The campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union owned cyberspace and got runs on TV news for coverage of its Wednesday-Thursday industrial action

Management announced it “fully supported” staff rights to strike and protest, which is true, Uni Sydney did not oppose the union’s application for a member vote on protected industrial action back in March, which all but unanimously backed industrial action.

But beyond that comment was of the more-in-sorrow-than-anger kind. The university stated enterprise bargaining is underway and some matters “haven’t been raised for full discussion yet.”

As to how many staff went out and how many classes did not happen, student newspaper Honi Soit reported the Camperdown campus was “a ghost town” Wednesday. However the university told CMM that only union members were eligible to strike and “we believe most staff worked a normal day and that most classes went ahead as usual.”

Of course, that could have been normal as in Covid normal. “Many colleagues advised us that they were planning to work from home and hold their classes online to minimise disruption for themselves and their students.”

Regardless of who was where doing what, or not – the NTEU made its point, and made it clear that it can make it again.