Question is how managements respond
Uni Sydney members of the National Tertiary Education Union will strike May 11-12, “as the opening move of an escalating industrial campaign.” They will go out again if “sufficient progress” in enterprise bargaining with management is not made.
The union nominates issues including jobs security, maintaining the existing 40 per cent of time for research by continuing academics, work from home rights for professional staff and converting casual jobs to continuing ones (CMM April 14).
Management is said to be wedded to more teaching-focused academic positions (CMM October 22 2021, November 15 2021) which will make for interesting bargaining if the union is opposed – when it digs in stays dug, The NTEU bargaining team for the last enterprise agreement drove then vice chancellor Michael Spence to what looked like distraction. At one stage, he tried to go round the comrades by polling staff on what they thought of management’s offer, with a view to putting it to a formal vote without union support (CMM September 5 2017). The answer was not much (61 per cent of people voting did not like the idea of a management only offer) so bargaining with unions continued (CMM September 7 2017).
Even when the union’s national leadership intervened and terms were agreed, activists kicked up and wanted to fight-on (CMM September 22 2017)
What happens next is up to management. Vice Chancellor Mark Scott likes to keep things calm, as ABC MD he managed to make changes without an all-in brawl with the union.
What other universities will watch is what Uni Sydney does about casual conversion and especially moving academic staff to teaching-service only roles. As bargaining at Uni Sydney goes so will negotiations elsewhere.
Western Sydney U staff prepare to go out
Across town at Uni Western Sydney an equally enormous proportion of NTEU members turning out (96 per cent) have also voted for a range of industrial actions. Issues there are workloads, a pay rise and job security.
The state of casual staff there is an issue that management recognises. “We do need, both at an institutional level and where possible across the sector, to develop new approaches to reduce high levels of casualisation,” Vice Chancellor Barney Glover said last year, (CMM October 1 2021).