Staff at universities across Victoria went on strike on Wednesday as part of a National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) headed state-wide day of action to fight against increasing work hours and workload, pervasive job insecurity and the failure of universities to offer pay rises that keep pace with costs-of-living pressures.
This strike action is part of a nationwide campaign by the NTEU, with nine universities in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, the ACT also getting involved this week.
Staff from the University of Melbourne were joined by striking workers from Monash, Deakin, La Trobe and Federation universities as they marched towards Melbourne Trades Hall.
Melbourne, Deakin and La Trobe staff went on strike for four hours, with Monash staff voting for a 24-hour work stop from 11 am on Wednesday. Staff at the University of Melbourne have also voted to continue their campaign from June unless the University improves its offer to staff.
Staff are seeking to improve working conditions, seeking enterprise agreements that provide for continuing employment as the norm with enforceable targets, fair workload and working hours and real pay increase.
The impetus for the strike was outlined by the University of Melbourne’s NTEU Branch President David Gonzalez, who said that the University sent through a revised proposal on Tuesday after a month’s long negotiation for a new agreement that did not come close to meeting union demands.
“There is nothing in there about pay, there’s no target on secure employment, there’s nothing on working from home,” Gonzalez said.
According to the NTEU, in Victoria only three in ten jobs at universities are permanent, with universities heavily relying on casual staff. For example, 52% of the University of Melbourne’s and 55.4% of Monash’s total staff were on casual and fixed-term casual contracts.
NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Sarah Roberts commented on the harms of this pervasive casualisation: “Victorian Universities are operating upon an insecure workforce model with eight universities having a majority of their workforce in casual and fixed-term employment. Ongoing work is regularly insecure, with long serving workers subject to rolling contracts. Job insecurity damages the quality of teaching and research.”
Staff conditions are vital for student welfare, as staff cannot provide the high quality of education that students are paying for without it. NTEU Victorian Assistant Secretary Professor Joo-Chang Tham said of the state of tertiary education across Australia,“Universities are now hot beds of shameful industrial practice and exploitation.”
