Hey,
I’ve been so busy lately that I forgot to tell you about this really cool campaigning success we had at Disarm UCL last week:
Quick reminder: we are campaigning to get UCL to sell its disgraceful 1.5 million pounds worth of arms shares. We tried to get UCL Union support on this. And now we’ve got it 🙂
We presented our motion for ethical investment at the UCL Union Council meeting and they voted overwhelmingly in favour of our motion ! The motion states that the Union will fully support our campaign to get UCL to divest its’ shares in arms companies Cobham plc and Smiths Group. Read the details here.
This is fantastic news for us.
I did not know what to expect when we turned up at the Union Council meeting last week because I have never been to one before. Luckily, through the support of most of the union officers, our motion got moved right to the beginning of the agenda – so we didn’t have to hang around for all the other bits.
Jonny presented an excellent case for our motion. He pointed out that it is not only morally wrong but that investment in arms companies is not financially as sound as many people think. Well done, Jonny!
His argument convinced most union officers. We only had one of them arguing fiercely against us, but he stood pretty much alone on this. He asked us why we did not refuse to pay our tuition fees if we feel so strongly that UCL should not invest in arms companies.
The answer to this is that we believe that we should have our cake and eat it: Get an excellent university education AND make sure our fees will be invested ethically.
In the end almost all the Union officers voted for our motion (1 vote against, 2 abstentions) with only a minor amendment. And we went straight to the pub to celebrate!
Watch out for our funky Disarm UCL banner outside the Union building soon! And sign our petition!
Editors note: this is a historical article, which originally linked to pages which no longer exist. Where possible, these links have been fixed; otherwise, they have been removed.