic to action by lecturers, feedback from individual students' unions and media coverage made it clear that there was little support among students for action which would prevent them graduating.

Many criticised the NUS as being unrepresentative of its members, and questioned to what extent the NUS was representing students' interests. Initially the NUS leadership, headed by Fletcher, gave support to the lecturers' union on the understanding that they would not support the AUT-only boycott of setting exams, arguing that it was essential to secure an increase in lecturers' wages. ^[1] This support was not reflected across all students' unions affiliated to NUS, some tabling an emergency motion to the 2006 NUS National Conference; however this was not debated. This provoked criticism from some quarters that the NUS stance on one of the major education issues of the day was decided without any direct consultation of the membership. ^[2]

Subsequently a number of students' unions went public with their opposition to both the boycott and the NUS support for it. ^[3] A member of the NUS National Executive-elect drafted a counter letter calling for an end to the boycott, signed by twenty students' unions, ^[4] whilst direct online petitions of students opposed to the boycott were also set up. ^[5] ^[6]. In response to this, a letter was written by a member of the NEC, signed by several other students' union officers and many students, calling for full support for the boycott. ^[7] A second letter noted that some of the officers who had signed the letter opposing the boycott had done so against their unions' democratically agreed policy. ^[8]

An opinion poll jointly commissioned by London Student and Times Higher found that 77% of students were opposed to the boycott, whilst 67% supported the general principle of increasing lecturers' pay. ^[9]

Anger at the NUS role in this situation under Fletcher's leadership has led some students' unions inside the NUS to threaten to withhold part of their affiliation fees. ^[10]