Perhaps industrial action could start on the lecture-theatre floor

There are university activists at campuses across the country who are unhappy with the way National Tertiary Education Union leaders have responded to job losses managements attribute to COVID-19.  Some call for direct industrial action.

Problem is the union is governed by the Fair Work industrial system, which discourages industrial action as a routine tactic. But activists suggest a grass-roots national university strike is possible.

“With careful preparation over time, we think we can overcome the constraints of existing industrial relations legislation and make strike action possible again outside the limits of enterprise agreement negotiations,” Uni Sydney academic Nick Riemer says (CMM August 24).

IR experts suggest university staff acting independent of the NTEU organisation could decline extra work, arguing managements were breaching, for example, health and safety conditions in enterprise agreements.

People in the  NTEU Fightback Group is looking to labour history for ways to organise from the lecture-theatre floor – in particular to a rank and file campaign by federal public servants in the late 1980s.

There are said to be half a dozen or so universities where a core of activists could be up for such a strategy.