After saying he resigned for personal reasons, Josh Smythe has now alleged that OUSA President Jack Manning gave him an ultimatum in a private meeting.
According to Josh, he wanted to stay on as the Clubs and Societies Representative, but was told: “The only option is if you take a six week pay cut.” Jack denies that. The only other person in the room, association secretary Donna Jones, also denies that a pay cut was discussed.
“[N]o discussion or mention of a six week pay cut was ever had,” President Jack and Administrative Vice President Georgia Mischefski-Gray’s statement said. “Josh and Jack had a discussion about his second quarter report and in this meeting, Josh decided to resign.”
When given their response, Josh said: “Well, that’s a blatant lie.”
“He told me [about the pay cut] to my face. We talked about it, we had a good five minute discussion … the fact that they're suddenly denying it makes me wonder if they realised they didn’t have the grounds to do it.”
“The thing is I could have fought them on [the six week pay cut], I could have taken them all to SGM, but I thought that with all the disruption we’ve had and the good work they are doing, I don’t want to disrupt that,” Josh said. Taking an Execie to an SGM (Special General Meeting) means trying to get them removed from their positions through a student vote, but Josh did not specify whether that is what he meant.
Josh named Donna Jones as the only other person in the room when this was said. Donna said that “Jack didn’t mention [a pay cut] in the meeting we had with Josh on the day he resigned”.
“Maybe they just want to be rid of me, can't think of any other reason why she would say so”, Josh said when told of Donna's comment.
“I guess it's [Jack’s] word against mine.”
Any possible pay cut would have been in reference to Josh’s lacklustre second quarterly report. Josh did not work his required ten hours a week over lockdown. “I probably got twenty hours over the whole eight weeks,” he said. “So I messaged Jack and the Exec and I said you know when I come back, I’ll put in double hours for eight weeks… and they seemed to be okay with that.”
In his second quarterly report and to Critic, Josh claimed that he had fewer opportunities to operate online over lockdown compared to his other Execies. That claim was rejected by his peers. Jack and Georgia said that “all recreation and clubs/societies went online” and were not only “still fully operational” but “had work to be done in this space”.
“We also had a significant amount of general [e]xecutive work and an [e]xecutive campaign which everyone could work on and contribute to,” their statement continued. “Therefore it is unfair to claim some roles had more work available than others.”
“Every week I’d message [members of the Exec as well as Clubs and Socs staff] and say please give me something, is there anything I can work with you on,” Josh said. Staff at the OUSA Clubs and Societies building, including the Recreation Manager, Clubs Development Officer, and Recreation Programme Coordinator, “take a lot of my role away from me,” he said. “I’ve had all of these ideas that no one knows is me … because I’m not allowed to do it,” he said. He said that over lockdown, these staff members also needed to make up their hours, leaving him with little to do.