“This vote is a call for university managements and our government to think seriously about our sector.”

The NTEU is campaigning on many of the same issues as at the University of Sydney: academic workloads, casualisation and pay. They want management to maintain the 40/40/20 model of academic workloads and create 150 extra permanent positions for current casual staff by 2024.

Management at Deakin University are pushing ahead with a non-union deal following five months of enterprise bargaining.

The alleged wage theft affected casual academics.

The latest cuts come on top of almost 400 job losses at Deakin last year.