Announcement of Changes to the AStA Structure

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Dear UdK Students,

Starting October 1st 2022, the General Student Comittee (AStA) will be unable to operate as normal. The AStA is in the process of being audited by the German Pension Insurance and the External Auditors of Wage Taxes (Deutsche Rentenversicherung und Lohnsteuer Außenprüfung), who very probably will expect an immediate payment from the AStA of about a quarter to a third of our total budget. 

The reason for the payment according to the Deutsche Rentenversicherung is that for the past years, the AStA and Student Parliament (StuPa) should have been paying social contributions for their members, and have not been. The StuPa elects AStA members and outlines our tasks, budget, and duties. Together with advice from the UdK, it was decided that AStA's members were not official employees of the StuPa, but volunteers, and therefore would not pay fees as an employer. Because of this, the AStA now has to pay a lot of money in back payments.  The university itself won't give or loan us this money, and the AStA is currently legally not allowed to receive official external funding for this payment.  

This fee is a large portion of the AStA's budget, and the AStA isn't able to continue its daily work without it. The AStA is currently unable to pay out any expenses, including project funding and emergency social funding. All AStA members will not receive monthly payments for an unkown amount of time, creating personal emergencies. 

Besides that, the StuPa no longer has Chairs, and therefore is not able to operate as usual either. According to university law (Berliner Hochschulgesetz), the AStA has to keep the representatives for Communication + eigenart Magazine, Student Political Engagement, Social and Cultural Work, and Finances. There is also still a university-funded representative for Student Employees.

However, some very important AStA representatives will have to work without pay from now on, namely the representatives for Anti-Discrimination, Diversity and Social Justice, and Climate Justice and Sustainability. The AStA will not have a representative for Student Networking and Interdisciplinarity or Digital Ethics and Transformation until further notice.

That means the AStA will suffer on these tasks:

  •  Working towards social justice for all students within UdK structures
  •  Providing consultation and support for students with experiences of discrimination
  •  Guiding the university to fight against the climate crisis
  •  Advising on the much-needed digitalisation of the university and the inclusion of digital ethics in different projects
  •  Fostering interdisciplinary collaborations between departments and supporting the work of the Student Councils (Fachschaftsräte / FSR(K))

We as the current AStA members find losing the support for these important tasks unacceptable and are deeply worried some of these representatives may be cut permanently. We are sorry for the negative consequences this will have for the students we are elected to serve. In any case, the AStA is still here, even in a limited form. Our responses may be slow, but please reach out in case you have any questions or needs.  If anyone is confused or would like more information, the AStA's budgets and audits are public and the AStA can provide them to you. Right now we ask more than ever that our fellow students engage in university structures such as Student Parliament, student initiatves, and the Fachschaftsräte to help support all of us.

If anyone has creative ideas or energy to help the AStA and StuPa find new ways to support ourselves we're really grateful. You can email us (kommunikation@asta-udk-berlin.de) or reach out on Instagram (@asta_udk_berlin).

Best,

Your AStA of the UdK