On Wednesday, March 16, in the premises of building 1 of Lesya Ukrainka Volyn State University, an unusual meeting took place. At one "round table," figuratively speaking, gathered representatives of the student trade union committee of VSU, the university administration, and youth public organizations. On the side of the trade union committee were the head of the trade union committee Fed O.A. and trade union committee members from all faculties of the university; from the university leadership, the vice-rector of VSU Volodymyr Kindratovych Baran was present; from public organizations – Ihor Huz (deputy of the Lutsk City Council), Mykhailo Shelep (Association of Young Reformers), Olena Khalimon (Ukrainian People's Youth), Oksana Prokopchuk (Youth Nationalist Congress), Ihor Kulyk (National Alliance) and others. The key topic in the discussion of the above-mentioned parties was the situation surrounding the student trade union committee of VSU. Thanks to the interest of public organizations, it became known that in many respects the activity of the university's trade union was of an opaque nature and was carried out in violation of a number of normative acts that are mandatory for this structure to fulfill. In particular, questions arise as to on what basis all students of the state full-time form of education were enrolled in the student trade union of VSU, if this requires a personally written application by the student? As it turned out, there were no such applications (and I, as a student, can confirm this myself). Then the next question arises – on what basis were membership fees collected from state-funded students into the trade union fund (1% of the scholarship)? Questions also arise regarding the legitimacy of the governing bodies and the trade union itself. The position of the current, for now, head of the VSU trade union committee Fed O.A., who has headed this structure for over 15 years (!!!) and did not pay attention to such contradictions in the organization's activities, is unclear. So, as can be seen from the incomplete list of raised issues, the tangle of problems is quite large, and in order to get out of this situation, a balanced decision needed to be made. After all, to terminate with one stroke of the pen the activity of an organization which by its nature should be a defender of students, and which, despite everything, has done a lot of positive things for ordinary students, would be wrong and unwise. The discussion was quite heated, since the positions of the parties on this situation were radically different. However, a certain compromise was nevertheless reached. By its decision, the trade union committee decided: - to cancel the elections of the head of the student trade union committee of VSU that were to take place on March 22 and postpone them to a later date; - to conduct explanatory work at all faculties regarding what a trade union is and how it is useful for students, while at the same time conducting a full re-registration of trade union members; - in the month of April, to hold repeat elections of the heads of trade union bureaus at all faculties (while not allowing interference by teachers and faculty leadership in this process) and delegates to the meeting of the student trade union committee of VSU, where a new head of the trade union committee will be elected. Vice-rector Baran V.K., as well as representatives of public organizations, spoke in support of these decisions. One of the issues on which no compromise was found was the immediate resignation of the head of the trade union committee Fed O.A. A number of organizations, namely "National Alliance," "Pora," "Chysta Ukraina" demanded that Fed O.A. immediately relinquish his powers. Otherwise, they promised to resort to protest actions. Representatives of the trade union committee expressed a different opinion – until new legitimate meetings are held, to keep O.A. Fed in this position, because only at a trade union committee meeting can the head of the student trade union be changed. A number of other public organizations, in particular AMoRe, UNM, MNK, "Druidy" and others, spoke in favor of changing the head of the trade union committee but by a legitimate path. Ihor Huz also stated that in contrast to the "traditional" student trade union, a new one could possibly be created – an independent student trade union that will work in a new way in the sphere of protecting students' rights.
Thus began the process of cleansing the student trade union of recurrences of yesterday's regime, which is a logical continuation of the principle of changing systems declared during the "orange revolution." How successful and high-quality this process will be now depends on the students themselves. Because changes in society begin with the change of each individual person. Otherwise, the revolution will remain on the squares without ever entering the offices of various kinds of institutions.