Warwick Students' Union 1975 occupation of Senate House and the Telephone Exchange

In 1975, Warwick Students' Union occupied Senate House (then the main admin hub of the university) and the Telephone Exchange for 3.5 weeks throughout April and May due to the rising cost of rent across university accomodation. This occupation followed the 1975 rent strike, and led to the 1975 occupation of Warwick Arts Centre.

Background

The "Warwick Files Affair" and Senate House

See also: Warwick Files Affair

In February 1970, during a Warwick SU occupation of the Registry Building - then the administrative hub of the university - students uncovered files show that the university administration was conducting routine surveillance on students and staff. This high-profile incident has come to be known as the "Warwick Files Affair". This incident set the tone for the many disagreements between the university and its students in the years to come.

By May 1973, construction had begun on a new administrative building, Senate House. Speaking in 2004, Christopher Zeeman, founding professor of the Warwick Mathematics Institute and strong supported of the students and the SU on most issues, said that the building was built "like a fortress, so as to be able to defend it against the students", likely as a way of preventing the "Warwick Files Affair", or something similar, from re-occuring.

The 1975 rent strike

See also: Warwick Students' Union 1975 rent strike

University accommodation fell under the remit of a nation-wide rent freeze until the start of 1975. This meant that, for the first term of the 1974-1975 academic year, rents were frozen at a level deemed to be affordable. However, while the freeze continued for other types housing, the rent freeze ended for student accommodation at the start of the second term. The university was making a loss on accommodation at this time due to the loan-based system through which most accommodation blocks were financed. Hence, following the end of the rent freeze, rents were increased. The increases are sumarised below:

Accommodation type	Weekly rents in term 1	Weekly rents in terms 2 & 3	Increase	Percentage increase (1 d.p.)
Rootes Hall self-catered with cleaning	£4.92	£6.50	£1.58	31.1%
Tocil Flats, Whitefields, Cryfield Flats self-catered	£3.99	£5.40	£1.41	35.3%
Cryfield Hall included 5 evening meals per week	£6.18	£7.90	£1.72	27.8%
Average	£5.03	£6.60	£1.57	31.2%

These increases were considered too much by the student population, who argued that it wasn't inline with recent 1974 increase to the student grant of 25%. Hence, in a Union General Meeting on Tuesday 2 December 1974, it was decided to begin a rent strike from the start of term 2.

Events of the occupation

Initial vote and action

By the start of term 3, over 1200 students were part of the rent strike. However, members of the SU Executive had concerns over potentially victimisation of students involved. In particular, the university threatened to deny accommodation for the next academic year for those part of the strike, and even to deny degrees to those graduating who were participating. Over the Easter break, the executive discussed the optionas available to them and eventually decided to propose an occupation of Senate House and the Telephone Exchange. Sure enough, on the first day of term 3, Monday 21 April, a Union General Meeting (UGM) attended by over 700 students in the Aiport Lounge (one of the main social spaces at the time) voted to occupy the two buildings until the following four demands were met:

1. freeze the term 2 rent,
2. negotiate the term 3 tent,
3. have no victimisation,
4. keep the rent strike separate from other issues.

During the meeting, a student named Mike Adam adopted a devil's advocate position, warning the student body of the potential negative outcomes of the occupation. These included the possibilities of:

• payments of grants being delayed - while the motion did not propose to occupy the Finance Office, it could be assumed that the administration would abandon the building entirely, even the un-occuped portions;
• the on-campus postal service being delayed;
• examinations being delayed or canceled;
• staff wages being payed late.

Despite these concerns, the motion passed roughly 5 to 1.

Students entering Senate House through an open window.

Following the UGM, roughly 400 students marched on Senate House. Writing in 2004, Professor Zeeman, said that the students were able to gain access to the building by climbing in through the ventilation fan of the Vice-Chancellor's private toilet, which had been added to the otherwise fortress-like building as an afterthought. This could be a misremembering of the events as The Warwick Boar No. 37 (a special edition devoted almost entirely to the occupation) claimed instead that the students initially gained entry through an open window. The attached photo shows students going through a window into the Vice-Chancellor's offices, partially corroborating Zeeman's story. Further according to The Warwick Boar No. 37, these students were then hand-led away from doors they were trying to open by Professor Mykura, and the Vice-Chancellor, Jack Butterworth, nearly slapped a camera out of the hands of a student trying to record the events.

By 2:30pm, Senate House had been successfully occupied and the first occupation meeting was held. In this meeting, Pat Denny and Mike Adams were elected to Union negoatiating comitee, alongside the SU's president, secretary and treasurer. Throughout the occupation, a Union General Meeting would be held every day at 6pm.

Early days

An early Union General Meeting held outside (and on top off) Senate House.

On Tuesday morning, the day following the occupation's start, a Steering Committee was held, with Nita Bowes and Pat Denny delegated to attend and represent the students. Their request for the power to be turned on in Senate House was denied under the reasoning that the building was closed. Their assurance that the Union was willing to listen to any representation from the University was met with silence.

On Wednesday morning, a meeting of the Senate was held. In the hour prior to the admittance of student represenatives, the academics on the Senate had met, and several had reluctantly decided to support the University. One academic Senator said "in a time of economic stringency Jack [Butterworth, Vice-Chancellor] delivers the financial goods" and "any academic who wishes to see his department receive a share of the income of this University is well advised to steer clear of any suspicions that he is sympathetic to the students claim". The SU President and the Student Senator, Simon Yates, were accompanied to the meeting by two student observers, Bill Nottage and Nita Bowes. A third observer was refused admission. The students intended to open a discussion of the University's system of finances, claiming that the system where the University pays interest on payments between internal University accounts was raising rents unnecessarily. However, the Vice-Chancellor and the Finance Officer shut this topic of discussion down and, despite several Council members asking for it to continue, a motion from Professor Griffiths was passed 27 to 2, stating that the question of rent levels had already be discussed heavily and that negotiations would not be re-opened for that year's rent. The motion also stated that negotiations on next year's rent could only commence as usual if the Students' Union left Senate House.

Following this meeting, it was decided, in a SU Executive meeting, to recommend to that evening's Union General Meeting that the occupation continue, and to call for the release of grant cheques for the term, and to release the Union's funds for the term. In that evening's Union meeting, the motion passed with over 1000 students voting in favour out of the roughly 1200 present. This included the rejection of an ammended motion put forward by a student named Linda Ross that argued that it was in the students' best interest to call off the occupation due to the inevitability of educational expenditure cut backs. This position was rebuked in a speech by Union Secretary Nita Bowes which argued that the educational cutbacks should be opposed, and that to not do so would be to overturn years of Union policy based on the principle that education is a right, not a privelage.

Immediate support and impacts

The Warwick Boar, operating independently from the Students' Union, supported the occupation. Moreover, the staff trade unions largely remained neutral or supported the occupation. The Transport and General Workers' Union passed a motion supporting the rent strike. NALGO addopted a neutral position. The AUT had not resolved anything by the publication of The Warwick Boar No. 37. However, the Vice-Chancellor, Jack Butterworth, claimed that NALGO refused to let its members enter Senate House during the occupation.

Despite concerns that the University's postal service would be disrupted, it remained active from its base in Rootes Hall (now known as Rootes Social Building]]). However, the University had witheld the Students' Union's termly funds, and grant cheques were not being payed. This was despite the fact that the Finance Office in Senate House remained unoccupied, and despite the setting up of an emergency Finance Office in F3.14 in the Engineering Block. This lack of grant cheque payments was considered illegal by the Students' Union, and so, on Friday 25 April, a write was served on Vice-Chancellor Butterworth and Mr. Rowe-Evans, the University Secretary. If uncontested, this would have meant grants would have to be payed to students somehow on Monday 28 April, one week after the start of term. If contested, this would lead to an injunction being heard in the High Court on Tuesday 29 April. However, Butterworth didn't feel that any judge would allow the distrubution of grants due to NALGO's refusal to enter Senate House. Indeed, the University took this up in court, and was winning. The University also began seeking an injunction against the students to dispell them from Senate House.^{[citation needed]}

Moreover, while none of the exams scheduled for the week of the occupation were affected, in an intervew for The Warwick Boar, Professor Phillips-Griffiths warned that there could be a "complete breakdown of the examination system", and Vice-Chancellor Butterworth agreed. This was, at least in part, due to the tight schedule of external examiners, who were required for the marking of finalists' exams. This meant that finalists may not have been able to take their final exams, and so would have had to leave university without a degree, potentially taking their exams the year after instead. Another issue with exams was that, to run them, it would have required the removal of a significant amount of paperwork from Senate House, including 3,300 personal files and examination cards. This would have been impractical, even with the occupiers allowing the University access to this paperwork.

Beginning of the end

Around two weeks into the occupation, little progress had been made, and a proposal was put forward in an occupation executive meeting to withdraw. This was shot down, although the SU President, Kasper de Graaf, confided to Mike Adams that he had already decided to withdraw once the exam cancellations became iminent.

On 4 May 1975, a member of the Steering Committee told Mike Adams, who, on the 5th, subsiquently informed other members of the Union and occupation executive, that a number of concessions would be made if the Union withdrew immediately. The other executive members agreed immediately that they would propose an executive motion to withdraw if assurances of the following concessions could be gained in writing:

• dropping of the £3 fee for late payment of accommodation costs,
• immediate accommodation forms (for the next academic year) for all rent strikers,
• no Finance and General Purpose Committee procedures to be taken against rent strikers.

At 12:30pm on 5 May, it was assured by word that a written assurance would be given at 9:30am on 6 May. However, by 1pm on the 5th, the SU President, Kasper de Graaf, had been convinced by the Union Secretary, Nita Bowes, that his initial decision was wrong. Instead, a motion to fight the injunction to remove the students from Senate House was passed at a subsequent Union General Meeting.

Aftermath

to be added

Ultimately, the rent strike and occupations were unsuccesful, with rents rising further at the start of the 1975-1976 academic year: to be added

Gallery

to be added