#nteu

"Solidarity is the Best Medicine"

"Solidarity is the best medicine"

Union officials in Australia’s tertiary education union (NTEU) responded to falling revenue in the higher education sector by offering up savings for management in the form of deep cuts to members’ wages and conditions. Officials hoped to buy themselves a seat at the table with management. They started these concessionary negotiations in March, but it wasn’t until 17 April that members found out that pay cuts were on the agenda, via the Guardian newspaper.

On 13 May, details of the so-called Jobs Protection Framework were released to members: pay cuts of up to 15 percent at universities most affected by coronavirus-induced revenue reductions (so-called Category B institutions). Category A universities could implement cuts of up to 10 percent to wages. Union officials estimated that 90 percent of universities would fall into one or other category.

A rank-and-file rebellion led by activists from NTEU Fightback led branch after branch of the union to vote to reject the deal.

Hundreds of union members have been mobilised to argue with their fellow workers about opposing the officials’ sell-out, to attend “vote no” organising meetings and to demand the right to speak against the framework at branch meetings. The vote no campaign put its case to over 5000 people across the country, in branch meetings, workplace meetings and campaign meetings. Outside of strike action, it is the most active the union’s membership has ever been.

Many socialist activists in the NTEU have thrown themselves into this struggle. The NTEU Fightback campaign has its origins in the action of Sydney University professional staff member, Alma Torlakovic, a member of Socialist Alternative, who with the backing of other left wing union activists moved the initial motion condemning the NTEU officials’ approach. Building on this, Alma has organised dozens of staff meetings across different faculties to build support for a no vote. Socialist Alternative members across the country have attempted to replicate these initiatives to the degree possible on their campuses, and where we do not have a presence have backed the efforts of others to do so. Without such rank and file mobilisation, the officials would not have been defeated. More than that, this mobilisation has laid the groundwork for resistance to the attacks from VCs that are already coming.

Hundreds of National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members from across the country have mobilised over recent weeks against the so-called National Job Protections Framework that the union’s national executive is promoting.

The Framework would allow university bosses to impose pay cuts of up to 15 percent on employees. Negotiations for the deal were conducted in secret, and the national executive has pulled out every trick to manufacture consent for the deal among the union membership. Many NTEU members have been shocked that their union’s leadership is supporting this historic attack on workers’ pay and conditions. But union members at the University of New England (UNE) have very recent experience of the national executive pushing through a deal with management, contradicting union members’ interests and their express wishes.

NTEU Fightback campaigner and RMIT NTEU branch committee member Alex McAulay spoke to Tim Battin of the UNE NTEU branch committee about the national executive’s recent intervention into enterprise bargaining at UNE.

The government, university bosses and national officials of the National Tertiary Education Union are combining to attack uni workers’ pay and conditions.

Australian universities’ revenues are falling as international student enrolments decline in the COVID-19 crisis. After decades in which the sector was reshaped to depend on international student enrolments for profits, university managers are forecasting losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. They’re crying poor and pushing harsh cutbacks.

The University of New South Wales is one of the richest universities in Australia. But it claims to be facing a budget shortfall of $600 million this year. Other universities such as Victoria University say that they are at risk of folding.

University managers everywhere are taking advantage of the situation to cut budgets hard. They’re stopping or pausing recruitment, ending contracts that would have otherwise been extended, sacking thousands of casual staff or significantly reducing the number of hours previously promised to casuals.

All this when workloads have increased in the rush to shift courses online.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman says Trump’s sweeping executive order appears to punish unions that challenged his policies. The fallout could reshape labor rights for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

👉 Read the full story at NewsLink7.com