Union leaders negotiating with management  does not appeal to all members
The National Tertiary Education Union leadership is making the case for federal crisis-funding to support members’ jobs. But it is also negotiating concessions on employment conditions with vice chancellors, to protect uni staff from retrenchments.

The first is not enough to save federal leaders from rank and file wrath over the second. There are campus insurgencies, notably at unis Melbourne and Sydney. And there is on-line activism, the National Higher Education Network, newly exists, “to plan and coordinate actions in defence of fully-funded, democratic public higher education.”

It seems the union’s federal executive has the support it needs at state branches and campuses across the country.  But the longer a deal with university leaders takes, the more anguish will emerge over what staff may be asked to sacrifice. Especially if university managements acting independently of the small group of VCs talking to the union, cruel the national negotiations by going hard on their own retrenchments.