Industrial turmoil on Australian campuses

Australia’s academic union has launched a “week of action”, as staff rebuff the latest university attempt to bargain directly with employees.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) says members across the country will participate in industrial action ranging from full-day strikes to May Day rallies and a “solidarity barbecue”. The campaign will peak on 3 May when staff from all Victorian universities converge on Trades Hall in Melbourne.

They include workers from Australia’s largest educator of domestic university students, Deakin, where 62 per cent of voting staff last week rejected an enterprise agreement proposed by management.

The result followed snubs at Griffith, Newcastle and Curtin universities, where administrators had likewise tried to break negotiation deadlocks by ordering staff votes on proposals opposed by their respective union branches.

Deakin vice-chancellor Iain Martin said his university would “take the necessary time to consider the result and our next steps”. Meanwhile the previous 2017 enterprise agreement remains in force, with staff receiving no pay increment or additional leave.

The NTEU, which had decried the “sub-par” Deakin proposal as particularly weak on pay, said other institutions had boosted their salary offers after losing staff ballots. Deakin employees were due to meet on May Day to consider their next move.

Staff at the University of Newcastle are pressing on with industrial action, planning a month of rolling stoppages despite an improved pay proposal from management.

Colleagues at UNSW Sydney plan to stop work for an hour a day throughout the week, maintaining a pattern of interruptions that has been under way since mid-April. A full-day walkout is planned on 3 May at Monash University, while staff at Federation University plan consecutive all-day strikes at three of its Victorian campuses.

A vote by La Trobe University employees last week secured them the right to take industrial action, with similar ballots now under way at Macquarie and Wollongong universities.

The union is seeking better protections against job insecurity and escalating workloads. It wants universities to put in place Indigenous employment targets, work-from-home rights, improved leave provisions and “fair” pay rises.

University administrators say they are balancing salary increases with a need to keep spending in check, as many institutions strive to recover from operating deficits in 2022. Vice-chancellors and unionists alike have expressed frustration at the slow pace of enterprise negotiations.  

However, staff at the University of Sydney – scene of what is claimed as the longest industrial campaign in Australian higher education history, with nine days lost to strikes over the past two years – voted against a proposal for another three days off work.

They have conditionally accepted a management proposal featuring sick pay for sessional staff, the creation of 330 permanent academic positions, a promised 20 per cent cut in the proportion of casual staff and cumulative pay rises totalling over 17 per cent by mid-2026.

The NTEU has also hailed a “decasualisation clause” in a new enterprise agreement at the University of Technology Sydney, which is awaiting final endorsement from the Fair Work Commission.

Flinders University and the NTEU have reached in-principle agreement on a proposal including salary increases of over 13 per cent, conversion of casual staff to continuing positions, more generous parental leave and better casual pay rates for marking, among other provisions. It is expected to go to a staff vote within weeks.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com