'Save our porters' stages first official protest

With chants of “cut the cuts” and “Hey Grenville, I wanna know where our porters are”, around 200 students turned out to campaign against the cuts in the university’s portering services.

With a meeting between Tim Ngwena, Ben Humphrys and the Student Services committee at 2:15 yesterday, the protest had been strategically timed in order to strengthen YUSU’s mandate. Around 200 protesters met at the Derwent porters lodge at midday as YUSU officers distributed placards and organised the chants before heading outside to pose symbolically at the entrance to Derwent for not just the student media but a BBC cameraman as well.

The demonstrators then marched from Derwent through Langwith and then on to Market Square, with Tim Ngwena leading the chants supported by Rhianna Kinchin, student activities officer, on the drums. The march succeeded in swelling the numbers of students protesting with organisers estimating between two hundred and three hundred protesting at this point.

All present felt that porters provided a valuable service to students, with one fresher from James telling the Yorker that whilst he hadn’t needed the porters yet, he felt it was only a matter of time before he would and it was reassuring to know they were there.

Former Derwent chair, Olly Lester, told the Yorker that he felt “the Uni has messed up its priorities. It’s not focusing on the students anymore, it’s become a business”. Indeed, despite the cuts only affecting Derwent and Vanbrugh, other colleges joined the protest, with Halifax’s president Roberto Powell stating “it’s a slippery slope; once they start cuts there’ll be a gradual reduction of portering to unacceptable levels across campus”.

The marchers paused for 5 minutes at Market Square to get the message out to other students who hadn’t joined the campaign before heading off to the front of Heslington Hall where the senior management have their offices.

The demonstrators were greeted by campus security when they reached the front of the building, dispatched by the university to make sure that no students tried to get in. Supposedly at a previous protest, some students got into Heslington Hall and only left when former head of security Ken Bates set the fire alarm off.

A repeat of such behaviour seemed unlikely though as students were content to sing chants and show off their banners in order to demonstrate their feeling on the matter. YUSU had arranged a Domino's pizza delivery for one o’clock but by half past, many protestors had started to head on towards lectures with fewer arriving to replenish the numbers.

YUSU organisers were pleased by the attendance with YUSU campaigns officer Jason Rose telling the Yorker, “it’s fantastic that students care so much” adding “I wish we’d had 2000 people here but we’ve a solid turnout nonetheless.”

Fellow campaigns officer Chris Etheridge stressed that the campaign was more than just the day’s protest saying “I’m extremely pleased with the support we’ve had, 2000 have joined the [facebook] group, which for a small university is amazing”.

Despite the organisers declaring the protest successful, it failed to sway they student services committee, with Tim Ngwena releasing a statement on the YUSU website that “the University rejected the proposals, claiming that new management, welfare and security structures will be sufficient to mitigate the effects of the portering loss”. He did claim some success though, saying “We have secured, however, a mandate from this committee to demonstrate to them that, in their practice, the cuts are damaging the health, safety and welfare of students on campus.”

There has been criticism of the demonstration however, with one officer telling the Yorker “We need to get angry. I’m not the only officer who thinks that,” adding “Instead of singing ‘porters til I die’ we should be singing ‘shame on Cantor’”.

YUSU are asking students to email portering@yusu.org every time they notice student welfare being cut. The next steps in the campaign are to be discussed on Wednesday at the Campaigns Committee meeting.

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