Advocate 24 03, Nov 2017

Advocate vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au • ISSN 1329-7295

The Murdoch Decision ɓɓ FWC leaves Murdoch with minimum protections ɓɓ General Secretary addresses uni staff nationally

NTEU backs ACTU campaign to

Change the Rules ɓɓNTEU calls for free education ɓɓJCU in it for the long haul ɓɓStrikes at UTS, WSU and USyd ɓɓMinister should abandon budget cuts ɓɓ2017 NTEU Lecture: Michael Kirby ɓɓBack pay for ANU casuals

ɓɓGo Home On Time Day: 22 Nov ɓɓ Challenging the privatised university ɓɓUniversity staff have their say ɓɓ YES! NTEU supports marriage equality ɓɓWelcome to Country protocols ɓɓSeeking balance in honorary degrees

ɓɓ NTEU National Council 2017 ɓɓStudents before profit ɓɓResearch workloads ɓɓThe future of work ɓɓUni workers targeted in Turkey ɓɓ... and much more.

Contents 2

2017 in Review From the General Secretary

3 Cover image: Still from NTEU’s ‘Change the Rules’ video

All text and images © NTEU 2017 unless otherwise stated.

NTEU National Office, PO Box 1323, Sth Melbourne VIC 3205 1st floor, 120 Clarendon St, Sth Melbourne VIC phone (03) 9254 1910 fax (03) 9254 1915 email national@nteu.org.au Division Offices www.nteu.org.au/divisions Branch Offices www.nteu.org.au/Branches

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NTEU calls for free tertiary education Editorial, Jeannie Rea, National President

UPDATE 4

The Murdoch Decision: National livestreamed address

5

Termination of the Murdoch Agreement

Highlighting inter-generational theft

6

Employee conditions on the line

7

Wed 22 Nov: Go Home On Time Day

8

Bargaining update

9 JCU in it for the long haul 10 Who’s on next?

11 Time called! Minister should abandon budget cuts 11 Michael Kirby to present 2017 NTEU Lecture 12 ANU members endorse new Agreement 13 USyd members vote for improved Agreement 14 WSU Branch takes action for secure jobs and fair workloads

Change the Course report

15 UTS staff strike for job security and respect

Macquarie forum protests rail line closure

SECURE JOBS NEWS 16 Casually employed academics at ANU to receive thousands in back pay A&TSI NEWS Environment ISO 14001

Advocate ISSN 1321-8476 Published by National Tertiary Education Union ABN 38 579 396 344 Publisher Grahame McCulloch Editor Jeannie Rea Production Paul Clifton Editorial Assistance Anastasia Kotaidis Feedback, advertising and other enquiries: advocate@nteu.org.au

17 Without vigilance we will see loss

In accordance with NTEU policy to reduce our impact on the natural environment, Advocate is printed using vegetable based inks with alcohol free printing initiatives on FSC certified paper under ISO 14001 Environmental Certification.

18 A&TSI Forum 2017: Fight for Our Rights – Stand Up For Our Claim

Advocate is available online as a PDF at nteu.org.au/advocate and an e-book at www.issuu.com/nteu

22 Work isn’t going away. So let’s make the most of it.

NTEU members may opt for ‘soft delivery’ (email notification of online copy rather than mailed printed version). Details at nteu.org.au/ soft_delivery

24 A fair go for fair use

26 It’s time to challenge the privatised university in profound ways The sustained brutalisation of the higher education sector by a privatisation agenda has come to shape the lives of staff and students in deep and visceral ways.

28 Uni staff have their say We received more than 13,500 responses to the second NTEU State of the Uni survey.

30 YES! NTEU supports marriage equality The marriage equality law survey has been an intensely personal time for many. We knew it would be.

32 Seeking balance in honorary degrees Universities have a long way to go to achieve parity in the honorary degree process for women and A&TSI peoples.

33 Activism and the academy The latest Australian Universities’ Review is a special issue covering Activism in the Academy.

34 Research workloads The effective full-time student load for an hour-long lecture is the same as six hour-long tutorials. How absurd!

36 Exposing scientists to bureaucrats Report from STA’s Science Meets Policymakers event in August.

INTERNATIONAL 37 Turkey: Uni workers targeted Over 23,000 academics have lost their jobs since September 2016.

38 Students before profit International campaign against commercialisation of education focuses on Nepal.

COLUMNS 40 Twitter for Refugees

News from the Net, by Pat Wright

41 Tam U embraces the Trump era Lowering the Boom, by Ian Lowe

42 The Curse of Flexibility

Thesis Whisperer, Inger Mewburn

43 Critic, conscience & community Letter from NZ, Sandra Grey, TEU

MY UNION 44 2017 National Council 47 Life members 50 Asserting the public benefit of universities 51 Supporting trans and non-binary members 52 How to campaign 53 Clare McCarty NTEU Women in Leadership Mentoring Program 54 2017 NSW Delegates’ Conference 55 New resources for Delegates

Delegate spotlight: The juggling act of a casual academic

56 University staff getting with the strength

Member notice

57 Joan Hardy Scholarship

Carolyn Allport Scholarship

59 New NTEU staff

19 Welcome to Country protocols

How Secure Do You Feel?

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FEATURES 20 Time to change the rules ACTU Secretary Sally McManus outlines the key themes of the Change the Rules campaign.

The world of work is under incredible pressure.

Jobs are harder to find and keep and less secure.

The Government says it will accept and implement the ALRC final recommendations regarding a fair use exception in Australia.

25 Mainstreaming Open Education Resources NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 1

From the General Secretary Grahame McCulloch, General Secretary

2017 in Review The Union’s 2017 industrial, professional and policy work has taken place in an extremely tough political environment.

Political overview We faced the full impact of the worst aspects of the Fair Work Act with Murdoch University following the path of the mining sector and other aggressive employers in successfully seeking to terminate the 2012 Murdoch EBA while negotiations for a replacement Agreement were taking place.

As new ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus, has eloquently stated the Murdoch termination (and a rash of others) underlines that the rules of the Fair Work Act are broken and must be changed. In the absence of such changes NTEU confronts a long-term mortal danger of a magnitude as great as that posed by the 2005 Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs). It will not be a mere matter of changing the Government and cannot be achieved by a relatively passive and exclusively parliamentary approach. Changing the rules will require a major public and industrial campaign by the whole trade union movement – only our organised workplace power can guarantee that a future Labor Government will legislate to ensure that the current power imbalance between employers and unions is reset.

There are reasons for cautious optimism about our ability to transform the existing industrial landscape. The Turnbull Government is struggling to maintain support in the face of a big shift in public sentiment about the role of markets, deregulation, and the state in the ordering of our economic and social priorities. After nearly 30 years of uninterrupted free market economic policy, public attention is now focussed on the serious social consequences of these policies. Stagnant wage incomes, exploding house prices, the

removal of job security and entitlement protections and the rise of an enormous reserve army of casually employed young people have seen comprehensive rejection of the policies of the established political parties both here and overseas.

The public is looking for new solutions in the face of widening generational inequity and chronic job and income insecurity.

These global and economy-wide trends are reflected in the Australian higher education sector where students now face amongst the highest fees in the OECD, very high levels of HECS/HELP debt, the necessity to take low paid labour intensive casual work to support their studies and the prospect of graduating into a labour market which will not provide the income and job security traditionally associated with graduate level employment. Inside the sector workloads continue to intensify, job security is undermined and casual teaching continues to be the norm in many undergraduate areas of study. These problems are not only affecting the political attitude of today’s students and young people, but also are causing parents and older Australians to question whether today’s young generation can maintain the standard of living of recent generations.

Student debt and excessive tuition fees are big political issues in most rich western countries – a concern which is reflected across electorates as a whole, and not just amongst university workers and students.

A very encouraging sign is the collapse of the Abbott/Pyne plan for a 20% cut to university funding and the deregulation of fees, and the Parliamentary rejection of new Minister Simon Birmingham’s proposed 2.5% efficiency dividend.

Round 7 Enterprise Bargaining has proved to be exceptionally tough given the broken legal industrial framework and tightened funding position within which the bargaining is taking place. In most (but very importantly not all) cases university employers

have adopted a very hard line. Using the mantra of the necessity for “simplified, contemporary and streamlined” Enterprise Agreements, employers have been pushing for the removal of job security protections for staff facing redundancy or charges of misconduct/unsatisfactory performance, for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment targets, for increased professional staff spans of hours, for no limitations on the use of casual employment and a substantial dilution on limits on the use of fixed term employment and for very low wage increases.

This highly aggressive approach found its ultimate representation at Murdoch University where management successfully terminated the current EBA. Murdoch’s approach emerged from a wider alliance between AHEIA and the four public WA universities which declared their intention to break the Union’s industry and enterprise pattern. Management at James Cook University also took a leaf from this hard line management book. For a big part of late 2016 and 2017 these five universities maintained a winner takes all no compromise position on all key issues.

However, in the last three months or so, we have seen this hard line alliance begin to fragment. At the time of writing, the Union had secured a new Collective Agreement at the University of Western Australia, and had reached in principle agreement at Curtin and ECU. The reputational damage, staff hostility and financial and political costs associated with Agreement termination at Murdoch have given the other WA universities pause for thought. Moreover, the Union has secured a comprehensive and reasonably high quality Agreement at Deakin, Adelaide, Sydney, ANU and CQU. These outcomes demonstrate that the Union can and will defeat regressive employer agendas despite the broken rules.

Grahame McCulloch, General Secretary

NATIONAL EXECUTIVE

NATIONAL OFFICE STAFF

Education & Training Officers Ken McAlpine,Helena Spyrou

National President Jeannie Rea Vice-President (Academic) Andrew Bonnell Vice-President (General Staff) Jane Battersby

Industrial Unit Coordinator Sarah Roberts Senior Industrial Officer Linda Gale National Industrial Officers Wayne Cupido

Susan Kenna, Campbell Smith

ICT Network Engineer Database Programmer/Data Analyst

General Secretary Grahame McCulloch National Assistant Secretary Matthew McGowan Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander (A&TSI) Policy Committee Chair Terry Mason National Executive: Rachael Bahl, Stuart Bunt, Damien Cahill, Sarah Kaine, Gabe Gooding, Andrea Lamont-Mills, Colin Long, Virginia Mansel Lees, Michael McNally, Kelvin Michael, Catherine Rojas, Melissa Slee, Ron Slee, Michael Thomson, Nick Warner, Lolita Wikander

Executive Manager

Peter Summers Tam Vuong Uffan Saeed

Payroll Officer Jo Riley Policy & Research Coordinator Paul Kniest Executive Officer (Gen Sec & President) Anastasia Kotaidis Policy & Research Officers Jen Tsen Kwok,Terri MacDonald Executive Officer (Meeting & Events) Tracey Coster National A&TSI Coordinator Adam Frogley Admin Officer (Membership & Campaigns) Julie Ann Veal National A&TSI Organiser Celeste Liddle Administrative Officer (Resources) Renee Veal Leanne Foote National Organiser Michael Evans Receptionist & Administrative Support National Publications Coordinator Paul Clifton Finance Manager Glenn Osmand Media & Communications Officer Andrew MacDonald Senior Finance Officer Gracia Ho National Membership Officer Melinda Valsorda Finance Officers Alex Ghvaladze, Tamara Labadze, National Growth Organiser Rifai Abdul Lee Powell, Daphne Zhang

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Editorial Jeannie Rea, National President

NTEU calls for free tertiary education Not only are the industrial rules broken, but so is the higher education debate according to the NTEU National Council Meeting held in early October. (see report p. 44).

Probably the most significant motion carried at the meeting was for free tertiary education. Council committed the Union to focus “our public advocacy and campaigning on not only increasing public investment in public VET and higher education, but also for the eventual abolition of tuition fees at public institutions.”

NTEU has always had a free education policy consistent with Education International (EI) policy that all public education should be tuition fee free. This motion, however, positions the NTEU to advocate for a very real change in government policy. A change that challenges the reliance upon student tuition fees as the major component of university funding; from the contributions of Commonwealth Supported Place holders, to the deregulated fees in most coursework postgraduate programs to the income from the massive international student ‘market’.

Since Labor Education Minister John Dawkins reintroduced domestic fees with HECS in 1989, arguing that students should make a contribution to the cost of their education and can defer payment through the income contingent loan scheme, the NTEU along with the student organisations and the universities, have been captured in the arcane ‘public versus private benefit’ debate.

Public versus private benefit The ‘public versus private benefit’ case is mired in contradictory logic just like the ongoing policy arguments about HECS: whether students pay the same, or more if the course costs more to deliver, or more if they can expect higher future earnings, or less if more students are needed in particular courses, or less if the student could afford to pay upfront and get a discount…

When the Abbott Government sought to fully deregulate fees in 2014, the “public versus private benefit” debate was dropped in favour of the pure free market argument that the price students could afford to pay somehow reflects the value they place on education. The loans scheme was expected to finance this

free market, but not surprisingly concern soon focussed upon rapidly growing and increasingly unmanageable HECS debt.

Neoliberal ideologues over the past decades have framed all public discourse, and while in education we were stuck arguing within the constraints of ‘public versus private benefit’, the concept of ‘user pays’ was poisoning public debate over privatisation of public institutions and services from energy to hospitals to public transport.

The proportion of GDP invested in higher education kept dropping, and now we are at the second lowest level in the OECD after Japan and way below even the US. The neo-liberal slavish devotion to the market is finally losing credibility, even amongst some free marketeers, but even in the last federal budget, the Education Minister Simon Birmingham came up with the proposal to increase the HECS student contribution from 42 to 46 per cent. The logic? Apart from some blithe comments about ‘fairness’ when students pay about half, it was really about cutting public spending to fit into the ‘funding envelope’, making budget ‘savings’ and coming up with something the crossbench Senators might stomach. Having failed yet again, we await to see what the Government tries next (see p. 11).

The ‘funding envelope’ The funding envelope is a government-imposed constraint which we are presented with when arguing for public funding for all levels of public education. The elusive envelope is what Ministers for Education are allocated, whether Labor of Coalition, they are encouraged by their Prime Minister and the mandarins of Treasury and Finance to live within their means and find savings. The problem for higher education is that the envelope has been shrinking.

We need to stop this. Funding education is a matter of political will. It is a choice for governments. This is not simplistic.

Governments can and do make choices on expenditure and income. If corporates paid their fair share of taxes, there would be more money. If governments choose to stop giving tax cuts and handouts to companies and the wealthy, they would find enough money for education – and health and the NDIS...

EI has developed a practical roadmap on financing education to demonstrate that the United Nations Sustainable Develop-

ment Goal 4 Quality Education is highly feasible. SDG4 commits signatory nations to free primary and secondary and affordable tertiary education for all by 2030 (see p. 38).

The winds of change With the Labour Party forming government in New Zealand and committed to abolishing fees for the first three years of a degree, free tuition is on the agenda in our region. Free education was a popular Labour Party policy in the last UK election and on the platform of the Saunders campaign for the Democratic nomination in the US. As noted in the last edition of Advocate, “Ninth in Eurovision first in fees,” free tuition at public institutions is the norm across much of Europe. From the Nordic countries through Germany, Belgium, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, Austria, Italy, France, Greece, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Czechia, Slovakia, Estonia, Turkey and the list goes on. Not only are public universities fee free or nominal cost for locals, but this extends to other European and often international students. In Argentina fees have been abolished and in Korea fee reduced due to concerted public campaigns.

As NUS campaigned on their ‘Make education free again’ platform this year, opinion polls consistently backed free tertiary education. Opponents that claimed this is ‘middle class’ welfare as workers are paying for middle class kids to go to university. A specious argument in the first place.

Today it has no credibility as Australians are pursuing higher education in record numbers (see latest census results) as more jobs need degrees, and, importantly, as people aspire to university education for themselves, their children and their grandchildren.

The naysayers argue that when the Whitlam Labor Government abolished all tuition fees from 1975, working class students did not flood into universities. Considering how few even finished high school this was not surprising. Also the accompanying student grant system did not (and still does not) provide adequate income support to facilitate access and equity.

The financing of higher education is a core issue, and it is about time we changed the terms of this debate.

Jeannie Rea, National President jrea@nteu.org.au

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 3

Update The Murdoch Decision

National livestreamed address On 26 September 2017, NTEU convened simultaneous national meetings to brief university staff on the grave implications of the Murdoch Decision. Held on the day the Agreement termination came in to effect, a live-streamed address from NTEU General Secretary Grahame McCulloch in Perth, was beamed in to meetings at university campuses around the country.

It was an unprecedented response to an unprecedented attack on university staff – equal parts expression of solidarity with Murdoch staff, appeal to all university employees and warning to managements.

The General Secretary’s key themes canvassed during the address were: our industrial relations system, implications of Murdoch management’s successful termination application, the transformation of the university sector, the funding-constrained operating environment, and what staff can do to protect employment conditions and defend our university system.

Elaborating on the ramifications of the Agreement termination, the General Secretary acknowledged Murdoch University had given undertakings to preserve some provisions from the terminated Agreement. He went on to pose questions for consideration regarding the “core implication of the Murdoch termination”.

“It is true Murdoch has given certain undertakings for six months. For example, to preserve salary rates for six months or to preserve the superannuation contribution for six months, but note two things. Firstly, these kinds of undertakings are only for six months and they are not strictly legally enforceable. And if you’re at Murdoch or if you’re at any other university, I invite you to think on a simple question. Would you really trust

your management to maintain all of the existing standards at its discretion?

Would you really trust your management to maintain high employment standards when they’re not legally enforceable?”

The General Secretary went on to describe a university system which ‘has changed beyond recognition’ in the last 10 years, with senior management groups now seeing themselves as chief executive officers of global multinational corporations, instead of scholarly leaders with administrative and planning obligations.

“So we are facing, not just an industrial relations system that is loaded against university staff, their union and NTEU members, but also now a funding and management system that degrades the purpose of universities and degrades the standing of the workers who are employed in them,” said McCulloch.

Pointing to eight Agreements reached with other universities by the time of the address, he outlined further steps to protect conditions of employment and defend our university system.

“So the first thing we can do is to make Agreements in every other university in Australia so that Murdoch is isolated as the rogue employer that it is.

“In doing so we will repudiate the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA), the national employer organisation’s attempt to isolate NTEU, to isolate university staff and NTEU members, and to degrade our standards.

“Secondly, our union welcomes the new ACTU leadership, particularly new ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus’ Change the Rules campaign. We must change the legal framework within which we work in order to protect our standards.

page 4 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

“Thirdly, our union is not an insular union. We defend first and foremost university staff and the values of the university sector. But our struggle to maintain and improve our standards cannot be separated from the struggles of others, whether they are professional workers, whether they are paraprofessional workers, or as I might describe it, workers from the traditional proletariat; we all confront the same issues.

“So the attacks on the NTEU and our Agreements can’t be separated from the attacks on building workers and their union, or for example, the attacks on penalty rates for low paid workers in the service sector.

“We are as NTEU 30,000 strong across Australia. We have a proud track record of high quality Agreement making. We can and will win a struggle to ensure that those standards continue to apply in all parts of the university system.

United with not only our membership, but also I urge, united with non-union members, we can win this struggle.

“If you’re not a union member, I urge you to join the NTEU and become part of this fight. If you are an NTEU member, I urge you to speak to your non-union colleagues and encourage them to become part of our movement. And if you’re an NTEU member, I urge you to participate not just in our campaign, but in the campaign of the wider movement.

If we stick together, united, we can lift the standards, not just of university staff, but the standards of all workers.”

Andrew MacDonald, National Media & Communications Officer View Grahame McCulloch’s address at: nteu.org.au/changetherules/events

Update The Murdoch Decision

Termination of the Murdoch Agreement On 29 August this year the Fair Work Commission (FWC) handed down its decision to terminate the Murdoch University Enterprise Agreement. Commissioner Williams’ decision took effect on 26 September, leaving Murdoch University staff on the minimum standards in the underlying award as their only enforceable industrial rights.

By way of example, Murdoch staff now only have an enforceable right to be paid award rates, which are up to 40 per cent below the pay rates in the Agreement. Job security protections, including redundancy, misconduct, unsatisfactory performance and managing change have fallen to the minimum standard. The effect of these changes is that the employer is now only required to consult after a managing change decision has been made, not before; and rights to review management decision-making prior to termination of employment have also been lost.

in some cases 12.5 per cent. Academic workload is not set out in the award, nor are flexible working hours. Staff rights to these legally enforceable Agreement conditions have also been lost. But these are only some examples of how legally enforceable industrial standards have been stripped by the Fair Work Commission’s decision.

Murdoch University has made undertakings to maintain certain conditions for six months. However, these undertakings are themselves not enforceable, and end in March 2018. In his national speech to all members, Grahame McCulloch, General Secretary remarked of this: If you’re in Murdoch or if you’re at any other university, I invite you think on a simple question. Would you really trust your management to maintain all of the existing standards at its discretion?

Would you really trust your management to maintain high employment standards when they’re not legally enforceable?

The clear conclusion we can draw from the Murdoch decision is that our industrial rules are broken. The test to be applied in any application to terminate an Agreement strongly favours employers. It is in two parts: first, it must be demonstrated that to terminate the Agreement is not contrary to the public interest; and secondly, that it is ‘appropriate’ in all the circumstances.

This two-part test has been applied consistently by the FWC to grant employer applications to terminate Agreements, since the 2015 Aurizon decision about an Agreement in the Queensland rail freight industry. The test was similarly applied in the Murdoch case – and Murdoch staff are now feeling the consequences.

tactic to add to their arsenal of bargaining weapons. Seen from the employer’s angle, the benefit of a successful termination application is significant. It flips bargaining dynamics on its head by ensuring the Union bargains from a position of weakness, not strength.

However, Union members across the country will be working to make sure this tactic is an unattractive one for employers. We are and will be campaigning hard against such moves, and joining up more and more Union members. With strength of Union membership and opposition to anti-Union tactics like these, we can achieve high quality Agreements – through the simple process of rational and productive negotiation, using collective strength as our leverage.

Most employers understand that to undertake Murdoch-like tactics means damage to their brand and alienation of their biggest asset – their staff. Murdoch will soon understand its pariah status in the higher education industry, and rue the day they applied to terminate their Agreement.

Sarah Roberts, National Industrial Coordinator

On superannuation, Murdoch staff now only have a legally enforceable right to a 9.5 per cent employer contribution and

The Murdoch termination decision sends a clear signal to managements across the country that they now have a further

Highlighting intergenerational theft

A new video pitched to the next generation of university staff examines the concept of intergenerational theft and inequality, picking up on the themes of the ACTU’s Change the Rules campaign.

Council in October. It instills the message that by sticking together, we can change the rules. The best way to start is by getting involved in your union.

The video was launched by ACTU Secretary Sally McManus at NTEU National

Watch the video at www.nteu.org.au/ changetherules or youtube.com/nteu

In times past, Australians dealt themselves a pretty good hand.

Free education and strong unions meant wages grew at decent rates, and jobs were more secure.

Above: NTEU member protesting against Murdoch in Perth. Credit: Marty Braithwaite

Decades of neoliberal policies and ideology, however, have stacked the deck against today’s young people.

Education is more expensive, jobs are less secure, wage growth has stagnated and housing prices have gone through the roof.

Decades of union-busting laws also mean too many employers hold too many cards.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 5

Update The Murdoch Decision

Employee conditions on the line The decision by the Fair Work Commission to terminate the Murdoch Enterprise Agreement on 26 September 2017 is now widely known in the university sector and increasingly in the wider community. While Murdoch has given undertakings to continue to apply various provisions of the Agreement including pay, superannuation, leave, and redundancy pay these undertakings are not legally enforceable and expire on 26 March next year.

The commitment they have given to academic freedom (which is to apply the terminated Agreement provisions) is open ended.

What is telling is the list of conditions for which Murdoch did not give undertakings: • misconduct • unsatisfactory performance • change management • redundancy processes and redeployment • academic workload.

These have been identified by the Union all through bargaining in WA as the ‘Big 5’ – the ones that the employers seemed to want most in terms of making radical

changes to employee conditions. Particularly concerning is the failure to give an undertaking on workloads which leaves academic workloads completely unregulated at Murdoch.

There is always a silver lining (and, for Murdoch, unintended consequences). The decision to terminate and not give undertakings on notice periods means that academic staff who want to leave are now required to give the notice as specified under the National Employment Standards.

So now an academic can leave with four weeks notice instead of six months.

Perhaps disappointingly for Murdoch, the decision made little or no difference to bargaining in WA with UWA having already settled before the end of the hearings, and Curtin and ECU settling good quality Agreements not long after the termination. If they ever saw themselves as leaders of the pack, they are now isolated as the pariah employer both in WA and nationally.

The impact in WA has perhaps been counter-intuitive if you don’t really understand NTEU or our membership, as Murdoch clearly don’t. What we have seen is a level of solidarity and commitment that we have never seen in the past. It says something about our members that at meetings to endorse their own Collective Agreements, members at ECU and Curtin wanted to (and did) spend as much time

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talking about Murdoch and how they could help as they did on their own employment conditions.

Similarly the level of interest and activism within the Murdoch Branch, the commitment to each other and mutual support, and the dedication and courage to stand up to an employer prepared to activate the ‘nuclear option’ against the employment conditions of staff has been exceptional and continues to motivate every day.

Nationally, the Union has hit new membership highs and the level of engagement and understanding that the Rules Are Broken and that we need to #changetherules is a very welcome side-effect of Murdoch’s employer behaviour.

Whatever happens at Murdoch, the legacy of their intention to destroy the Union will be that we have awoken and become bigger, stronger, more active, more determined and unified than ever before. Now, there’s an unintended consequence!

Gabe Gooding, WA Division Secretary

Above: Murdoch members vote to strike in September.

Below: NTEU files FWC actions against Murdoch University alleging breaches of good faith bargaining.

Update Wed 22 November

Go Home On Time Day

Conservative estimates show that in 2017, academic, professional and general staff will have contributed in the order of $2.5 billion to the sector in necessary but unpaid labour. The goodwill of university staff is being exploited to the extent of 38 million hours of unpaid overtime per year.

Philanthropy begins at work

Go Home on Time Day rolls around for another year on Wednesday 22 November, and the NTEU will once again be encouraging university staff to participate.

To understand the enormity of workload issues in our universities both at a micro (personal) and macro (sector-wide) level, and based on a 38 hour work week being the standard full-time job across the Australian economy, the results of the NTEU 2017 State of the Uni Survey (see p.

28) show that:

NTEU is working hard to rein in excessive hours, and to build healthy and fair workplaces.

• Given that about three out of four academic staff said they worked the hours they did in order to perform their duties satisfactorily, they were on average required to work an additional 11 hours (14.6 hours x 75 per cent) per week for which they were not compensated.

Going home on time, and spending quality time with family and friends, should not be limited to a once-a-year special occasion, and the Union will continue fighting for decent work-life balance for our members.

Yet while the annual initiative of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work serves as an accessible way to start conversations about work-life balance and the enormous unpaid contributions staff make to their workplaces, the latest figures continue to paint a concerning picture.

We hear constantly from university managements and government about the need for budget repair and restraint, but the NTEU 2017 State of the Uni Survey shows it is university staff left doing the heavy lifting.

• Given 45 per cent of general/professional staff reported working uncompensated overtime on average, that means across the sector the average contribution was 2.8 hours (6.2 hours x 45 per cent) per week.

Based on the latest Department of Education data there were 59,950 FTE general and professional staff (excluding casuals) employed by Australian universities in 2016, and 44,573 FTE academics.

standard 38 hours in order to satisfy their job requirements. This translates approximately in to over 30 million hours in a year, or 17,000 FTE positions.

Without even taking into account overtime rates of compensation, and assuming an average academic salary of $125,000 per year, this equates to salary savings in the order of $2.2 billion a year (2017 values).

• General staff worked an additional 167,000 hours of uncompensated overtime per week which equates to more than 8 million hours over the whole year. This translates to just over 4,400 FTE positions. Again excluding overtime rates of compensation and assuming an average general/professional staff salary of $75,000 (based on HEW Level 6), this equates to salary savings in the order of $330 million in 2017.

Therefore, while much is made of generous donations to universities from wealthy benefactors, the results of the NTEU survey clearly show that university staff are by far the largest philanthropic contributors to Australia’s public universities. On a conservative estimate staff will in 2017 have contributed something in the order of $2.5 billion to the sector as necessary but unpaid labour.

Andrew MacDonald, National Media & Communications Officer Go Home on Time Day 2017 www.nteu.org.au/gohomeontimeday

Therefore, on a sector-wide basis: • Academic staff worked in excess of 650,000 hours per week more than the

DON’T BE PART OF THE FURNITURE

GO HOME ON TIME NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 7

Update Bargaining update Eight final or in-principle Agreements have now been reached in Round 7 higher education bargaining.

Deakin University The Agreement includes: • 10.8% pay increase plus $1000.

• 17% superannuation for all fixed-term staff.

• A new category of fixed-term employment to absorb casual positions; and provision for casual academic staff to access new teaching scholar positions.

• Streamlining of Job Evaluation procedures.

• Introduction of an Academic Study Leave program for teaching only staff.

University of Western Australia

• Improved paid Partner Leave, and 20 weeks paid leave for Adoption, Surrogacy and Long-Term Foster Care.

Australian National University

• Pay increases from 5.9 to 9.5%.

• Improved conversion process for fixedterm staff.

• 17% superannuation for all fixed term staff.

• Professional Development funding of 2% (non- mandatory training).

• Pay increases of 2% per year plus $3600 (equating to 9.1% at Academic Level C step 1 and 10.66% for Professional Staff at Level 6 Step 1).

• New appeal rights on disciplinary processes.

• Automatic progression from Level A to Level B for staff with a PhD.

• Exercise of intellectual freedom included as a defence against allegations of serious misconduct.

• Reduction in the spread of working hours for groups of Professional Staff.

• Pro-rata payout of long service leave on resignation.

The new Agreement includes:

New Academic and Professional Staff Agreements provide for:

• Increased rates of pay for Psychology tutors.

• Expanded capacity for conversion to continuing employment.

• 6 weeks additional unpaid partner leave.

Central Queensland University The new combined Agreement, incorporating TAFE Teachers for the first time, includes: • 10.4% pay increase, with TAFE Teachers receiving an additional 2.5% on approval.

• 17% superannuation for fixed-term staff.

• 10 days paid Domestic and Family Violence Leave.

Curtin University

The new Agreement provides for:

• 17% superannuation for fixed term staff.

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment target of 74 FTE, a Committee to oversee the implementation of employment targets, and $25,000 commitment to fund a Staff Network.

• Pay increases of between 5.4%–7.9%.

• For casual and contract research staff, improved rights to conversion to more secure employment.

• 17% superannuation for fixed term and part-time staff.

• Application of fair and objective criteria when implementing redundancies.

• A reduction in the teaching cap for teaching intensive staff.

• Improved provisions for managing change and job security.

• Maintenance of all core employment conditions.

• Uncapped Domestic Violence leave.

Edith Cowan University The new Agreement includes: • Pay increases of between 4.9%–10.1%.

• 17% superannuation for fixed term and part-time staff.

• Extension of maternity leave to parental leave.

• Maintenance of all core employment conditions.

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• An extra 6 weeks paid parental leave and for purposes of adoption, foster care, and guardianship; and an extra week’s partner pay.

In-principle Agreements have also been reached at the University of Sydney and the University of Adelaide – watch this space for further details coming soon.

Sarah Roberts, National Industrial Coordinator

Above: NTEU member at UTS. Credit: Nagida Clark

Update JCU in it for the long haul

Thank you for voting no.

Now we need your help.

NTEU members at James Cook University (JCU) Branch have been fighting for a new Agreement since April 2016.

They have defeated a nonunion Agreement and mobilised the Townsville and Cairns communities in their fight.

JCU management, like some other university managements, started bargaining by tabling a full draft Agreement, reflecting a slash and burn approach to existing conditions. When we made management provide us with a tracked-changes version of the existing Agreement there was a sea of red, with virtually no clause left untouched and many, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment and Academic Freedom, removed entirely.

This set the tone for a hard slog. It took almost six months to get to a point where negotiations could actually begin on reasonable resolutions. Then all of a sudden in November last year, management were in a hurry to finalise a new Agreement (in the interests of providing stability for staff, of course) with many rights and entitlements removed and four 1.5 per cent salary increases (a total of 6 per cent for an Agreement that was five years expiry to expiry). They even had a sweetener ready to go – a $1,000 cash payment to continuing and fixed-term staff and $500 for casuals as a sign-on bonus – not a salary increase built into the rates.

Members rallied and we convinced management that we would smash them out of the park if they went to a non-union ballot with their proposed Agreement.

They agreed to pay the cash bonus anyway despite it costing roughly $3,000,000 (ironically roughly the same amount they were hoping to save by no longer providing staff with three days additional leave at Christmas).

There was a lull in negotiations and management were reticent to resume bargaining in earnest in the new year. We were forced to seek Good Faith Bargaining Orders from the Commission to get management to hold more frequent meetings.

We had a Protected Action Ballot in July in which 83 per cent of members participated.

Of these, 89 per cent voted for at least one form of industrial action. The majority of action to date has been short stopwork meetings and bans on things like attend-

Join the union

www.nteu.org.au/join Authorised by Michael McNally, NTEU Qld Division Secretary

ing School/Faculty meetings (which our members love – no more 3D management memos). Members have deliberately avoided affecting students too much to date.

We have had multiple problems with our industrial action. Management have outsourced their industrial relations to law firm Clayton Utz. Using the technicalities of the (Un)Fair Work Act, management’s lawyers have repeatedly challenged our industrial action notices and threatened the Union (and me personally) of organising unprotected industrial action, the consequences of which are severe. The rules are broken!

At the beginning of September, JCU management decided they had had enough of negotiating with the Union and went to a ‘non-union ballot’. Members mounted an excellent Vote No campaign (though some were naturally worried about wearing ‘Vote No’ t-shirts in the middle of the marriage equality campaign).

Management tried every trick in the book including sending cleaners and security guards round to pull down posters showing that JCU were offering a 6.6 per cent salary increase over the same period CQU were offering 10 per cent. Then they started replacing our posters with their own propaganda. Nevertheless, we won the poster wars as members took to putting up two posters for every one removed and subtly editing management’s propaganda so that it was accurate.

Management also held ‘information sessions’ on their proposed Agreement for staff and when they didn’t get enough staff turning up to be brainwashed they made them compulsory and did them unit by unit across the University.

On the day the ballot opened we emailed all staff at the University putting forward the ‘No’ case. One of our members was actually reading the email when it disappeared in front of his eyes. This

totally outraged member went up to the Chancellery to see the VC and happened to catch her walking out of the building.

He asked her whether she knew that staff had just had an email deleted from their inboxes. Her reply was “It’s legal” to which he responded, “But is it ethical or right?”

The VC had no comeback. Pretty gutsy stuff for a casual to do.

We knew management were in trouble when we started receiving reports of casuals being rung and urged to vote. Many of them didn’t even know there was a vote on, because the electronic ballot had gone to their work email address, which many casuals who weren’t working at the time didn’t check. A number of them smelled a rat and rang the Union. It seems likely that management were getting updates on the vote from the balloting agent (it’s completely legal to do this) and were hoping to convince some casuals who might not be across the issues to vote ‘Yes’.

In the end, management’s proposed Agreement was defeated 58 per cent to 42 per cent with a massive turnout of roughly 2000 staff. Now we need to convince all those staff that voted ‘No’, but aren’t yet members, to join the NTEU. Management have struggled to come to grips with losing their ballot. They took a month off to “consider their options’”, and are now finally back at the bargaining table. We are continuing industrial action and turning the focus of our action towards the community, as JCU is a major employer in both Townsville and Cairns.

Our members are prepared for the long haul. Hopefully we will get an Agreement by the end of the year. After all, we’ve only been negotiating for 18 months.

Michael McNally, Qld Division Secretary

Above: JCU Cairns members on the No campaign trail

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 9

Update Who’s on next?

What’s in this year’s Budget and how will it impact next year’s university finances?

As part of the 2017-18 Budget Senator Simon Birmingham, the Minister for Education and Training announced that as part of the Government’s higher education reform package, the funding that universities receive to educate Commonwealth supported places (CSPs) through the Commonwealth Grants Scheme would be subject to 2.5% efficiency dividends in both 2018 and 2019.

An efficiency dividend is just a euphemism for a funding cut that would see universities lose somewhere in order of $1.2billion in total resourcing to educate CSP holders over the next four years.

At this stage, following the Nick Xenophon Team’s declaration it would not support the current package (see opposite page), the Government does not appear to have the numbers to get its reforms passed the Senate. You might naively assume that failing to have the implementing legislation passed by Parliament would render these policies null and void. However, we know from recent experience this is not necessarily the case.

There are (at least) three possibilities in relation to higher education funding between now and the end of 2017.

One, the Senate passes the cuts. The cuts are then fully implemented.

Two, the Senate rejects legislation which includes the cuts. While the cuts will then be formally off the table, the Minister always has the option of introducing a new Bill to achieve similar outcomes.

Three, knowing that they are unable to garner sufficient support for the funding cuts amongst crossbench Senators, the Government might choose, not to put its legislation to a vote. It could simply leave the legislation on the Notice Paper.

Trying to explain, how the third scenario is likely to impact on university funding in 2018 and beyond, is somewhat akin to Bud Abbott trying to explain who’s on first to Lou Costello*. That conversation might go something like: Lou: I understand that the Budget includes significant cuts to university funding.

Bud: Yes. Lou: But these cuts haven’t been passed

by Parliament, have they?

Bud: That’s right.

Lou: So the cuts are not law yet?

Bud: Correct again.

Lou: But someone said the Government could still withhold the funding, is that right?

Bud: Absolutely.

Lou: So the Government could still withhold university funding even though the law has not been changed.

Bud: Yes, if that’s Government policy.

Lou: But what if the policy isn’t passed and made law by the Parliament?

Bud: Then, of course, the universities will receive the back payments in future years as an adjustment for earlier underpayments.

Lou: If I’m correct, according to accrual accounting principles, those adjustments shouldn’t count as income in the year they were received but backdated to the earlier years in which they were earned?

Bud: That sounds right to me.

Lou: So if the Government doesn’t get its policy through Parliament, according to accounting/financial logic, the only way a university should be able to spend the back payment money is if they invested in a time machine, went back to the period the money was earnt (but withheld) and spend it then.

Bud: And you see a problem with that?

Lou: So what’s the impact on university funding?

Bud: The joys of time travel!

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While this seems like an absurd scenario, we have a very recent precedent which proves this to be a very real possibility. In 2013 the ALP announced $900m worth of efficiency dividends to universities which were justified on the basis the savings were needed to fund Gonski.

After winning the election, the Coalition adopted the ALP’s ‘dumb cuts’ policy and introduced the legislation into the Senate. The Bill was never actually put to a vote in the Senate after the ALP withdrew its support. However, because the policy remained on the books (specifically the Senate Notice Paper), the Department of Education withheld the value of efficiency dividends from university grants and the savings continued to be counted in the Government budget bottom line. The money did not start flowing to universities until the policy was formally removed from the Notice Paper after Parliament was prorogued prior to the 2016 election.

While we remain hopeful that the Senate will not support the Government’s cuts to university funding, there is a very real prospect that the Government will leave the policy on the books and not proceed to a vote in the Senate. It might choose this for two reasons. Firstly, this strategy would allow it to continue to claim the savings from these unlegislated measures in Budget forecasts.

Secondly, it might be seen as a way of punishing the higher education sector for being opposed to its policies.

The Government needs to put its policy to the vote. We cannot afford another period of policy uncertainty and funding instability. The sector should not be held to ransom because the Government has a wish list that has little or no prospect of ever becoming law.

Paul Kniest, Policy & Research Coordinator *’Who’s on First’ is a comedy routine made famous by US comedians Abbott and Costello (Bud and Lou, not Tony and Peter) in the 1930s.

Update Time called!

Universities have counted in the cuts in making their budgets, and it would be irresponsible not to do so. However, what this has meant is that cuts are being made to staff and services at the university level, without the legislation even being passed.

Minister should abandon budget cuts

NTEU publicly applauded the decision of the NXT and also gratefully acknowledged the consistent opposition by the ALP and the Greens to cutting university funding and making students pay more.

Rebekha Sharkie, Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) education spokesperson, issued a media release on 19 October ruling out NXT support for key elements of the Government’s higher education plans including cuts to the Commonwealth Grants Scheme, increases in student fees and lowering the repayment threshold on HELP debts.

In effect this meant that the Government did not have the numbers in the Senate to pass the higher education ‘reform’ package. These are the Federal Budget cuts characterised by the NTEU in our ‘Pay More, Get Less’ campaign, where students pay more, while universities get less and sack more staff.

NTEU, along with Universities Australia and the student organisations, CAPA and NUS, as well as the ALP and the Greens immediately called upon the Government to either put the legislation to a Senate vote or withdraw it.

Michael Kirby to present 2017 NTEU Lecture The 2017 NTEU Lecture will be presented on 16 November at ANU by the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG, former High Court Justice and more recently Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations in North Korea.

The lecture, entitled ‘The joys and tears of Australian engagement in universal human rights in the United Nations’, will explore both the national engagement of Australia with the UN initiatives on universal human rights that date back

We also noted Senator Jacqui Lambie’s steadfast opposition, as well as that of Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan in the House of Representatives. The impact of the Government’s policies upon access and equity to higher education across the country is well understood by these politicians.

Beware the MYEFO

As Paul Kniest points out (see opposite page), the sector should not have to endure another protracted period where unlegislated (zombie) policy measures remain on the Senate notice paper with no prospect of ever being passed.

The consequences of doing so could mean the Department of Education and Training withholds university funding, not on the basis of legislated policy, but because cuts to public investment in our universities remains the Government’s intended policy.

to the Charter (1945) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) adopted with an Australian, HV Evatt, in the chair as third president of the UN General Assembly.

The annual NTEU Lecture offers a public forum for an eminent Australian to present unique perspectives on aspects of higher education and other important

There could though still be some cuts implemented through the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) due in December. The MYEFO is often used by governments to make cuts, on the sly, to areas that do not require legislative change, such as higher education and research.

NXT has also called for a review of post-secondary education that focuses upon both higher and vocational education. While NTEU was reluctant to endorse yet another higher education review when this was raised last year, a comprehensive review of postsecondary education policy may now be the way to go. The current situation cannot go on.

Jeannie Rea, National President

public policy issues, and the impact on the economic, social and cultural frameworks of Australian society.

A video and transcript of Mr Kirby’s Lecture will be made available online shortly after the event.

Michael Evans, National Organiser www.nteu.org.au/lecture/2017

The NTEU Lecture 16 November 2017

The joys and tears of Australian engagement in universal human rights in the United Nations

The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 11

Update ANU members endorse new Agreement NTEU members at ANU have won a new Agreement after more than a year of bargaining.

Recent, highly visible campaigns over Span of Hours proposals and Christmas leave have likely contributed to the speedy resolution of outstanding bargaining issues.

business hours could be changed, or that they could be working nights in the libraries without shift allowances. They were concerned that ANU proposals to remove leave over the Christmas shutdown would rob them of time with their families.

They were concerned that there was no movement on an unfair superannuation system, which provided inferior entitlements to fixed-term and casual staff. And finally, they were concerned that they had received no pay increase since mid-2016.

While our members campaigned on all of these issues, the most notable campaigns were on Span of Hours and the Christmas shutdown. A petition to stop changes to the Span of Hours, featuring Library member Ivo Lovric, gained more than 600 signatures. To campaign against the changes to Christmas leave, we hosted a ‘Christmas in July’ at ANU – complete with a unionised Santa Claus and members wearing red in support.

The ANU Enterprise Agreement expired on 30 June 2016, but negotiations only began in earnest in 2017. The NTEU Bargaining Team included Branch President Sara Beavis, Branch Committee member Matthew King, Division Secretary Rachael Bahl, and National Assistant Secretary Matt McGowan as lead negotiator and was supported by industrial staff Susan Kenna (National Office) and David VincentPietsch (ACT Division).

Both campaigns received some media attention – we can’t help but think that ANU management did not like being compared to the Grinch who stole Christmas!

Happily, the National Day of Protest on 8 August offered yet another opportunity to press our bargaining claims.

This is a bargaining round with the spectre of Murdoch University looming over the entire sector. Western Australian universities were first in the round, and it became clear that university managements over there were going to be hostile. The outcome at Murdoch University was the shameful termination of the Enterprise Agreement. While ANU management were not nearly as hostile, it was also clear that they were in no hurry to reach an Agreement.

The new Agreement offers an average of a 9.1 per cent pay rise for academic staff (based on level C.1) or 10.66 for professional staff (based on ANUO 6.1).

It includes three 2 per cent pay rises, and two $1800 increases on the rates. Other wins include changes to wording which allow better enforcement of workloads, improved casual conversion opportunities, numerical targets for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander employment and improvements in parental leave. We successfully fought off the majority of ANU proposals on Span of Hours, and we were also able to save Christmas leave.

Our members had concerns in several areas. They were concerned that span of hours proposals meant that their core

We have now reached an Agreement with ANU, which has been endorsed by 98.3 per cent of members at a member meeting.

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NTEU is happy to endorse the Agreement, and grateful to all of our members who have participated in our recent campaigns and provided feedback. Special mention should be made of Sara Beavis and Matthew King, who volunteered so much of their time over this long bargaining period.

Lachlan Clohesy, Division Organiser, ACT Division

Above: Santa the Unionist. Credit: Ivo Lovric.

Below: NTEU ANU members overwhelmingly endorse the new Agreement. Credit: Lachlan Clohesy.

Update USyd members vote for improved Agreement The University of Sydney Branch started bargaining in February. After a strong campaign that involved several actions – including two days of strike action – members recently voted to endorse an Agreement with management that incorporates a number of significant improvements.

While member campaigns on issues like improvements to parental leave, the protection of academic workload provisions and casual rights produced early wins at the bargaining table, by the middle of the year it had become clear to the Branch that management would need to be pushed on matters like job security, salary, casual rights and winding back its ambitions for advertised education-focused roles.

A successful ballot for protected industrial action was conducted in June, to ensure that members would have the option of taking action on Open Day – a key event in the University’s promotional strategy.

Once that ballot was won, management put a ‘final offer’ on the table two weeks before Open Day took place. While it incor-

porated the early wins on parental leave (with paid leave for primary care givers) and on several casual rights (like resources, and preparation pay for academic casuals unable to deliver classes due to illness), it contained no measures on job security, no movement on casual superannuation or sick leave, and a 2.1% per annum pay offer which management insisted was its final offer.

Members voted in favour of industrial action on Open Day, which went ahead with considerable success. Key entrances to the University were staffed by NTEU members with purple balloons and leaflets for intending students and their parents telling them about our campaign to improve student learning conditions by improving staff working conditions. Unionised bus drivers stopped their buses on the way into campus to allow members to address Open Day attendees about our action, and a well-attended rally was addressed by Mark Morey, Secretary of Unions NSW. A further 24 hour strike took place on September 13 to continue pressing for progress on our outstanding claims. Picket lines were well-attended by members and

student supporters, and the campus was eerily quiet compared to a regular working day. A well attended rally ended in the iconic main Quad, clearly communicated to senior management that we needed further concessions before coming to agreement.

These two actions finally saw management make further concessions – in particular, a commitment to an extended 9 month redeployment period for professional staff whose positions were made redundant in any restructure in 2017-2019, a significant reduction in the number of advertised education-focused roles, and an extra $500 uplift in salary for staff earning less than around $95,000 p.a. at the time of the first pay rise, which would flow through the rest of the Agreement.

A packed members’ meeting of over 450 people voted to endorse an in-principle Agreement with management, based on these improvements to the offer. Of course, there is still unfinished business.

In particular, while there have been significant advances in this round of bargaining for casual staff, the push for further improvements to superannuation and sick leave will continue. But the new Agreement contains many important gains for casuals and other staff that will make excellent tools for organising over the coming years.

Membership at the University of Sydney grew considerably during our campaign (at the time of writing, the net growth this year has been over 280). The Branch is now actively planning the next phase of our work, informing members about their new rights and organising our workplace to enforce and expand those rights in the coming years.

Kurt Iveson, USyd Branch President

Images: Members demonstrating at USyd. Credit: Nagida Clark

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 13

Update WSU Branch takes action for secure jobs and fair workloads

Change the Course report We did not need another survey to tell us that sexual harassment and sexual assault is a major problem for students on Australian university campuses and at university events, as well as when travelling, in residences and online.

“Casualisation is a scourge. It taxes our mental health. It’s financially unstable” said Gavin Smith, a casual academic NTEU member at Western Sydney University (WSU) addressing the crowd at the strike rally on 19 November.

“But I love working here. I have been loyal to this University pretty much all of my adult life, from my undergraduate, to my postgraduate, now as a casual staff member - and it upsets me deeply that one of the major changes that this management wants to put through is basically cutting off any pathway to permanency for casuals”.

NTEU WSU members have taken two half day stoppages in support of job security claims and opposing management proposals such teaching loads as high as 85% for all academic staff. On 19 October members rallied on Parramatta South campus to hear National President, Jeannie Rea, NSW Division Secretary, Michael Thomson and a series of passionate and articulate members speak of the troubles of WSU. This followed a strike and rally on 20 September at the University’s new flagship One Parramatta Square campus, where speakers included General Secretary, Grahame McCulloch.

The strike action came after more than six months of bargaining, at which time management were refusing to address measures to protect the income-levels of staff undergoing restructuring, extended redeployment for staff who cannot find jobs during restructuring, decent superannuation and severance pay for casual staff, and better conversion for fixed-termers.

However, NTEU strongly supported Universities Australia in commissioning an independent survey undertaken by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). Successive university managements have covered up and dismissed sexual violence on campus for decades, so making this a national and very public issue could make the difference.

Other members spoke at the rallies of the difficulties members are facing keeping up professional standards in the current turmoil at WSU, and future of academic workloads if all outer limits were removed from the Agreement.

Accompanied by talented musicians and vocalists among the ranks of WSU staff, members wrote polite, civil but also heartfelt and often angry ‘Messages to Barney’ [WSU VC Barney Glover] as they gathered beneath the Chancellery at Parramatta South, which we carried up in procession to the Chancellery offices.

Gavin spoke for many members at the rally: “I don’t want to be here [on strike].

I’d rather be doing my work. I’d rather be preparing for class. But it’s great to see so many of you here for a second time. And if we have to come out again, we’ll come out again”.

David Burchell, WSU Branch President

Above: An empty WSU on the morning of the strike.

Below: David Burchell. Credit: Jeannie Rea.

Management proposals on job security included removing all meaningful limits on the use of casual and part-time work, and abolishing Teaching Focussed Roles and Career Development Fellowships, which had a proven track-record at WSU of stemming casualisation.

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When the AHRC report, Change the Course, was released on 1 August, many vice-chancellors publicly apologised to students and also pledged to implement all the report recommendations. However, more than three months later, the follow through has been patchy across the country.

NTEU is concerned that once the spotlight goes off the issue, universities may return to their usual practice.

Too often we have seen good preventive strategies fail on implementation, along with repercussions for perpetrators. Too often staff are assigned implementation tasks as an add-on to their workloads; consultation and feedback loops break down; and staff move on or actually lose their jobs. NTEU Branches are monitoring progress to ensure that managements take their responsibilities seriously.

NTEU argued unsuccessfully for staff to be included in the survey, but we are now collaborating with the AHRC on the participation of universities in the next Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Survey due in 2018. This will give staff a say.

Jeannie Rea, National President Read more in Agenda: www.nteu.org.au/agenda AHRC report: humanrights.gov.au/our-work/ sex-discrimination/publications/ change-course-national-reportsexual-assault-and-sexual

Update UTS staff strike for job security and respect On 19 October, UTS members went on strike for 24-hours to campaign for job security and respect for staff – the same day as strike action simultaneously took place at WSU. The Branch had tremendous support from students, other unions including the CFMEU and MUA, and solidarity from the First Nations Workers Alliance.

Members on the picket lines distributed over 10,000 leaflets to staff, students and visitors to highlight the appalling lack of job security at UTS. NTEU membership at UTS has reached an all-time high and continues to grow.

Photos: Nagida Clark

Macquarie forum protests rail line closure The NSW Government is shutting down Macquarie University Railway Station next year as part of major works to separate the Epping to Chatswood line from the rail network. The line will be privatised and operated with driverless trains. But with almost 3,000 employees at Macquarie Uni and 38,000 students, the loss of this crucial transport hub is a significant concern to both students and staff.

On 27 October, over 80 people came together for a forum chaired by Macquarie University NTEU Branch President Dr Alison Barnes. At the forum, NTEU members had the chance to hear from and ask questions of the NSW Shadow Transport Minister, Jodi McKay and the Mayor of Ryde, Jerome Laxale.

Ms McKay gave an undertaking to ask the NSW Transport Minister, Andrew Constance, pertinent questions that came from the floor of the meeting. Mr Laxale invited a delegation of NTEU members to address Ryde Council on their concerns in the near future.

To coincide with the forum, the Macquarie Branch has launched an online petition.

Within a 48 hour period it achieved over 1100 signatures, reflecting the anger at the lack of information being provided

around this issue. Comments from the petition are being sent straight to the Transport Minister to give him an idea of the frustration felt by people at Macquarie University.

Sean O’Brien, Branch Organiser Sign the petition: www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/ macquarie-uni-station-closing-don-tleave-us-in-the-dark

Above: Forum at Macquarie University

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 15

Secure Jobs News Casually employed academics at ANU to receive thousands in back pay Casually employed academic staff in the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society have already seen their takehome pay increase as a result of a successful campaign by NTEU casual members. These academic staff will also be back paid thousands of dollars to retrospectively correct underpayment dating back until at least mid-2016.

NTEU casual members first approached the Union with concerns about underpayment in mid-2017. These members had sought to raise these issues with managers within the Fenner School, and had also attempted to seek assistance from the postgraduate student association at ANU. Only when they acted together through the NTEU, however, were they able to successfully challenge their underpayment.

Enterprise Agreements typically include rates of pay for tutorials which assume two hours of preparation time per hour of teaching, or one hour in the case of repeat tutorials. Unfortunately the Fenner School used a mechanism to pay the ‘other academic activities’ rate rather than the tutorial rate (which is three times as much, or twice as much for repeat tutorials).

They then attempted to pay preparation separately, allocating less than would be included in the tutorial rates (one hour per tutorial and none for repeat tutorials – regardless of tutorial length). One member who first brought this issue to the NTEU’s attention was underpaid by around 40 per cent in semester one under this system. This equates to about $2,100 which should have been paid in semester

one – and which will now be back paid.

This system has been used since at least mid-2016.

After an initial meeting with the NTEU, the casual members concerned helped to organise a workplace meeting in the Fenner School. It identified several issues – mores work remains on preparation for demonstrations and pay for field trips – but most importantly we were able to sign on more members to be part of our underpayment campaign. Finally, we were able to meet with ANU HR representatives in late August. In September, ANU confirmed that this was a significant issue, likely affecting more than 100 current and former casually employed academic staff.

We’ve had substantial media interest in this story in the ACT – both The Canberra Times and student newspaper Woroni have reported on casual underpayment issues at ANU. That media interest and NTEU publicity has encouraged other casually employed staff to come forward with their own stories. Initially these members were employed either in the Fenner School or other areas of the College of Science.

More recently, we’ve been hearing from casually employed staff from other areas of ANU. We have real concerns that ANU’s audit – which will initially focus on the Fenner School – may need to be applied to the whole university regarding casually employed academics.

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This is a significant win for casual members at ANU, though such action should not be necessary to enforce their entitlements under the Agreement. This is not a sudden windfall or bonus, but merely the correct payment staff are entitled to for work already performed.

The casual members involved are also thrilled that this example has encouraged other casually employed staff to come forward, and provides a clear example of why casually employed staff should join the NTEU. Lachlan Clohesy, Division Organiser, ACT Division

NTEU ACT Division will be launching a campaign for casual members in the ACT prior to semester 1, 2018.

If you’re interested, please contact Lachlan Clohesy at lclohesy@nteu.org.au or on 0418 493 355.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander News Without vigilance we will see loss In the current round of Enterprise Bargaining negotiations, any proposed improvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment clauses and targets is being met with resistance by some in university management.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment clause was incorporated in the NTEU log of claims in round four bargaining and has had a direct impact upon increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment numbers and associated full-time equivalence.

University staff data available on the Department of Education and Training website shows there has been growth in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment over the past fifteen years. In the reporting period prior to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment claims implementation there had been a 22 per cent increase nationally in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples employed at Table A and B higher education providers.

In the twelve years following the NTEU Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment claim, recorded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment increased to 66 per cent, an overall increase of 53 per cent due in part to the claim’s strength and the influence of NTEU bargaining teams.

When examining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander growth as a percentage of all staff employment (headcount) the picture is a very different one. In the reporting periods prior to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander bargaining claim there had only been a reported national

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Before and after the claim – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment growth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment growth increase of 0.08 per cent.

By way of further example, in the same period there was a reported growth in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander general and professional staff employment of 0.05 per cent. In the years following the claims introduction the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment growth expressed as a percentage of all staff employment increased by 0.21 per cent.

Growth in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academic employment remains a challenging issue for many universities.

Over the past 15 year period of reported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staffing data, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academic employment as a percentage of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment growth has only increased by 28 per cent, while all academic staff employment as a percentage of all staff employment has increased by 45 per cent.

In the current round of bargaining university management are again applying pressure to see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander targets dropped from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clause in their Collective Agreements; in some cases going as far as to want to remove the clause in its entirety.

riginal and Torres Strait Islander employment claim cannot simply be ignored, and while impossible to confirm conclusively, increases in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples employed today would not have been achieved by university management alone without the focus given to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment by NTEU. As round seven bargaining continues and management wishes to water-down Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment and targets or place them into the policy sphere, it must be remembered that all Collective Agreements approved by to date the NTEU National Executive in this round have included Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment clauses and associated targets.

These universities are setting the bench-mark for others to follow, but we all must be ever vigilant to university managements’ attempts to downplay the significance and impact of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander claim – the only losers will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and we have lost too much now for far too long.

Adam Frogley, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Coordinator

Employment growth of 53 per cent in the period since the introduction of the Abo-

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www.aur.org.au NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 17

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander News A&TSI Forum 2017

Fight for Our Rights – Stand Up For Our Claim In 2017, the annual National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Forum headed north to warmer climes for the first time.

It was truly a joy for all staff and delegates to go to Brisbane and be hosted by the QLD Division while enjoying three days of discussion, culture and caucus bonding.

Delegates from 30 different Branches attended the Forum, along with staff from various Divisions, the National President and National Assistant Secretary. Poignantly, given that we are currently in the middle of Round 7 bargaining, this year’s theme was ‘Fight for our Rights – Stand up for our Claim’.

The opening ceremony was held at the Jagera Hall, Musgrave Park – one of the major heartlands of Aboriginal political struggle over the decades as well as being

a traditional meeting ground. Delegates were welcomed to country by Shannon Ruska and the Nunukul Yugera dancers.

They were then treated to dancing performed by the Wagga Torres Strait Islander Dance Company.

From there, the delegates walked over to The Henderson Gallery where they were welcomed to the Forum by National President Jeannie Rea, and were given an insight into this special Aboriginal arts site by gallery owner Robert Henderson.

The Forum itself was held at the Queensland Council of Unions building on Peel Street. Along with a lot of robust discussion around the state of the sector as well as workshops and information sessions, a record number of motions for the NTEU’s National Council were brought to the caucus for consideration.

The motions were a solid mix of industrial matters and social justice stances. As well as committing the Union to enforcing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collective bargaining gains and assisting with Division Forums, the A&TSI Forum included a motion opposing the Adani Mine and supporting solidarity actions against the Northern Territory Intervention (due to the fact that it has been going on for ten years now). It was additionally noted that 2016 and 2017 had been two years of significant anniversaries; in particular marking 50 years since the Referendum and the Wave Hill Walk-Off, 70 years since the Pilbara strike and 60 years since the Palm Island strike. It was therefore considered timely that a motion be taken to council marking

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these significant dates in the Indigenous struggle.

Another Forum highlight was the Elder’s Yarn given at the end of the first day by long time union activist, Uncle Bob Anderson. Delegates and staff gathered around the fire at Kuril Dhagun to hear his words of wisdom and share his stories of collective and Indigenous struggle over the years. They then walked into the city to participate in a rally for justice for Elijah Doughty.

Special mention to the catering by the First Food Company, consisting of traditional Torres Strait Islander foods as well as treats like wattle seed cream and damper.

Reflecting on the Forum, Queensland Division delegates enjoyed being the hosts this year and having the opportunity to immerse this important annual Union event in local culture and weather. A number of other Divisions have shown interest in hosting the Forum in the years to come.

In particular, we’d like to acknowledge National A&TSI Councillor John Graham, Qld Division A&TSI Organiser Phil Mairu and Qld Division Secretary Michael McNally for ensuring that all went smoothly. 2018 will mark 20 years since the first NTEU A&TSI Forum and we look forward to a similarly engaging three days of union business.

Celeste Liddle, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Organiser www.nteu.org.au/atsi

Below: Delegates and staff at Forum 2017 with the new A&TSI Caucus logo on a flag.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander News Welcome to Country protocols “I wish to acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional custodians of the land upon which we meet. I would also like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Elders of the land both past and present” You may have heard these words many times particularly at public events and ceremonies but you may not be aware the NTEU Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Unit can assist all members with appropriate protocol for Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country, and guidance on how best to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities when seeking to arrange a Welcome or Acknowledgement of Country.

How Secure Do You Feel?

The final report on insecure work and its impact upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, How secure do you feel?, is to be released in December, with findings showing that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers are faced with increasing insecure employment.

The ability for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers to undertake cultural business and further study was also examined, with findings showing

In 2009, the Indigenous Policy Committee (IPC), now the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee (A&TSIPC), produced a protocol document for Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country. The Welcome to Country Protocols was developed to assist members, Branches and Divisions in arranging and conducting this first item of business and has been utilised in planning for public events of the NTEU through to developing agenda for Branch Committee and member meetings.

The Welcome to Country Protocols details a number of important issues for consideration when seeking to organise a range of internal and external meetings and events. The protocol has been designed as both a guide on the use of Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country and an important resource on a range of other related A&TSI cultural matters.

The protocol details the difference between Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country and when these are to be utilised, the use and display of flags, dance performances, smoking ceremonies, traditional instrument performances and recommended fees for service.

Information contained within the protocol will also assist members in gaining a greater understanding of the importance of Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country, and how Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country can act as but one vehicle to increase awareness and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their culture and community.

As a result of the roll-out of Cultural Competence Education across the NTEU, the Welcome to Country Protocols will be revised by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee (A&TSIPC) and re-released by December 2017. The current Welcome to Country Protocols are still in use and can be accessed online (see below). The A&TSIPC encourages all members to access a copy. Questions on the protocol can be addressed to the NTEU A&TSI Unit via atsi@nteu.org.au.

Adam Frogley, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Coordinator Download the Welcome to Country Protocols at: www.nteu.org.au/atsi/publications

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers are being forced to choose between undertaking their cultural responsibilities within their communities and maintaining their contracted hours of employment.

The final report also shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers are being employed into roles with diminished time-fractions and into part-time and casualised positions.

The report highlights the additional pressures faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers and how universities are struggling to implement culturally appropriate arrangements to ensure those workers can maintain their community links, participate in a range of vital cultural events and also ensure their responsibilities are continued.

Adam Frogley, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Coordinator The final report will be sent electronically to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members and will be made available online at: www.nteu.org.au/atsi/publications

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 19

Time to change the rules On Friday 1 September, Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Secretary Sally McManus delivered a speech to the TJ Ryan Foundation, touching on many key themes of the recently-launched Change the Rules campaign.

NTEU is pleased to support this campaign, which acknowledges the rules governing working people and their unions in Australia are unfair and broken, and need to change.

The following excerpts are taken from the 1 September speech.

Photo: Sally McManus at NTEU National Council in Melbourne, August 2017. Photo: Patrick O’Sullivan

End of the neoliberal era Consensus that neoliberalism is the right approach for society has fractured, as the results of this experiment are there for everyone to see.

Working people were promised more jobs, greater wealth and better services.

Privatisation would bring greater choice, better products at cheaper prices. Instead, jobs have been outsourced, wages cut, and prices have gone up as companies extract profits from essential services.

We were promised that trickledown economics would ensure that all the wealth we hand over to the very rich will come back to us. Instead, it seems we cannot rely on the very rich to put limits on their own greed, or to share, as they have kept much of this wealth for themselves.

Andrew MacDonald Media & Communications Officer M@NTEUNational

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The era of deregulation saw protections generations of working people had fought for stripped from them. In their place we have concerted, unabashed campaigns to

systematically weaken unions, which has left working people with little protections in the face of the King Kong-sized power of multinational corporations who have no heart and no sense of obligation to anything other than increased profits.

The result – record low wage growth and one in four workers in insecure work.

Income inequality Income inequality in Australia has been getting worse. Despite a blip just after the Global Financial Crisis, when share prices fell for a short period and those rich enough to make lots of income through their investments took a hit, it is clear that the general trend in the Gini coefficient has been towards widening income inequality.

The last OECD Economic Survey of Australia, released in March 2017, had this to say about income inequality in Australia: “Inclusiveness has been eroded. The Gini coefficient has been drifting up and households in upper income brackets have benefited disproportionally from Australia’s long period of economic growth. Real incomes for the top quintile of households grew by more than 40 per cent between 2004 and 2014 while those for the lowest quintile only grew by about 25 per cent.”

Income inequality has been rising over time and is now at a 70 year high.

Wealth inequality Wealth inequality has increased even more sharply than income inequality due to very rapid increases in the value of homes, investment properties, shares and other assets held by the rich. Among the wealthy elite in Australia it is common to have a multi-million dollar home, several investment properties and a large portfolio of shares, bonds and other assets. And the benefits seem to multiply the more wealth you have, as our current tax laws mean you can get out of paying your fair share of tax.

At the other end of the income spectrum, many young Australians are struggling to pay rent and many have been forced to move back in with their parents. They have very little chance of getting into the housing market.

Stagnant wage growth and share of income to labour For those workers on Enterprise Agreements we again see low wage growth, yet productivity is going through the roof.

What is going on?

The system of enterprise-based bargaining was meant to deliver increased wages alongside increased productivity. Well, since around 2000 this stopped happening. People are working harder and smarter, workers are making record profits

for their employers, but they are not sharing in it.

Even more alarmingly has been the increase in the number of workers on minimum award rates, which has shot up in the last few years from 15.2 per cent in 2010 to 23.9 per cent in 2016. This is a staggering increase in only six years. Many of these workers are on or around the minimum wage, which is only around $36,000 a year.

And below these workers we now have an underclass of people who are victims of day to day wage theft. Casual and temporary visa workers are hyper-insecure and cannot just ask for a payrise, let alone enforce our employment laws, as the independent umpire has been stripped of powers leaving a system that encourages business models for too many employers that are based on just ignoring our laws.

The protections that are meant to be there to stop this abuse of power are ignored.

Changing the rules We need to put back protections that have been removed and make sure these protections, the checks and balances, fit the way businesses organise themselves today.

There are two areas where our Government can act to start restoring fairness.

The first is modernising our tax laws to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of tax. This will ensure that wealth is more fairly distributed and everyone benefits.

As the ALP have been proposing, we need to close corporate tax loopholes and tackle unproductive negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions which disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Australians.

The Government should also reverse its planned $65 billion dollar corporate tax cut. Despite the Government’s spin, this will not benefit working people or the economy- they are simply handouts to big business.

Increased corporate welfare is not used to build new factories, update technology and create more jobs. Rather a tax funded jump in corporate profits will end up in the pockets of the corporate executives and the, all too often, offshore shareholders.

The second is better and stronger rights at work for working people that also account for how businesses organise themselves.

The priority areas here are: 1. More secure jobs by taking away the incentives to casualise work.

2. Restoring a strong, fair and independent industrial umpire.

3. Ensuring a level playing field for bargaining.

4. Rebuilding a relevant, modern and strong safety net for all workers.

Industrial laws have always existed with one primary purpose, that is to address the inherent power imbalance that exists between capital and labour. That imbalance has never been greater. Our laws need change to do their job.

Ending union bashing We have the harshest laws in the OECD against unions.

Only in parts of the US are the laws equally harsh. Australian unions operate in an environment of no support and continual, vicious attacks.

We are the people that win the increases to award wages and Agreements. Yet, we receive no institutional support and many people benefit from our work without contributing to the cost. It is the same as having to give away a product for free.

If the same situation existed for companies – where they developed and produced something and then had to give it away for free – they would not survive.

Our society needs unions but due to this problem, commonly called the ‘free rider’ problem, we have a market failure. We cannot forever provide this vital service to the whole of our society while relying on ever smaller groups of members to fund our activity. Our activity, which is about increasing wages and building a strong economy, ultimately benefits everyone in Australia.

Every other country in the OECD recognises this situation and find ways to support their unions. In Australia we need to build that recognition and develop the supports to keep unions able to lift wages and improve our economy. This is the new deal we need. www.australianunions.org.au/change_ the_rules www.nteu.org.au/changetherules Read Sally McManus’ full speech at: www.actu.org.au/actu-media/ speeches-and-opinion/sally-mcmanusspeech-to-tj-ryan-foundation-brisbane1st-september-2017

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 21

Work isn’t going away.

So let’s make the most of it.

Photo Credit: Kutay Tanir

‘Work.’ It often seems like a four-letter word. Especially on Monday mornings, as we drag ourselves out of bed and off to our jobs. Yet it’s a necessity of life – for the simple reason that most of us have to work, just to support ourselves. A small section of society, roughly the richest 1 or 2 per cent, own enough wealth to live without working (and they are the ones who have benefited most from the many business- and finance-friendly policies implemented over the last generation). But the rest of us must support ourselves the traditional way: by finding a job, doing it well, and earning a living.

Jim Stanford Centre for Future Work M@cntrfuturework

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The world of work is under incredible pressure. Jobs are harder to find, and harder to keep. The traditional security of a permanent job – where workers could count on regular hours, living wages, and basic entitlements – has become a rarity. In fact, less than half of employed Australians now work in a traditional ‘standard’ job: fulltime, permanent, paid employment with regular entitlements (like paid holidays and sick leave). Most jobs now encompass one or more dimensions of insecure or precarious work: including part-time, casual, labour hire, temporary, contractor, or self-employed positions.

Australia’s labour market thus faces a dual crisis of both quantity and quality. In quantity terms, there isn’t enough paid work for those who need it. Demand for labour has been inadequate, relative to Australia’s working age population, since the GFC. The official unemployment rate (currently around 5.5 per cent) does not begin to capture the full extent of labour market slack. After all, to be officially classified as unemployed, someone cannot have worked a single hour in the week they were surveyed, and must have submitted several active job applications (thus demonstrating the ‘sincerity’ of their job search). This excludes over 1.1 million underemployed Australians (who work some hours, but want and need more), as well as those who have given up looking for work, and those classified as ‘margin-

ally attached’ (even though they want to work). All told, there are over 3 million unemployed and underemployed workers in Australia, and the true unemployment rate is over 15 per cent – three times the official rate.

In quality terms, the erosion of standard permanent jobs has further undermined the level and stability of workers’ incomes.

Not knowing when they will work, nor how much they will earn, makes it impossible for participants in this ‘just-in-time’ workforce to plan or balance their lives.

The erosion of traditional labour market regulations and standards (including minimum wages, the awards system, and collective bargaining) have further tipped the scales in favour of employers – who are only too willing to reorganise their business models around the permanent existence of this pool of desperate, ‘flexible’ workers.

In this manner, the quantity and quality dimensions of Australia’s labour market problems interact to create a self-reinforcing, vicious cycle. An initial shortage of work creates an extra degree of desperation among workers, who thus become willing to accept unfavourable terms and conditions of work. Employers learn they can staff their operations largely by hiring contingent labour, shifting risk and responsibility for downturns in labour demand onto the backs of their workers.

This shift to a just-in-time workforce in turn further undermines the creation of permanent jobs – further accentuating the desperation of workers to accept work at any price.

Work will continue to be the fundamental driving force of economic progress in our economy. There is nothing else but productive human labour, both physical and mental, that can add value to the resources we harvest (hopefully sustainably) from nature, and produce the full range of goods and services (including human and caring services) that are essential to our standard of living. And demanding the right to work, in decent, secure, fairly-compensated jobs, that allow workers to balance work with the other facets of their lives, must be the centrepiece of any comprehensive vision of progressive reform for Australia.

To be sure, new vistas in automation (such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and more) will eliminate and/or disrupt many existing jobs. At the same time, other jobs will be created. This includes the new work associated with the design, development, programming, operation and maintenance of new technology and machinery. It also includes jobs doing new tasks we never thought of before: providing new goods and services that were made possible only by new technology (like developing apps for smart phones, or using 3-D printers to manufacture customised one-off products). And new jobs will continue to be created in certain occupations which are relatively difficult

to automate. This includes many scientific, management, and human service functions.

It is interesting to note that public services (such as health care and education) are expected to account for a disproportionate and growing share of new employment in the future, in part because they are relatively more reliant (for now, anyway) on direct human contact and interaction. For example, the most recent 5-year employment forecast from the Commonwealth Department of Employment projects that fully one-half of all new jobs will be in public service areas including health care, social services, education, and public administration.

This is an opportunity for building a stronger, more sustainable society; the relative growth of public sector employment should be embraced (not derided as some dangerous sign of “creeping socialism”), and supported with a stronger fiscal foundation in the form of an adequate, fair tax base.

What will be the balance between jobs eliminated, and jobs created, through new technology? Put simply, we don’t know. In economic history, it is rare that technology alone has created mass unemployment.

In most cases, waves of technological progress (such as the development of railroads, assembly lines, and computerisation) led to more work, not less – in part because business investment responded strongly to the new production and profit opportunities opened up by new technology.

This time, however, could be different: partly because technology is accelerating and extending into uncharted and unpredictable areas, and partly because business investment has been chronically weak (in Australia and other developed capitalist economies) despite all the business-friendly policy measures that have been put in place in recent decades.

At any rate, left to its own devices, there’s certainly no guarantee that a competitive labour market will produce enough new work, nor that it will be decent work. I am actually more concerned about the negative impact of technology on the quality of jobs, than on the quantity. But despite the challenges to work, the economic system will continue to rely on work – productive human effort, broadly defined – as the essential driving force of production and economic development.

To build a better future for work will require an ambitious, two-pronged effort to address both dimensions of the current crisis: quantity and quality. First, we need more work: job-creation should be the first priority of government macroeconomic policy (instead of the inconsistent austerity of recent years). This includes jobs in essential human and public services, through sustained investments in infrastructure, and with active strategies to nurture high-quality, innovation-intensive

value-added sectors (instead of relying disproportionately on non-renewable resource extraction as Australia has done in the past).

Equally important, we must also lift the quality of jobs, and this means rebuilding the tools and instruments that empower workers to win a better deal from their employers. First and foremost, this means rebuilding the essential institutions of labour market regulation and redistribution, that have been deliberately weakened through many years of employer-friendly labour market policy. Minimum wages must be lifted so that a full-time year-round worker can at least reach the poverty line. The National Employment Standards must be modernised and strengthened to reflect the new reality of work for Australians – including better provisions for flexible work so that working people can balance their home and work responsibilities.

Collective bargaining must be urgently resuscitated as a normal feature of the labour market: by rolling back the myriad of restrictions on union activity imposed by successive governments, introducing a meaningful arbitration and enforcement system to restore the integrity of Enterprise Agreements, and creating sustainable membership and fiscal rules for unions.

Stabilising funding for universities (including reversing the epidemic of insecure work in higher education), rebuilding Australia’s discredited vocational training system, targeting marginalised communities with opportunities, and developing more effective labour market information and planning mechanisms, are other crucial steps for ensuring that all Australians have a meaningful chance to work, to their fullest potential.

Putting Australians back to work in decent, fairly compensated jobs, is crucial for addressing the biggest economic and social problems we confront: whether it’s strengthening household finances, reducing social exclusion, repairing government budgets, or protecting our environment.

Ultimately, there’s no shortage of work to do: including the work of caring for each other, our communities, and the planet.

The real challenge is whether we can organise our economy to make the most of our collective capacity to work, in decent, sustainable, humane jobs. If we can do that, then work might just stop being a ‘four-letter word.’

Jim Stanford is Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute. www.futurework.org.au

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NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 23

Copyright

A fair go for fair use The Government says it will consider the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) final recommendations regarding a fair use exception in Australia.

In August 2017, the Minister for Science and Innovation, Senator Arthur Sinodinos, released the Australian Government Response to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Intellectual Property Arrangements (2017). Recommendation 6.1, as it is known, refers to a November 2013 ALRC report Copyright and the Australian Economy which recommended that copyright legislation be amended to provide an exception for fair use and include an express statement that a fair use of copyright material does not infringe copyright.

This recommendation, subsequently endorsed by the Productivity Commission, was proposing what many consider to be a radical departure from Australia’s current copyright law which is based on the notion of fair dealings. Generally speaking those opposed to this policy change claim it would undermine authors’ or creators’ rights. Those in favour believe it would make use of copyright material cheaper and less burdensome.

To highlight these tensions, the Government’s response was to note this recommendation and undertake further consultation, which Sinodinos indicated would take place in the first half of 2018.

NTEU intends to be part of this consultation because our members are both creators and users of copyright material.

Fair dealings vs fair use The aspects of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) which relate to fair dealings only apply to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or with an adaptation of these works. Under Australian legislation fair dealing are those uses which are deemed not to infringe copyright.

To be considered fair dealing, a use (dealing) of copyright material must pass a two-step test. Firstly, is the material being

used for a prescribed use (on the list), and secondly is the dealing (use) ‘fair’ as defined by the legislation. Australian copyright law currently lists the prescribed uses as: research or study, criticism or review, parody or satire, reporting the news, or giving legal advice.

To be an exception under copyright law, however, the use (dealing) must not only be on the list above, but it must also be deemed to be fair. While the latter is a more subjective test, the legislation says it should take into account factors including: • The purpose and character of the dealing.

• The nature of the work being copied.

• The possibility of obtaining the work within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price.

• The effect of the dealing upon the potential market for, or value of, the work, and • The amount and substantiality of the part copied taken in relation to the whole work.

Under a fair use regime (similar to that used in USA for example) and being recommended by the both the ALRC and the Productivity Commission, there is no prescribed list of fair uses, and therefore there would effectively only be a one-step test to determine fairness on a case by case basis. That test is anticipated to be similar to that outlined above.

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So why the change?

Some of the reasons underlying the recommendations to change to a fair use regime are that the prescribed list of uses is to too narrow, do not take into account digital or online uses, and is too focused on the material being copied not on the effect or impact of use for which it is being copied such as the creation of new or transformative works.

Some of the arguments against a move to fair use include that this would be a lawyers’ picnic, and that it might enable third parties to exploit copyrighted research and education resources for commercial gain.

Therefore, in recognising the limitations of the existing regime and acknowledging some the pitfalls in moving to a fair use regime, a third possible policy response has also been suggested. This expanded fair dealing framework would involve amending and adding the following types of uses to the existing prescribed list: quotation, non-commercial private use, incidental or technical use, library/archive use, education, and access for people with disabilities.

Future consultation Issues around intellectual property, including copyright, have always created somewhat of a dilemma for the NTEU with our members being amongst the

Copyright biggest group of both creators and users of copyright material in Australia. In the current debate however, Universities Australia (UA) has taken a strong position to support the change to a fair use regime, as they see the existing copyright exceptions as being too inflexible to cope with digital uses and very costly both administratively and in relation to licence fees.

The very strong view of workshop participants at 2017 National Council on the question of where the NTEU should position itself in relation to the upcoming consultations, was that if universities were positioning themselves as being on the side of the users, then the NTEU focus should be on our members’ roles as creators. There was also recognition that the existing copyright exceptions were in need of change to reflect new circumstances including the emergence of new technologies.

Greater clarity all round about what is and what is not covered by copyright was also seen as an important objective of any changes, which would be of benefit to both creators and users and reduce compliance costs.

There was a strongly held view that the NTEU should be seeking to expand the existing fair dealings exceptions rather than change to ‘fair use’. The NTEU National Office will continue to consult with our members around: • What uses (dealings) should or should not be included on a new list of prescribed exceptions, and • How to give greater clarity as to what is considered to be a fair use of copyright material, especially in relation to substantiality to some recorded material, the application of new technologies, and what is becoming a highly contentious issue (in fair use jurisdictions such as the USA) the concept of transformative use.

Paul Kniest, Policy & Research Coordinator

Mainstreaming Open Education Resources The 2nd UNESCO World Congress on Open Education Resources, held recently in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, brought together hundreds of stakeholders from across the higher education sector including trade unions, government and inter-government agencies, and publishing and digital technology companies.

The purpose was to recommend UNESCO policy on mainstreaming Open Education Resources (OER), particularly in relation to the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – Quality Education.

With the SDG4 target being free primary and secondary and affordable tertiary education, the interests of participants were at odds. For while educators sought ways of fairly and equally opening up free access to quality educational resources, the for-profit companies were focused on finding a lucrative business model. While government funding of education and training at all levels is critical to success with SDG4, the focus of many governments upon reneging on public investment in favour of outsourcing to private for-profit providers meant that they were in the critical spotlight.

The use of digital OERs as a cheaper option at the risk of pedagogical quality and local content and control was a widespread concern. There was a very evident tension about content, and who is determining what is produced and in whose interests.

However, much of the focus was also upon the capacity of digital technologies to reach students in ways never before possible, and it was also seen as the time and opportunity to break down the Western hegemonic capture of the old textbook industry.

Education union delegates spoke repeatedly on the role of education workers as the key actors in developing and implementing OERs and called for the protection of workers’ rights – including those of content creators.

Focus was also upon expanding open licences and reforming copyright and ‘fair use’ laws to enable free access, but there was understanding of the need to adequately recognise and recompense content creators. NTEU is not at all unique in grappling with these issues (see A Fair Go for Fair Use article, opposite).

Jeannie Rea, National President www.oercongress.org

Above: Slovenian Minister of Education, Science and Sport Maja Makovec Brenčič. Source: www.mizs.gov.si

NTEU invites any members who would like to contribute to the NTEU’s position on this issue to please contact us: policy@nteu.org.au

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 25

Challenging the privatised university The sustained brutalisation of the higher education sector by a privatisation agenda is now widely documented and well understood. It has come to shape the lived realities of professional and academic staff, as well as students, across Australia’s 40 or so universities, in deep and visceral ways.

Policies and processes, as well as rhetoric and marketing campaigns, all point to the corporatisation and neoliberalisation of the higher education sector, with profound impacts globally. Universities are now aligned with a global capitalist system, including in their commitment to economic growth and market competition. The slippery slope of marketised language now positions students as consumers and degrees as products, as well as re-designating vice-chancellors as CEOs, and on corporate salaries incongruous with pay scales of most other staff (sans other high level appointments, such as senior university managers).

Photo credit: kendrysdale/123rf

In the corporate higher education industry, the boundaries between the so-called public and private are also increasingly blurred, the outcome of which encloses ideas, education and knowledge; with access limited to the highest bidders, and/ or those awarded the intellectual property rights.

Kristen Lyons UQ

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At the corporate university, Richard Hil aptly describes international students as cash cows; referring to their vital role in the provision of a core revenue stream, especially in the face of declining government funding. Yet despite their vital role in financing Australian universities,

international students experience some of the highest rates of sexual harassment and assault (as reported by the Australian Human Rights Commission), and are employed in some of the most precarious and poorly paid workplaces.

Today’s corporate university has also come to depend on private sector donations, which provides corporate interests with a platform to drive their interests and agendas across the higher education system.

The fossil fuel industries, as well as big pharma, and the bio and nanotech industries, as example, have all moved into, and across, universities in this way; funding research, professional appointments, and the development of course materials.

The occupation of universities by corporate capitalism has profound impacts, including the marketisation of research, the erosion of collegiality, as well as low graduate satisfaction, with many students describing vocationally oriented curriculum as taking the joy out of study (I can hear Minister Birmingham now, grumbling that education should have nothing to do with joy … but those of us who actually teach know that joy has everything to do with lifelong learning).

The casualisation of work and normalisation of volunteerism is also driving workplace inequalities and injustices, and coincides with rising rates of stress, depression and illness amongst university staff. (That two colleagues I happened to run into while out for lunch the day I was writing this shed tears as they described difficulties they are facing at work speaks to levels of stress and dis-ease in our universities).

The corporate university has responded to this state of crisis by individualising responsibility, including encouraging staff to work at home to avoid bullies, to join wellness programs to balance work with rest of life, and to complete on-line training modules to ensure appropriate conduct with colleagues.

While I am a fan of working from home sometimes, swimming laps and yoga classes, like many, I’m not convinced that a daily ritual of salutes to the sun (or any other ‘solutions’ that individualises responsibility) will address the structural issues that have broken the higher education system.

ways, by generating alternative possibilities, including new ways of thinking, being and doing. It is this radical agenda where my hopes lie – tired as I am of trying, and watching others, to reform a broken system – and where I think we need to direct our energies if we are to find our way out of the mess of the current malaise in higher education.

Following the path charted by Naomi Klein in her book No is Not Enough, in saying no to the corporate neoliberal university, we should be clear about what we are saying yes to, including the values and principles that underpin it.

There are many examples of what people are already saying yes to in forging a post neoliberal university, and that is carving out the kind of radical agenda that excites.

These, and much more, are all part of the line that we must collectively draw in the sand, so as to turn the tide in the higher education sector that is so urgently needed.

This includes, for example: 1. Critical pedagogical work that we are all familiar with, including examples such as Aidan Ricketts’ Public Interest Advocacy and Jenny Cameron’s Food Sovereignty courses, which chart radical futures to reimagine advocacy, social change, and food systems.

2. Community led research and/or advocacy projects that centre the community interests and Indigenous knowledges, and in so doing, unsettle the colonial legacies on which universities are built.

3. Centring community values not corporate interests, including collegiality and caring, and embracing a slow academic culture that creates time and space for those slow burn ideas to incubate. It might also include having cup of tea breaks with friends and colleagues at work, simply avoiding meetings that waste your time or legitimise a broken system, as well as actually turning off our computers and going home.

In a previous piece published in Arena magazine, Richard Hil and I have written about a post neoliberal university in the making. There are signs of this everywhere, especially when you turn down the deafening sound of the corporate cheer squad.

4. Committing to projects that contribute to decolonising universities, including actions that might redress the dominance of western (male) knowledge, including its symbolic violence and assimilationist tendencies, as well as the project of colonial territoriality that extracts knowledge from the global south to so often build careers of academics in the global north. The work of Indigenous scholar-activists has, and continues to be, vital in unsettling this colonial dominance within universities.

This post neoliberal imaginary is challenging the corporate university in significant

In addition to these, and other radical activities occurring within universities, there

The post neoliberal university

is also much inspiration and lessons that can be learnt from outside the academy: 1. The free university movement is based on free and open access to education, with anyone being free to attend. It is non-hierarchical – anyone can and is expert – and it involves gathering in real space and time (not online). By challenging fundamental issues related to access, expertise and the democratisation of knowledge, and as Eli Meyerhoff and Fern Thomspett explain, free universities are not just refiguring a better university, but also a better world.

2. Progressive activist think tanks around the world are charting a clear change agenda. They demonstrate commitment to ensuring the social and political salience and relevance of all research they undertake, and include examples such as the Ngara Institute and the Australia Institute.

3. Independent publishing houses demonstrate a fearless approach to publications. In Australia, New Matilda is one such example, that never shy away from difficult or risky work.

In her recent book In the Dark the Eye Can See, Joanna Macey calls for a greater commitment to community, solidarity and social connections. Such an approach, she argues, will be vital if we are to address the urgent problems we face, including climate change and growing in equality.

There is a vital need to consider the responsibility of universities in the context of these, and other, challenges, to ensure the post neoliberal university is able to equip tomorrows graduates not simply with the skills, but also with the steady hearts and moral compass needed to grapple with these, and other challenges.

Reforming a broken higher education system simply won’t cut it, a radical reboot is required. It is in the spaces both within, and outside, including those I mentioned here, where the basis for a radical post neoliberal university lies. And it is the glimmers of that prefigurative future that is already present, that gives cause for hope that a truly public good university is not only possible, but on its way.

Kristen Lyons is an Associate Professor, School of Social Science, University of Queensland

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 27

State of the Uni

Thousands of uni staff have their say The second NTEU State of the Uni survey was conducted in May/June 2017. It is part of an ambitious project to build longitudinal information about university staff attitudes to the higher education sector, their university, their working conditions, and unions in the university workplace.

The survey was distributed to more than 170,000 union members and non-union employees working in higher education.

over the course of the year, an average of 14.6 hours of unpaid overtime based on a 38 hour week.

• Of the 45% of full-time general/ professional staff who reported that they worked uncompensated overtime, each (on a FTE basis) worked 6.2 hours per week of uncompensated overtime.

2017 NTEU

STATE OF

THE SURVEY UNI Have your say!

The main reason that both general/professional and academic staff said that they needed to work these long and uncompensated hours was to fulfil the requirements of the job.

We received more than 13,500 usable responses, almost double the number of responses to the first such survey conducted in 2015. In 2017 just under half (49%) of respondents were not members of a union. 61% of the respondents were female, 50% classified themselves as general and professional staff, with 40% identifying as academic staff with ongoing or fixed term employment. We also received about 1,400 responses (9%) from casual academic employees. This makes the 2017 State of the Uni Survey the largest such survey of staff working in higher education ever conducted.

Higher education policy

While a series of reports detailing particular aspects of the survey will be released in coming months, here are some of the survey’s more interesting findings.

Higher education staff overwhelmingly do not support these reforms.

Workloads Analysis of academic and general/professional staff workloads, based on information obtained by the NTEU’s 2017 State of Uni Survey, shows that on average: • Academic staff on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis worked 52.6 hours per week

The Minister for Higher Education, Simon Birmingham, released the Government’s Higher Education Reform Package in May 2017, applying an efficiency dividend of 2.5% p.a. to grants under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme (CGS) in 2018 and 2019, while asking students to pay 7.5% more in real terms in order to finance $2.8 billion of financial sustainability savings. The Minister has since struggled to convince the Senate crossbench and the broader public about the merits of his reform package.

Only 2.6% agreed or strongly agreed that “current Federal Government policy settings are taking Australian universities in the right direction”. A total of 69.9% disagreed or strongly disagreed, a similar response to a 2015 survey question about the general direction of higher education policy. Perhaps the most surprising result was that almost one out of two (45%) of Coalition voters thought the Government’s policy was going in the wrong direction.

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The unpopularity of the Government’s policies was further reflected in responses to questions about specific policy proposals.

Only 2% of all respondents agreed with the proposed $2.8 billion cut to public investment in higher education.

The unpopularity of specific policies amongst Coalition supporters was once again an unexpected result. Less than 10% of Coalition voters supported the proposed 7.5% increase in student fees and less than one in four (25%) the proposal to lower the income threshold for FEE-HELP repayments to $42,000.

Higher ed sector under strain The overwhelming majority (84.1%) of respondents agree that “universities are under too much pressure to make money and that this is reducing the quality of education”. Almost eight out of ten (79.8%) agreed that “universities are too corporate in their outlook”, and (78.1%) agreed that “universities are under financial pressure”.

Perhaps the most worrying of all responses was that less than one in three respondents (27%) believe their “University provides as good or better standard of education now than it did 5 years ago”.

University management Less than one in three (27.3%) of participants said they had confidence in senior

State of the Uni MAKE UP OF RESPONDENTS 40% Academic ongoing or fixed term

COALITION GOVERNMENT POLICIES

COALITION & SWING VOTERS

10% Academic Agree current Federal Government policy settings are taking Australian universities casual in the right direction 50% General/ Professional

51% NTEU members 49% Non members

WORKING LIFE Average hours of unpaid overtime worked in addition to 38 hour week

10%

2.6% Support Coalition Government’s proposal to reduce public university funding by $2.8b

61% Female 29% Male

Coalition voters who support a 7.5% increase in student fees

Coalition voters who support the proposal to lower the income threshold for FEE-HELP payments to $42,000

25%

2% Support Coalition Government’s proposal to increase student fees by 7.5% over 4 yrs

Change in swinging voters’ likely support for the Coalition at next election 15.2%

9.9%

2016

9.8%

11.6% 2016

House of Reps

Academics 14.6 hr

7.2%

Senate

UNIVERSITY STANDARDS

SENIOR MANAGEMENT

Agree universities can absorb a funding cut without damaging the quality of education

Have confidence in senior management at my institution

General/Professional 6.2 hr Maintain a good balance between work and other aspects of my life

47.7%

27.3%

8.7% Agree universities are under too much pressure to make money, reducing the quality of education

The performance of senior management at my institution is satisfactory

Workload is manageable

84.1% 45.4% Job feels secure

Agree that universities provide as good or better standard of education now than they did 5 years ago

36%

22.1%

The ability of senior management at my institution to manage change is satisfactory

15.9%

27%

management at their institution. In other matters, management fared even worse with only:

that “Staff and students have an important role on university councils and senates”.

This increased to 83.8% in 2017.

• Professional/general staff had lower job satisfaction and much less access to career promotion and progression.

• 15.2% agreeing that “Workplace change is handled well at my institution”.

Differences between academic and professional/general staff

• 24.3% stating they were consulted before decisions that affected them were made.

It is clear the sector has a challenge before it in bringing professional/general and academic staff closer together. Differences in the responses between professional/ general and academic staff were again pronounced in 2017.

More broadly, academic staff were far more likely to be worried about the financial probity of their institution, the impact of corporatisation and casualisation upon educational standards and had lower confidence in senior management. Professional/general staff were more unsure about whether the Coalition Government’s higher education reforms were taking higher education in the right direction.

• 47.7% agreeing that they could maintain a good balance between work and other aspects of their life, and • 45.4% stating their workload was manageable.

Concerns with senior management extend to institutional governance. In 2015, 72.3% of respondents supported the statement

Specifically: • Academics generally had higher job satisfaction, but felt they had lower control over their work and less ability to maintain work-life balance.

Michael Evans, National Organiser nteu.org.au/stateoftheuni

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 29

S T R O P P U S NTEU Y T I L A U Q E E G MARRIA NTEU has campaigned visibly for many years to achieve marriage equality. On November 15 the Australian Bureau of Statistics will publish the results of the marriage equality law survey. It’s been an intensely personal time for many. We knew it would be.

Authorised by Colin Long, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, Sth Melbourne VIC 3205

Early on, NTEU called for a parliamentary vote on this human rights issue, opposing a plebiscite and then this current survey.

This was for many reasons. Besides the obvious arguments against the immense cost involved to host the survey and the relevance in a parliamentary democracy, probably the most significant for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI) is that they were, again, left isolated, marginalised and vulnerable.

Initiating a popular vote and inviting public debate on an equality issue has been problematic for LGBTI folk, experiencing a level of scrutiny not felt since the HIV/AIDS crisis back in the 1980s or the days when police persecution and ‘gay bashing’ were quietly condoned. A bunch of arguments against marriage equality including various forms of moral panic and religious objections fogged the central survey question, being one of equality.

Many of these arguments actually masked a general discomfort with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in general.

Equality is union business David Willis QUTE Caucus

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NTEU National Council decisions about marriage equality have long recognised that marriage equality is union business.

As union members we work together to build a just and fair society for everyone.

This won’t happen while LGBTI workers are treated differently to other workers.

Marriage equality is just part of the work of unions.

We acted swiftly when the survey was announced surveying the Union’s LGBTI caucus, Queer Unionists in Tertiary Education (QUTE). Most were stunned that the Government would make LGBTI rights the subject of a popular opinion poll but also recognised that if the survey was happening we needed to ensure a strong ‘YES’ result.

NTEU National Executive approved a ‘YES’ campaign for the duration of the postal survey. It included NTEU’s endorsement of the peak campaign group Australian Marriage Equality and collaboration with a range of other groups including the National Union of Students, Victorian Trades Hall, Victorian AIDS Council and the ACTU. The emphasis of the campaign became supporting people to return their surveys, to communicate the Union’s policy position supporting LGBTI equality and to engage LGBTI members and their allies in this work in Branches throughout Australia.

The ‘Yes’ campaign has been an opportunity for QUTE caucus to grow nationally, an outcome sought by delegates at the NTEU’s January 2017 conference, Raising Our Voices, Education, Activism and Change, Valuing LGBTI Workers. Local Division campaign contacts were identified, a range of resources developed including a designated campaign webpage and daily social media updates.

members emphasising the significance of the campaign followed by a text message sent reminding them to vote in the survey.

Campaign packs were sent to members who requested them and some Branches passed a motion of support recognising that LGBTI people should be able to enjoy the full range of human rights throughout the world, without exception. Branch ‘Morning Teas for Equality’ in October continued the Union’s support of LGBTI members.

Personal conversations have largely been the core of the campaign. Besides arranging and participating in visible campaign activities that prompted these conversations NTEU members also joined organised phone banks or held their own.

Australian Marriage Equality set a campaign target of 750,000 calls throughout the campaign, with close to 700,000 achieved at the time of writing this. NTEU members – and union members generally – have contributed to this total.

NTEU members contacted leadership directly expressing their thanks to the Union for supporting the campaign. One wrote, “With 3/3 of my kids in same sex partnerships, let me say thank you!”. Some disagreed with their union supporting the campaign and a small number resigned in protest.

At the 2017 National Council Meeting, which met mid-campaign in early October, delegates unanimously repeated the Union’s commitment to campaign for marriage equality and to allocate resources that support the work of QUTE caucus nationally.

NTEU has firmly articulated a policy and industrial and political commitment to advancing the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and communities within and beyond the higher education sector.

QUTE caucus and NTEU leadership will revisit this work after the survey results are known. The immediate work if a strong ‘Yes’ result occurs will be to ensure Parliament legislates for marriage equality.

Dave Willis, Victorian Division Organiser nteu.org.au/qute/marriage_equality Join the QUTE Facebook page www.facebook.com/qutenteu

Above: NTEU National Executive supporting the Yes campaign.

Below: Voting parties at SCU and ANU (opposite).

NTEU says Yes! In September, members joined their NTEU friends, colleagues, family and communities at rallies and Pride Marches held throughout Australia. Most were the largest marriage equality rallies ever held in Australia. Our QUTE Banner journeyed to Queensland to join Qld Pride March.

QUTE also became visible at campus stalls, morning teas, YES campus mail events and other campus campaign events throughout the country.

NTEU-badged posters, stickers and t-shirts helped raise the visibility of the campaign.

An email was sent by the leadership to all

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 31

Equity

Seeking balance in honorary degrees When the news broke that former football player and Australian of the Year, Adam Goodes had been granted an honorary doctorate from the University of Sydney, it was hard – as an Aboriginal woman who has been associated with ‘the academy’ for two decades – to not feel a mix of extraordinary pride along with some disillusionment.

Over the past few years we have seen an increase in the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people awarded honorary degrees, with other notable examples being Linda Burney, M and G Yunupingu, Stan Grant and Cathy Freeman. Goodes has been a prominent part of anti-racism dialogues in this country for quite a while now and has certainly been an inspiration to many, particularly young Indigenous kids at risk.

The flipside is that while Aboriginal honorary awards need to be celebrated, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are a long way off reaching population parity rates when it comes to degree attainment, despite being in the system for the past 50 years. Additionally, for more than a decade Aboriginal women have been entering the academy at twice the rate Aboriginal men have been. They therefore account for a large proportion of the work, teaching, research and engagement which comes out of the academy.

Despite these heavily skewed statistics, Aboriginal men dominate the higher level

positions. In addition, when it comes to the recognition of game-changers within our society by the universities, honorary degrees and awards have mostly been awarded to Aboriginal men. Aboriginal women are therefore left to struggle through a hostile and increasingly insecure system to obtain a similar level of recognition.

The picture does not get better when looking at the gender-based statistics on honorary recognitions more broadly. It seems that while universities are getting slightly better at embracing diversity when it comes to race (at least when it comes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander awardees) when conferring their awards, they still have a long way to go when it comes to addressing the gender disparities. Are we still, in 2017, supposed to believe that there are not enough women contributing to the world around them in ways the universities find worthy of commendation?

Indeed, when looking at the 31 recipients of honorary awards over the past two years at University of Sydney, men make up 58 per cent of the awardees – just a little bit more than the actual percentage of women working in the higher education sector. What’s more, this is a vast improvement on years gone by. Since USyd began conferring honorary awards, women have made up just 16 per cent of the awardees.

Other universities don’t fare much better when it comes to the recognition of women’s contributions in research and broader society. At University of Melbourne, women made up just 18 per cent of the awardees of honorary qualifications between 2006 and 2015 inclusive. In both cases, Aboriginal men outnumber Aboriginal women awardees as well. To take a regional university as a point of comparison, Charles Sturt does slightly better when it comes to achieving more representative rates on the gender breakdown of Aboriginal awardees. It will, however,

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be noted that overall, women again only make up 21 per cent of the awardees at CSU and not a single professor emeritus listed is a woman. This trend continues at all universities.

It appears that as with the naming of buildings and endowments, universities continue to be fixated on celebrating the achievements of white men above all others. While women, and particularly Aboriginal women, might be struggling through the academy and graduating at rates higher than any men, this has led to little shift in university commendations.

Indeed, their main response to the gender shift in the academy has seemed to be to make the employment opportunities less secure so that women end up even more sidelined within their structures.

While it is fantastic that we are seeing more Aboriginal people getting due recognition from universities via the honorary degree process, this shift is certainly not indicative of universities becoming more inclusive and embracing diversity when it comes to who they honour. They have such a very long way to go on that front.

Celeste Liddle, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Organiser

Above: Adam Goodes receiving his honorary doctorate from University of Sydney, Sept 2017. Source: USyd

AUR

Activism and the academy vol. 59, no. 2, 2017

Published by NTEU

ISSN 0818–8068

Special issue

Activism and the Academ y

The current issue of Australian Universities’ Review (AUR) is the result of the hard work of guest editors and 13 authors of eight papers who between them sought to offer ‘… an active commitment to achieving change directly, in our workplaces, our communities and in the current political climate…’

The idea for this ‘special issue’ came out of a panel discussion during the 5th International Academic Identities conference, held in Sydney during 2016. This conference examined the framing of academic identity in times of rapid change.

Why is there a need to examine academic activism? The backdrop to this is shortterm and insecure work that has become the norm of the contemporary university in light of things such as short-term funding for research, and using precariously-employed casual staff to undertake a huge proportion of teaching. At the same time, the quest for efficiency has seen an expansion of the extent that academic work is subjected to measurement, particularly in cases of research ‘outputs’.

Of course, one such ‘output’ is winning competitive research grants, but surely such grants are research inputs!

So, just what is efficient about having a stressed labour force? The editors point to the changes that have occurred over time in university work. They describe the ‘hybrid university worker’: university undergraduates in long-term casual administrative employment; research students holding down simultaneous research assistant contracts, and casual teachers, sometimes with multiple employers. It

must be difficult for staff to be ‘innovative’ when they have only a few weeks to settle their next (micro) contract! It is difficult to perceive any of these aspects of the modern Australian university as ‘efficient’.

It isn’t the intended role of this short piece to summarise the papers in the special issue, but purely as something to whet your appetite, let me mention a couple of the papers. What does it mean to be an activist in today’s university sector? This scenario is examined by Agnes Bosenquet and Cathy Rytmeister. Among other things, they note the massification that has been part of the university picture for the last couple of decades should have increased demand for academic staff. But it hasn’t! Adopting a market approach is advanced by its proponents as a way to make the system more efficient. However, it depends on how you define ‘efficiency’.

Taking a perspective from abroad, Liz Morrish describes how UK academics have become ‘increasing enmeshed in audit, particularly of research outputs’. She outlines how academics at one UK university acted collectively to resist the imposition of individual targets, leading to eventual acceptance by the university in question of a more collegial approach.

Natalie Osborne and Deanna Grant-Smith consider the importance of graduate employability in Australia, but suggest that it is not the primary purpose of academic staff, nor should it be the yardstick by which the quality of teaching and education are measured. They examine options for resistance.

Universities are not solely comprised of academic staff, and Ann Lawless notes the unique role played by professional/ general staff in Australian universities. She says that activism can be embedded in the daily work practices of professional/ general staff.

AUR

Australian Un iversities’Revi ew

term ‘reform’ is usually taken to mean that the system being reformed is somehow improved. However, when did any government ever submit its ‘reforms’ to the test, by explaining in advance what the ‘reforms’ would improve, and then to test whether the improvements sought actually came to pass. Do we ever expect to read of a government admitting that their ‘reforms’ had not worked, and an outline of how they would be reversed?

The most recent government ‘reforms’ saw the Turnbull Government’s attempt to institute funding cuts of $2.8 billion. Mercifully, in this instance, the changes will not go through as the Government would like it to, due to Senate opposition by Labor, the Greens, Jacqui Lambie and the Nick Xenophon Team. Well done! Clearly, activism continues to have a role.

Activism in universities has a different context in the contemporary university compared with its context in the past. It is important to reflect on what activism can mean, and on how we can move forward.

Please read this issue of AUR! Ian Dobson, Editor, AUR www.aur.org.au

Governments typically seek to change higher education systems, and invariably describe these changes as ‘reform’. The

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 33

Research workloads

Photo credit: jjesadaphorn / 123RF Stock Photo

When we first started working in academia, we were confused about workload measurement in EFTSLs. It took us a while to figure out the effective full-time student load for an hour-long lecture to 150 people was the same as six hour-long tutorials. How absurd! So, no wonder we were feeling under the pump.

John Kenny UTAS

Andrew Fluck UTAS

page 34 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Times have changed, and most university academic staff Agreements have a cap on the total number of hours to be worked in a year. We recognise workload models vary within each institution, and from one discipline to the next. Their formation can be interesting, benefitting from circumstances where staff are involved in determining the time it takes for specific tasks.

Having been involved in negotiations for our local University of Tasmania (UTAS) model, we recall the final arbitration meeting where staff fought tooth and nail for every minute of teaching-related workload time. When the dust had settled, the meeting moved on to consider administration and service quanta. The first new topic was ‘compliance’ activities – all those forms we are required to fill throughout the year.

The staff side had a rough tally of these, and tentatively suggested 78 hours per annum for compliance tasks. When management accepted this without demur, it was clear the bid had been too low!

Managerial approaches value the measurable, so these workload models attempt to provide a mechanism to estimate the time associated with the key tasks that make up academic work. Thus, they should be based on consultation and designed to capture the key tasks which academics perform (Kenny & Fluck, 2014). This is necessary to ensure time allocations are realistic enough to apply to many real-working

life situations, but they should not be expected to capture everything an academic does. For instance, much academic work is done in teams, but workload models tend to focus on individual workloads.

When we recognise however, that academics are subjected to annualised performance review as individuals, then it is necessary they have some transparent and realistic means to estimate their workload. We argue that, if each individual can keep their own workload in check, it will provide time to engage in the more collaborative activities.

It is generally accepted that teaching elements in workload models can be assigned actual hours as a baseline for discussion in most circumstances. We published some analysis of teaching data from the national survey on academic work conducted in 2015-16 (Kenny and Fluck, 2017) based on 2059 responses from all Australian universities. About 43% of these were estimated to be responses from union members, a little above the nationally representative proportion, but not unreasonably so. It should also be possible to determine reasonable allocations to associate with a wide range of service related tasks.

The accepted approach in universities is that, unlike teaching, research is measured retrospectively and on the basis of outputs, not the input effort required. This becomes problematic when attempting to determine an individual’s annual research workload, as distinct from their research performance. Addressing this is particularly pertinent for research intensive staff and being able to determine the true staff time associated with research. This distinction between workload allocation and performance is not made clear across the sector.

For someone with a typical 40% research allocation in their workload, there are ‘grey’ areas which are increasingly being dumped into the self-directed basket.

This can include the supervision of higher degree candidates and grant applications. How much time does this activity typically take? How many supervisions is considered reasonable? Similarly, there is significant time associated with preparing a research grant application, but currently it only ‘counts’ if, and when, the grant is successful.

Similarly for a journal paper.

the paper on teaching workloads (Kenny & Fluck 2017) we were able to establish a series of figures for research related tasks.

As for teaching, while a high degree of variation was evident on any given task, the volume of responses enabled us to drill down through disciplinary variations to come up with what we believe are reliable figures to associate with a wide range of research related tasks, based on the median to express the central values and minimise the effects of outliers.

The results were subjected to statistical analysis to establish their validity. As an example, the median time for an individual academic to prepare an article for submission to a journal for peer review article was 100 hours, based on returns from 723 respondents, but there was clear evidence level A staff took longer. This is not a surprising result, but it’s good to have an evidential data set to confirm it. There was also some evidence that academics in Arts, Humanities and Business take considerably longer to write an article.

In conversations about research workload, we suggest that the allocation of 100 hours would be used as a baseline allocation when an individual academic negotiates in their performance conversation, to write a journal article as part of their annualised workload. It recognises the significant input time required and is not reliant on its acceptance for publication.

The publication (or not) of the article becomes a topic when discussing the individual’s performance. This marks a significant deviation from the retrospective determination of research activity we have been used to. The time allocation is for the activity of writing the paper – not for the antecedent activities of running experiments, travelling to sites to gather data and so on. As you can see – a very idealised situation, but necessary for the level of abstraction needed to be useful.

One of the key features of the Australian research landscape is the new focus on grant funding. To win a grant, every academic has to write several grant applications, in a context

where about 14% are successful. What’s the workload for that? In a retrospective management workload model, the only grants that count are the successful ones.

The others are put right in there as a voluntary contribution to the institution.

Because research is intrinsic to academia, excess achievement in this endeavour is common. The least the university can do is be grateful, but these unsuccessful grant applications are ‘best forgotten’. 490 of our respondents provided a median estimate for the preparation of a nationally competitive (category 1) research grant application of 120 hours.

The publication of these survey results is currently in review, so further details are pending. Nevertheless, the data provide the possibility of a more robust mechanism for individuals to discuss their research workload. It’s all very well having an annual cap on total academic working hours, but unless we can establish some validated ways to account for the hours, we might as well be doing it for free. Some may regard a tariff for research workload with disdain, and the broad spread of responses shows many will find median values dissimilar to their own practice.

However, the flip side is that workload models for research can move to being prospective instead of retrospective, with nominal estimates for solo performance seen as starting points for the conversation.

John Kenny is a senior lecturer in Science Education at UTAS, and NTEU Tasmanian Division President.

Andrew Fluck is a senior lecturer in Information Technology at UTAS. andrew.fluck.id.au The authors would like to express their deep gratitude to everyone that responded to the survey on academic workloads, without which this research would not have been possible.

References Kenny, J.D.J. & Fluck, A.E. (2014). The effectiveness of academic workload models in an institution: a staff perspective. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 36 (6) 585602. DOI: 10.1080/1360080X.2014.957889 Kenny, J. & Fluck, A.E. (2017). Towards a methodology to determine standard time allocations for academic work. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 39 (5) 503-523. DOI: 10.1080/ 1360080X.2017.1354773

Given this hazy view of how to deal with research workloads, we conducted a survey of academic staff around Australia to gather estimates of time to complete tasks of which they had recent and personal experience. Using the same methodology as described in

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 35

Science Meets Policymakers

Exposing scientists to bureaucrats At Science Meets Policymakers in August, people discussed and offered input on two main areas: managing and making sense of the forest of environmental information available, and developing a long-term science and innovation strategy for Australia.

Organised by Science and Technology Australia (STA), the event combined advice and information sharing with networking.

Senior public servants from departments and quangos came together with research managers, science communicators and science researchers, and a smattering of ARC and NHMRC Centre of Excellence representatives (Environment Decisions, Dementia Research, Climate System Science, Dynamics of Language). It also included 9 young women superstars of STEM, who will mentor other young STEM researchers.

STA represents more than 68,000 STEM professionals. They aim to connect research and policy, and to provide a unified voice for STEM professionals. They are preparing a plan for the future, which will open for consultation soon. Cathy Foley from CSIRO manufacturing presented STA’s (ambitious!) goals. I noted:

7. Embracing & preparing for the future.

8. Strong public confidence in science.

9. Policy informed by evidence and research.

Of these goals, the main ones addressed in this event were how to build strong public confidence in science and how to create policy informed by evidence and research.

The importance of Australia gaining a reputation for international collaboration was another interesting issue concerning the use of science collaborations in soft diplomacy, and the potential for science talk to be universal (because most people want to benefit from it).

All three goals revolved around communication, and around moving from the harangue, or ‘trust-me-I-wear-a-whitecoat’. Effective persuasion, it was argued, is based on unified clear messages, on understanding the forces that drive the policymakers, and the constraints on what they can do (e.g. no new net expenditure), and on forming strong relations with politicians of all parties, ministerial advisors and public servants.

Effective communication was illustrated by the campaign that led to funding the Australian Synchrotron (10 years, $520 million). It was based on the campaigners’ demonstration that the Synchrotron would have good effects in many areas of society. There was a bit of Synchrotron envy – the plaintive cry “we have a lot of things that need funding, we just don’t have a thingatron to show the politicians”.

5. Coordinating approach to STEM policy.

The reverse, how bad policy is formed against good scientific advice, was provided by Peter Thomas, Australian Medical Research Institutes, with a particularly vivid description of how local interests, local connections and anecdotes can trump solid science research. What drives bad policy, and bad implementation of good policy, was shown by implication in Patricia Kelly’s (IP Australia) desiderata for good policy, which I took to be:

6. Gaining a reputation for international collaboration.

• Based on analysis of history and relevant data (as opposed to basing

1. Sound investment in science and technology research and its application.

2. Investment in high quality STEM education.

3. Strong secure stable research.

4. Creating a diverse STEM sector.

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it on anecdotes from constituents in marginal electorates and short-sighted solutions to problems those constituents have).

• Developed in public (rather than in secret, and revealed with a flourish on budget night).

• Developed in consultation with experts and stakeholders (not just on anecdotes from constituents in marginal electorates and short-sighted solutions to problems those constituents have).

• Based on long-term agenda (not on short term political imperatives and populism).

• Established with clear objectives and milestones to measure progress against.

• Coordination across state and federal governments and across portfolios.

The last goal was repeated throughout the day in the key-phrase ‘whole-of-government’ approach to policy. It’s needed because science research is scattered across portfolios, Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, IP Australia, Department of Environment and Energy, CSIRO, and the new Office of Innovation and Science, Office of the Chief Scientist, Department of Defence etc…. As someone said, what if one government branch helps companies to sell fatty foods and another branch provides people with tape measures for their middles?

In sum, ‘Science meets policymakers’ was a good event for hearing from policy-makers and wannabe-policy-influencers, for meeting them, and for thinking about clear persuasive communication. My main complaint is that the non-members fee of $495 is a lot for a day. And my sincere thanks to the NTEU for sponsoring my attendance.

Jane Simpson is Chair of Indigenous Linguistics and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Languages, ANU Find out more about STA at: scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au

Turkey

Uni workers targeted Over 23,000 Turkish academics have either lost their jobs at universities when their contracts were terminated, or were dismissed from their positions, or the universities where they worked were closed down by the Government since September 2016, according to the BBC report in July 2017 one year on from the failed coup.

As well as academics and university general staff, tens of thousands of scientists, teachers, journalists, civil servants and even police, military and members of the judiciary, have been suspended or dismissed from their jobs, and in some cases imprisoned.

The Erdoğan regime continues to use the failed coup of July 2016 as a front to strip thousands of their livelihood and to imprison suspected opponents of their repressive regime. There is no right to appeal, or to apply for a different position for suspended or dismissed public sector workers. Workers not only lose their jobs but any rights or benefits, such as pension schemes, health care or social insurance.

Passports are also confiscated.

Academics for Peace The persecution of the signatories of the Academics for Peace petition, which had commenced before the time of the failed coup, continues. The petition called for peace and the end of the persecution of the Kurds in northern Turkey. The government controlled publisher of academic journals has instructed editors to remove Academics for Peace signatories from editorial and reviewer boards, and conference organisers have been instructed to exclude Academics for Peace.

Whilst some courageous university senior management have stood up against the

regime and been harassed themselves, many have also collaborated. The Turkish Higher Education Council (YOK) and University Rectors are reported to have identified academics and students to be investigated and dismissed.

The government-controlled Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) – similar to the Australian Research Council – has terminated existing grants and rejected funding applications from Academics for Peace signatories and forced them to withdraw their names from published or under-review work funded in the past. PhD students have to submit a statement pledging that their research does not harm national interest.

2017

Secular education in regime’s sights TUBITAK has stopped printing books on the scientific theory of evolution and increased support for research projects favouring creationism. In August the Government announced that evolution theory will be removed from the school curriculum in favour of an ‘Islamic world view’. Secularism has been a fundamental historic value for over a century in the Turkish political system, reflected in secular education at all levels.

NTEU pledges solidarity with our colleagues in Turkey 2017 National Council committed to ongoing solidarity with Turkish university workers and their union in the face of contunuing government persecution. The motion noted NTEU believes that higher education and research are global endeavours and as a trade union of education workers we must support our colleagues across national borders. The importance of universities and intellectuals as critics and conscience of society should not be underestimated; and attacks upon freedom of speech and upon academic freedom must be challenged and refuted.

Free to Think Report of the Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitoring Project

A letter from retired NTEU member, Professor David Legge sums the need to take action in solidarity; “The silence of the international academic community and its journals, bodies and conferences will be a sign that restrictions of academic freedom can be implemented more easily by other authoritarian regimes in the future.”

NTEU National Council pledged to continue to support international appeals, and to call for the end to the State of Emergency in Turkey and for the reinstatement of academics, scientists, teachers, journalists and civil servants with their full employment rights. The motion also encouraged members to write and sign onto letters of protest and petitions, as well as take further more specific and strategic actions through academic channels that support Turkish academics and students, and target the complicit universities and the Higher Education Council and Research Council of Turkey.

Jeannie Rea, National President

Above: Cover of Scholars At Risk’s Free to Think report; Police detain a woman during protests against government decree ordering mass dismissal of academics, at Cebeci campus of Ankara University (10 Feb 2017). www.scholarsatrisk.org/resources/ free-to-think-2017

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 37

Students before profit International campaign against commercialisation of education focuses on Nepal The Kathmandu valley is rapidly developing, sprawling out into the Himalayan foothills, but despite enormous population growth only two public schools have opened in the last ten years. Yet there are many more schools.

Unfortunately, these are low-fee for-profit private schools, registered as company schools, and offering ‘one size fits all’ schooling to those that can pay and get to the schools.

This is indicative of the frighteningly rapid transformation happening throughout the developing world as governments withdraw from funding public education and hand over schools to private companies.

In Uttar Pradesh in India the state government has signed a memorandum of understanding outsourcing 4000 schools to Bridge Academy, a major global corporate actor, who along with Pearson and others, are seeking to make billions out of the massive ‘education market’. They have priced the market at US$4.9 trillion per annum rising to US$6.3 trillion by 2020.

Private schools were almost non-existent in Nepal before 1980, but public education is now systematically underfunded, as the share of GDP has fallen from 4.2 to 3.9 % in the last five years. Now almost one in five of school attending children are enrolled in for-profit private schools.

Photo credit: Education International

Low-fee for-profit schools

Jeannie Rea, National President

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As in other countries, the low-fee for-profit model is contributing to deepening inequality as even at a low-fee it is the better off families that can participate and the poor and isolated as well as minorities are excluded. Improvements in girls’ school participation are being eroded through this model as well.

The for-profit private schools largely employ untrained teachers with a high turnover, teaching from a script supplied

by the company. Success is measured by performance in examinations achieved by rote learning. New research by Education International, Nepal: Patterns of Privatisation in Education. A case study of low-fee private schools and private chain schools, concluded that the broader mission of education in society and children’s development is not prioritised in most of these schools.

This research report was launched at the recent conference of Education International (EI) affiliates at the Asia Pacific regional conference in Kathmandu, with a call for an increase to 20% of the budget in government investment in public education in Nepal, along with strong governance, and “careful monitoring of the quality of the tuition provided in the so-called ‘low-fee’ for-profit schools.”

Article 31 of the constitution of Nepal enshrines education as a fundamental right with free primary and secondary education mandated, yet, as in so many places, the Nepalese government is abrogating its primary responsibilities and handing over education provision to for-profit companies.

Global Response Project In a persuasive and passionate address to the conference, EI’s Global Response Project Director Angelo Gavrielatos, argued that privatisation and commercialisation of education are now the greatest threats to the provision of ‘Education for All’, which is now captured in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 Quality Education, which commits signatory countries to quality free primary and secondary and affordable tertiary education for all by 2030.

Cynically and opportunistically the marketers of the low-fee for-profit model are convincing governments struggling to expand education provision into buying their wares. The consequence is that in Liberia, for example, the Government is intent upon outsourcing all schools to external private companies.

Even in Australia we are now seeing the edu-businesses, as they are known, insinuating themselves into our public education system through such methods as capturing parts of the NAPLAN process as the Government blithely outsources elements in the widely disliked student performance measurement program. The

pattern in other countries including The Philippines and across African countries is that Pearson, Bridge Academy and aligned companies are grabbing more and more parts of the public education system.

Not only do they open up competitor schools against the underfunded public schools, but also teach to their curriculum materials and as they assume control of government exams, of course students and their families need to buy their propriety products. Teachers are often school leavers relying upon the instructions on the company supplied tablet. This model is designed to wind all the way through to controlling teaching training and tertiary education providers.

There is an alternative This business model will fail if governments invest more of their budgets in education and publicly funded schools provide the access for all to a decent education. EI has developed a roadmap to increasing and stabilising the financing of education, focused upon governments’ prioritising education funding and paying for this through fair taxation systems and ending corruption and handouts to private corporations. The extreme is illustrated in Nigeria where US$3.3 billion is gifted annually to oil companies while 11 million school-age children are not in school.

The edu-businesses and their allies have created a dominant narrative that there is a “crisis in education”, Gavrielatos explained, but, he argued, the only crisis is one of political will. Applying market principles to education does not improve outcomes and just compounds the problem as success is measured on metrics that cannot assess quality of educational outcomes. A recent World Bank report has concluded that privatised education, even on their measurements, does not improve outcomes compared to public schools, and excludes the most vulnerable children and adults.

EI’s Global Response to the Commercialisation of Education is chasing down the profiteers with ac-

tion in Kenya, Ghana, Liberia and Uganda in Africa; The Philippines, India and Nepal in Asia; in Uruguay and now also into the Middle East, where refugees are seen as a business opportunity! The campaign can be effective in slowing down and stopping the incursion of the global businesses, but requires constant vigilance, legal, political and direct action as the corporate actors are ruthless, rich and determined to mine the lucrative education ‘market.’

EI commits to action The EI Asia Pacific conference carried a very strong resolution to ramp up action in the region noting that the global corporate actors can only do what they are doing if governments let them in, or worse still invite them in over their responsibility for all children and adults’ rights to education and training.

The conference recognised that what is needed is research to identify the issues along with mobilising and organising amongst educators in the first instance, but also across other unions, civil society organisations and other allies. Advocacy including utilising the media is critical, and increasingly social media is the avenue for mobilising amongst new segments of the population.

There is the need to create and propagate the counter narrative to that which reduces education to a market. The unions agreed that we need to integrate the campaign against commercialisation and privatisation in everything we do as it impacts upon access and equity, quality, curriculum facilities and educators’ professional and trade union rights. Smashing unions is a core part of the business model. Delegates concluded that we must build regional and international solidarity.

New higher ed campaign The Global Response Project is about to launch an international campaign focused on a particular aspect of the privatisation of higher education. NTEU will be part of this. Follow announcements and developments at the NTEU and EI websites where you can also download the Nepal report and other reports. www.ei-ie.org

Left: Susan Hopgood, EI President and AEU Federal Secretary, in Kathmandu. Credit: Jeannie Rea

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 39

News from the Net Pat Wright

Twitter for Refugees Social Media almost invariably gets a Bad Press.

People in positions of power and influence find it hard to say anything good about it. Print journos, of course, can often be selectively scathing, particularly if they think it is costing them their jobs.

However, if one can ignore the mindless trolls (of whom there are too many), just occasionally one comes across a positive use of social media.

One such positive use is Social Media for Good, at sm4good.com – a joint initiative of UN Global Pulse and the UNHCR’s Innovation Service to analyse social media use for humanitarian purposes.

Building on a 2015 report on social media monitoring after the Nepal earthquake, and a 2016 report on social networking

by Arabic-speaking and Afghan refugees and migrants, a White Paper titled ‘Social Media and Forced Displacement: Big Data Analytics and Machine-Learning’ was published in September 2017.

The research project used data from Twitter to monitor and analyse protection issues and experiences of migrants and refugees in Europe. Taxonomies were created to parse Twitter interactions among refugees, between refugees and their host communities and with service providers, and the sentiment of host

communities towards refugees (particularly after the terrorist attacks in Europe) in English, Greek, German, French, Arabic and Farsi. Big Data mining and assaying of this huge ore-body of tweets enabled UNHCR to better understand, to adapt their practices, and in some cases mitigate the circumstances of refugees.

Closer to home, another example of using social media for good was a recent Twitter post from Researchers for Asylum Seekers (@Researchforas) at the University of Melbourne, which called for papers to be presented at their Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference on Forced Migration and Human Rights on 16 Nov 2017. Two formats for the papers were suggested – 20 minute oral presentations (15min talk + 5min questions), and 5 minute oral presentations with 5 minutes for questions. It was suggested that the latter presentation might use the ‘Ignite’-style format – 20 slides which automatically advance every 15 seconds.

Ignite is a series of five-minute presentations which began in Seattle in 2006 and has since sparked Ignite events at more than 350 cities around the world. In Australia, the Ignite bushfire was first lit

by Stephen Lead in Sydney in 2008. The next Ignite Sydney 2017 is scheduled for 1 Nov at the Oxford Art Factory and a list of presenters is on ignitesydney.com.

Stephen is also responsible for designing, building and maintaining the Ignite Talks website at ignitetalks.io (the .io domain name has an interesting entry in Wikipedia) where one can browse Ignite videos on a wide range of issues presented at past Ignite Events. A few with relevance to Forced Migration and Human Rights include: • Hannes Gassert, ‘Online Asylum for Switzerland’ at Ignite Zurich.

• A smartphone app whereby people seeking asylum can make application

to the Swiss (or other) Government without having to risk a dangerous sea-journey.

• Neda Tavassoli, ‘I-ran into some problems’ at Ignite Phoenix.

• A humorous explosion of many myths about Ee-Ron in real life.

• Tarek Said, ‘Refugees have funny stories too’ at Ignite Sydney 2016.

A humorous account of the journey from Syria, through Turkey and Greece to the Netherlands, produced by Hunting with Pixels, a social video production agency in Sydney and Melbourne.

A third glimmer of hope that online technology might assist refugees is at UNSW, where the Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au publishes online a great deal of refugee research and news, and supports the UNSW Refugee Trauma and Recovery Program at rtrp-research. com which is conducting five research projects into the situation of refugees in Australia.

One of the projects, The Refugee Adjustment Study, is a series of online surveys in English, Farsi, Arabic and Tamil over three years to gain insights into the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers recently settled in Australia. Hopefully, the insights gained will help policy-makers and service-providers to improve the well-being of the 30,000 people in Australia on Bridging Visa E, 3-year Temporary Protection Visa, or 5-year Safe Haven Enterprise Visa, as well as the 12,000 sponsored people who fled the Syrian conflict.

Oh, yes, see also the newsfeed on Twitter @J4RSA. Pat Wright is an NTEU Life Member. pat.wright@me.com

All NTEU members are automatically covered for journey injury insurance.

Travel Work insurance Travel Toto Work Insurance

As an individual you could be paying hundreds of dollars per year to get this valuable cover, but as a financial member of NTEU, it’s absolutely free!

Find out more at www.nteu.org.au/traveltowork page 40 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Lowering the Boom Ian Lowe

Tam U embraces the Trump era Yes, it is that time of the year again. With the jacaranda blossoms falling, students looking anxious and the expanding army of casual academics wondering whether they will get contracts for next year, I headed off on my annual trip to Tamworth. It is always interesting to meet Cal d’Aria, the inspirational vice-chancellor, president and now beloved supreme leader of feisty little Tamworth University.

As has been his usual habit, Cal gathered his top advisors to share their thoughts with me. They were all there: academic advisor Dr Saba de Todo, marketing head Prof. Ateer and chief administrator Dr Ongo, recruited several years ago from Canberra to drive Ongoing reform. There was a new face at the lunch table, which groaned with rare delicacies from around the world: Dr S.M. Artarse, fresh from a short and eventful engagement as educational advisor to the Trump Administration. “Just call me Sammy”, he boomed, before expounding on the benefits of free-market economic policy, saying it was “freeing universities from the dead hand of government”.

Of course, Tam U has long been a pioneer, with innovations years ahead of most other universities: eliminating common rooms, getting rid of staff offices, putting all academics on short-term contracts and closing its library. “Where Tam U leads, the rest follow!” has been Cal’s mantra for several years. But he was clearly shaken by the question mark against the legitimacy of his local member, Barnaby Joyce. “We really need Barnaby in the Cabinet, giving our approach the inside running in Canberra”, he said. “It’s just a pity our boy Tone no longer has the whip hand. I thought I was in line for a knighthood while he was

running the show.” Cal’s proposal to give Barnaby an honorary doctorate is on hold while his citizenship is being tested in the High Court, but Cal was confident that he would be back one way or the other.

Barnaby Joyce’s problems seem to have given Tam U the idea of looking outside Australia for business. Cal and Prof. Ateer are no longer content to be a leading force in the Australian university system. They are looking across the Tasman, buoyed by the way Winston Peters is propping up the minority government. “Great new opportunities are opening up as the Government continues to run down public funding of New Zealand’s universities”, Cal said. “We have already bought for a song a degraded cow paddock near Queenstown to set up the Central Otago College [University Preparation].”

Cal was chortling about MURK, which I realised was his Murdoch University Reform Kit, a comprehensive package of measures to abolish completely any sort of standard terms and conditions for academics.

Cal seemed very cheerful about the prospects for COC-UP, combining access to snow runs with an armchair ride to graduate status. “The Japanese students will be all over it like a cheap suit”, Prof. Ateer chimed in. “We’ve already got a whole suite of TV commercials to promote the product in those growing Asian markets.”

Sam Artarse joined in the discussion to point out that going offshore was a clever way around the ridiculous demand by the Australian government that foreign students meet minimum standards in English.

“How stupid is that?”, he exclaimed. “Next thing they will be expecting potential fee-paying students to show some sign of academic achievement!” Tam U has long held that the only entry requirement is an ability to pay their course fees. “Demanding academic ability has been holding the old universities back for years. They have no vision!”

Centre for Rural Animal Protection, the Department Researching Intellectual Protection, the Southern Hemisphere Information Technology group and so on. Hardly a sentence went by without me needing a shifty look at the list I had furtively slipped into my shirt pocket.

Cal was chortling about MURK, which I realised was his Murdoch University Reform Kit, a comprehensive package of measures to abolish completely any sort of standard terms and conditions for academics.

“Murdoch’s managers stole our thunder by junking their staff award, but we will soon be way ahead of them”, he said. “The university board don’t pay me a million dollars a year for nothing. They expect I will deliver big-time savings!”

I usually only get to Tamworth once a year, but Cal has invited me back for his annual Xmas bash. He really appreciates the fact that I have been meeting him since he first took over the scruffy little hairdressing college and re-badged it as the Tamworth University of the Tonsorial Arts, then Tamworth University or simply Tam U. “You were talking to us way back when Barnaby was still pretending to be a Queensland senator”, Cal said. “So I want you to be at our ten-year celebration, the Supreme Leader’s Office Party. Slip down here for SLOP!” He even offered to send his personal helicopter up to the Sunshine Coast to get me, but I nervously turned down the offer. I am not worried about flying, even in those funny machines with no wings, but these days you can get into trouble accepting hospitality. Here in Queensland there are former Lord Mayors and Council CEOs having their integrity questioned, just because they were being repeatedly wined and dined by developers. I couldn’t help worrying that the bean-counters in the nteu office might get wind of Cal’s generosity and terminate my lucrative appointment as a columnist if they found out. I said I would pay my own way.

Ian Lowe is Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Griffith University.

M@AusConservation

I have to admire the way Tam U has a catchy acronym for every element: the

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The Thesis Whisperer Inger Mewburn

The Curse of Flexibility It may surprise regular readers of The Advocate that I have only ever attended one Union meeting – and that was a month ago. I always join a Union if it’s available, but I’ve never, you know – participated. I feel vaguely guilty about my lack of involvement.

Hence, I salve my conscience by writing for The Advocate, but the recent shenanigans over pay at Murdoch University motivated me to finally turn up at a meeting. It was a positive experience. I was particularly impressed with the diligence of members who sit at the negotiation table on our behalf. They do this difficult extra work for free. I’d like to take this chance, as one of the largely silent majority of members, to say a heartfelt ‘thank-you’ to these selfless colleagues.

However, I couldn’t, especially in the context of a discussion about workplace bargaining, pass up the chance to publicly ask what the Union is doing about the problem of academic overwork.

Like most (all?) academics, I work long hours – far more than my mandated 37.5.

I know for a fact (because I’m responsible for managing the unit budget) if I charged by the hour my employer couldn’t afford me. I can offer time in lieu and other forms of compensation to my professional staff, but our HR online portal doesn’t even have a way for me to ask for overtime.

Lachlan (our tireless organiser) acknowledged academic overwork is a problem, with a weary expression that suggested he’d sat through many a meeting on the topic. He acknowledged the Union has tacitly dropped it (for now) and the reason was a general fear from membership that putting limits on work hours would affect ‘workplace flexibility’. He did suggest the Union is open to ideas, so, Lachlan – challenge? Accepted! I have been thinking carefully, and reading about, the issue for a month. There’s not much space here to put forward my ideas, but I’ll try.

The first thing we must do is carefully separate the issues of flexibility and autonomy. For decades, academics have valued the opportunity to quietly disappear over summer, when the teaching is done. I am, for example, writing this piece on a plane.

I’m not even sure if my manager knows I am on this plane – or why I was going to Sydney in the first place.

However, I’m able to write because digital technology has made flexibility so easy that many knowledge workers can now decide where, when and how work gets done.

While workplace flexibility is now widespread, academia does offer a lot of scope for individuals to decide what type of work will be done. Autonomy is wonderful, but causes lots of problems for academics. My own overwork problem boils down to one simple fact: a huge appetite for research.

Like most (all?) academics, I work long hours – far more than my mandated 37.5. I know for a fact (because I’m responsible for managing the unit budget) if I charged by the hour my employer couldn’t afford me.

Like all academics, I am a creative person.

I can think up plenty of things to do with the (admittedly limited) time left over from teaching and service. I’ve never actually been told, at any work planning meeting, how many research outputs I should produce. To add fuel to this burning garbage fire, research is unpredictable.

You don’t know if you can get money, so you put in lots of grant applications to spread the risk.

Everything takes longer – or shorter – than you think it will and not everything you try gets results. Therefore, I often, unintentionally over-commit and find myself staying up late to ‘catch up’ (usually answering the deluge of email I’ve avoided all day).

I get no help to manage this overwork problem. My ambition has always been encouraged by managers, or at least – not curbed. And if I’m honest, I would not welcome any ‘help’ that stopped me doing my research, but, on Twitter this week,

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Alice Gorman (@drspacejunk) pointed out that the narrative of ‘personal choice’ is often used to mask academia’s reliance on unpaid work.

Yes – I could ‘choose’ to be less ambitious with my research agenda, but I’m not stupid. All actions have consequences. If I am not ambitious, I certainly won’t get promoted. My university, like all of them, has a weather eye on the league tables and adjusts the rewards accordingly. Then there’s job insecurity: I am on a renewable, but time limited contract. I’m quietly sure I would find myself out of a job at the end of it if I stopped doing research and worked a 37.5 hour week.

My over-work is the direct result of the feeling that I can never do enough to ‘satisfy’ my employer (and myself ). Smarter people than me have diagnosed this feeling as a symptom of autonomy in the context of neoliberalism, which encourages individuality and ambition and deliberately sets no limits on either. Any ‘fix’ to this problem is going to be incomplete, partial and tailored to individual circumstances.

Unless, of course, every university started ignoring the league tables, which give the neoliberal agenda it’s coercive power.

I therefore only have one concrete suggestion to offer in response to Lachlan’s challenge: we need to make the over-work problem more visible.

One simple way would be for the Union to insist that HR in each university provide its academics with a way to officially log their over-time, even if they don’t get paid for it. If we recorded the hours centrally, employers can see the extent of the problem, where it’s located and who is bearing the burden.

If individual academics have data about their own work, they can have sensible conversations with local management about their own schedules and ambitions. Armed with data, perhaps, unions could build links and organise – locally, nationally and even globally – and start to challenge the hegemonic league table game.

A world-wide Union meet up? I’d show up for that.

Dr Inger Mewburn does research on research and blogs about it. www.thesiswhisperer.com

M@thesiswhisperer

Letter from Aotearoa/NZ Sandra Grey

Critic, conscience, and community In New Zealand, as in Australia, education unions know they need to #ChangeTheRules which are squeezing the life out of both tertiary education and workers.

For too long on both sides of the ditch we’ve seen policies put in place which cut across providing quality, accessible tertiary education. In New Zealand student debt is topping $15 billion, staff stress is high (7 out of 10, compared to the 5.5 average for the rest of the workforce); pressure to meet government targets is compromising our professional integrity and the quality of education; and government underfunding has topped $1 billion forcing course closures and mass redundancies (160 at the University of Otago alone).

We need to #ChangeTheRules What is important is to work out what rules would better support our vision of a tertiary education system that provides accessible, life-long learning opportunities and which promotes academic freedom in the classroom and beyond.

And what better time to promote the vision of tertiary education staff than at the moment a new government forms, with all the promise of change that brings. New Zealanders have just elected a Labour-New Zealand First-Greens coalition Government which promises to curb the excesses of rampant market capitalism and hopefully will tackle the new public management approach to the public sector which has seen market rules implemented into public health, housing, and education.

students cut away if they are too risky for institution to enrol because they might bring down ‘completion’ rates.

Secondly, our new government must get rid of the arbitrary and distorting metrics which have a whole range of ‘unintended consequences’ in our tertiary education sector, including pressure to pass students who have not really achieved at the required standard.

New Zealanders have just elected a Labour-New Zealand First-Greens coalition Government which promises to curb the excesses of rampant market capitalism and hopefully will tackle the new public management approach to the public sector which has seen market rules implemented into public health, housing, and education.

What do we need of them?

Firstly ,our new government needs to recognise that knowledge is not a commodity. This means removing competitive funding mechanisms and working with unions, students, communities, and employers to build a planned and managed tertiary education system. Why is this so important?

Well the market approach to education provision has seen rural communities lose courses; cuts to teaching, learning, and research which is not seen as ‘commercialisable’ or building ‘economic growth’; and,

Tertiary education institutions need autonomy to operate properly and in turn staff needed to be trusted by their employers if they are to be innovative teachers and researchers. Over the past decade at all levels of education in New Zealand there has been a sustained attack on the professional voice of teachers and support staff by governments and senior managers. This cannot continue.

Thirdly, our new government must take steps to support the rights of workers to form and act as collectives. The balance of power now means that working in union with each other is often too hard or seen as too risky by staff working in very unstable, precarious working environments. For a start employers should not be able to walk away from the negotiating table as they can currently.

Overall what we need to see is a new government putting people at the centre of the education system. There is no need to let the economy randomly dictate our actions, we can drive the economy to serve the public need, and that includes ensuring we put enough money into tertiary education to ensure we look after the well-being of staff and students.

Basically we want a government that will #ChangeTheRules and restore our democratic, union, and professional rights.

A government that will put #StudentsB4Profit and when it comes to education #KeepItPublic. It is now for TEU members to step up and ensure that our newly formed coalition does #ChangeTheRules.

Sandra Grey is National President/Te Tumu Whakarae, New Zealand Tertiary Education Union/Te Hautū Kahurangi o Aotearoa www.teu.ac.nz

M@nzteu Below: Jacinda Ardern at Labor’s Pacific launch in August. Credit: Nevada Halbert/Wikipedia

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My Union 2017 National Council

Change the Rules: The Future of Work in Tertiary Education The dominant theme of this year’s National Council Meeting was the need to band together and take action in defence of our rights as workers, as higher education staff, as trade unionists and as people committed to human rights, justice and equality.

In the shadow of the termination of the Murdoch University Enterprise Agreement and an ugly negotiating environment at many other universities; the failure of the so called Fair Work Act which is now clearly, even to its former advocates, a creature of the bosses; anti-union legislation before parliament along with cuts to education funding; and the divisive survey on marriage equality, delegates had much to debate and important decisions to make in establishing the NTEU’s priorities over the next year. It was agreed that the priorities are:

Secure jobs should be the norm not exception New ACTU Secretary Sally McManus addressed the meeting on the first day stating that secure jobs need to be the norm not the exception. As higher education is amongst the most insecure sectors of the forty per cent insecurely employed Australian workforce, her support was well appreciated.

• Furthering the direct focus on effective recruitment and membership engagement, and

As explained by the National President in her report, what distinguishes our sector from those where casual work has always been a feature is that secure well paid long-term jobs with good conditions have been abandoned and replaced with short fixed-term and casual jobs. The sustainability of the higher education workforce is under real threat. Amongst the academic profession, which is half of our membership, whole discipline and course areas are falling apart in some universities.

• Public advocacy and action to change government policy and the political discourse on the funding of tertiary education and research.

A genuine focus upon secure jobs is bringing members together in this Enterprise Bargaining round as the loss of secure jobs is impacting upon not only those

• Securing and implementing strong Enterprise Agreements that maintain and improve salaries and conditions of work.

• Campaigning for change to the industrial laws.

Above: Gheran Steel delivering the Welcome to Land.

Below: ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus. employed precariously, but also amongst all staff as workloads increase in an ever more stressful environment of unreal expectations Following on from debate at last year’s meeting, important decisions were made at National Council to increase the opportunities and support for casually employed academic and professional staff to become more involved in the formal structures of the Union, as well as committing to dedicating more resources to organising and campaigning for secure work. Next year’s elections will see Branch committees augmented with a dedicated ‘casual’ position.

The decision was also made to increase the casual membership fee which had not changed in many years. The new graduated fee recognises that no longer are casual members those doing a few hours tutoring, but they are dedicated academic and professional staff seeking to develop a career and livelihood.

The fee rise decision was made with the recognition that more resources have to go to organising amongst casuals and in mobilising across the Union for secure jobs. The case was most persuasively argued by the mover, Audrey Stratham, a casually employed academic and elected delegate from Deakin University.

The rules are broken In her speech Sally McManus also emphasised that in the repressive union legislative environment and with the decline in trade union membership, we have lost the ‘living wage’, a cornerstone of Australian industrial relations. Today wages have deteriorated shamefully. Nobody, McManus said, should work fulltime and live in poverty (see report, p. 20).

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My Union

Above left:Steve Adams, Sophie Rudolph, Katie Wood & Kent Getsinger. Right: Jim Stanford, Centre for Future of Work. Below: First time Councillors welcomed by Jeannie Rea. various components from drafting new rules (legislation) and lobbying for Labor’s support; to mobilising workers and the broader community in support of change; and to direct action over the right to take industrial action.

An urgent motion was also passed to support the workers at Griffin Coal also dealing with an Agreement termination and drastic reductions in wages and jobs, but as Gabe Gooding pointed out, without the publicity that the Murdoch University termination has attracted. Funds were collected to assist the workers.

The future of work Jim Stanford from the Centre for Future Work, which is supported by the NTEU, held the attention of all delegates with his clear and energetic presentation on what is happening to paid work in Australia – and what we need to do about it. Stanford emphasised the critical role of unions in achieving decent wages and conditions through periods of technological change, rather than accepting that new jobs in, for example, the so called ‘gig economy’ will be low paid precarious jobs (see p. 22).

Council endorsed a motion calling upon university managements to include the Union in consultation and decision making on technological change, particularly noting current enthusiasm about artificial

intelligence (or cognitive computing) in some places. Universities have poor track records of taking on new technological products to increase efficiency and productivity, where the real outcomes are often cutting jobs and deskilling the workforce. The reality is that new data management systems, for example, often actually need more staff, yet the secure jobs have already been declared redundant. The scare of a few years ago that MOOCs would replace academic staff has abated as a viable business model has not been found, but this does not mean that the search is not still on.

Round 7 Enterprise Bargaining The industrial matters session started with a panel, chaired by the General Secretary and Division Secretaries Gabe Gooding (WA), Michael McNally (Qld) and Michael Thomson (NSW) reflecting upon the state of the university bargaining round.

Discussion focussed upon hard won success at the WA universities, surrounding Murdoch; the protracted bargaining at JCU alongside a quick resolution at CQU; and the success at Sydney following strike action (see pp.9–15).

Amendments were made to the industrial section of the NTEU Policy Manual to update and refine the comprehensive policy statement.

Policy Manual Last year the new Policy Manual was produced, containing readily accessible policy statements endorsed by Council. A policy archive of all motions ever carried at National Council meetings has been established. The Policy Manual is currently being updated and will be available soon.

The higher education and research policy statements were also amended, and augmented with sections on university regulation and governance; freedom of communication; academic and intellectual freedom; quality public education; and deregulation, funding cuts and public subsidies to for-profit providers.

The debate is broken The most significant higher education policy motion committed the Union to campaigning for free tertiary education.

NTEU has always held the Education International position that all public education should be tuition free, but this motion noted that Australian students pay amongst the highest fees in the OECD to attend a public university where we have the second lowest level of public investment in tertiary education. The decision was made to focus our public advocacy and campaigning on not only increasing public continued over page...

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My Union investment in public VET and higher education, but also for the eventual abolition of tuition fees at public institutions.

In passing this motion, Council recognised that the tide has turned in the public debate around tertiary tuition fees; and the neoliberal discourse focussed upon arcane and unquantifiable notions of public and private benefit from education is finally losing credibility. With the Labour Party forming government in New Zealand and committed to abolishing fees for the first three years of a degree, free tuition is on the agenda in our region (see Editorial, p. 3) A unanimous vote in favour of this motion was informed by the passionate arguments made by a panel arguing that the higher education debate is broken. Dr John Byron, former Labor higher education and research advisor, Associate Professor Kristen Lyons from the University of Queensland and Dr Sandra Grey, President of the New Zealand Tertiary Education Union agreed that debate and policy options for the funding and governance of higher education and research need to change and we cannot keep debating within the narrow confines of lurching from one federal budget and government to the next, particularly when all is reduced to how to spend less on higher education while expecting more from staff and students.

They advocated the need to develop and present alternatives, that reached beyond the ‘funding envelope’ (see p. 26).

Joining up and mobilising The National Assistant Secretary Matthew McGowan announced that NTEU has achieved record membership in this adversarial environment, including growing membership amongst casually employed staff. But he emphasised that membership density is low across too many sites, and this impacts on our industrial strength and capacity to get and implement really good Agreements.

The final day of National Council focused upon union membership and activism, starting with a panel revealing the secrets of membership growth which included Kurt Iveson, University of Sydney Branch President, and Rifai Abdul, National Growth Organiser. Workshops followed focussing upon organising and mobilising.

Clearly an active Union in the workplace is the obvious way to attract members and activists, but it was also recognised that the Union’s commitments to making Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander core business means we have high density amongst this cohort.

The holding of a conference for LGBTIQ members (including allies) early in the year provided the impetus needed to

rejuvenate our QUTE (Queer Unionists in Tertiary Education) caucus and national network. The network has been mobilised as the NTEU campaigns for the Yes vote in the postal survey on marriage equality (see p. 30). Council also committed resources to LGBTIQ rights campaigning including making IDAHOBIT part of our annual events calendar.

Councillors also welcomed the Union’s ongoing commitment to eliminating sexual violence at universities and agreed the onus is upon managements to implement the recommendations of the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report (see p. 14). Camilla Gebicki, AHRC Senior Project Officer provided an update and confirmed that universities will be part of the next Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Survey due in 2018.

Treaties Now The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee Chair, Terry Mason reported on the first morning, that previous National Councils had made the right call in challenging the constitutional recognition campaign in favour of treaties’ negotiations. The Council once again committed to the treaties campaign.

Amongst a raft of motions, Council urged members to join the First Nations Workers Alliance (FNWA), to which NTEU had already affiliated, to provide practical support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples fighting for workers’ rights and against the Community Development Programme (CDP), which is a clear case of racist discrimination in employment (see p.

18). Council also agreed that the Ten Point Plan for a Post Treaty Union developed back in 2002 needs to be updated immediately.

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National Councillors were indebted to Gheran Steel, CEO Boonwurrung Corporation in giving the Welcome to Land, as he called upon us to focus and ground ourselves so we recognised the custodians of the land, and also put ourselves in a good place for debate and decision making.

Coupled with the clear reality of the need to band together, Gheran contributed to a healthy Council meeting with good debate on the floor (and in the corridors) collaborating on motions that could attract overwhelming support, or were debated and lost, without acrimony.

The job ahead is to implement these decisions. On behalf of councillors I’d like to thank the NTEU staff for once again organising and supporting our annual National Council meeting.

Jeannie Rea, National President

Above: David Vincent-Pietsch and Rachael Bahl recording as Ivo Lovric speaks to the motion for rights for casual members. Below: National Assistant Secretary Matthew McGowan. Credits: Paul Clifton, Jeannie Rea

My Union Life members The following people were inducted as Life Members at the 2017 National Council dinner.

Carole Ferrier UQ Carole Ferrier retired from UQ this year after an amazing career as an academic and activist spanning over four decades. Carole arrived in Brisbane in 1973 to commence work as a lecturer in the English Department. As a committed socialist, feminist and anti-racist activist, who had already been active in anti-Vietnam, feminist and anti-apartheid movements in New Zealand, Carole was soon at the forefront of campaigns which brought her into conflict with the ultra-reactionary and corrupt regime of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Carole soon became a key figure in socialist feminist circles in Brisbane and was also active in support of Aboriginal Land Rights and other anti-racist struggles.

Carole also played a prominent part in the Right to March campaigns against the Bjelkist regime, often in defiance of brutal police repression. When Bjelke-Petersen was ultimately forced to step down under the weight of revelations of the massive corruption of the Queensland police and his administration, Carole was prominent among the campus activists who protested against UQ’s craven decision to award him an honorary doctorate.

Carole was a pioneer of feminist history and gender studies at UQ, and many younger women (and some men) speak eloquently of her influence. Carole became a distinguished feminist scholar, publishing several books. Eventually, even the conservative UQ hierarchy had to appoint her to a Professorship. Remarkably, Carole has edited the feminist interdisciplinary journal Hecate for over four decades – since its founding in 1975. This represents an enormous and selfless contribution and reflects a profound commitment to furthering a radical sense of community, unusual in the contemporary corporate university.

Carole never sought high office in the NTEU but made a vital contribution over many decades as an activist delegate.

She was for many years a highly active presence on Academic Board, constantly holding management to account and standing up for progressive principles .

Carole was a star recruiter for the Union, never missed a picket line, and would always urge the Branch never to settle for too little. More than once, if Union meetings threatened to fall short of a quorum, Carole would disappear for five minutes and come back with enough sheepish-looking members whom she had rounded up in common rooms or cafes for the meeting to go ahead. Carole’s contribution to the life of the NTEU at UQ was enormous and inspirational and cannot be summed up in a CV or list of positions held. It is comforting for us to know that she has not moved far away from St Lucia in retirement, and we can still look forward to her comradeship in future picket lines and protests.

Ted Clark Melbourne Ted worked as a Lecturer in the Melbourne Grad School of Education and joined the NTEU in 1995. He became a member of the Melbourne Branch Committee in 2004 and was elected to the role of Branch Vice President (Academic). After a brief apprenticeship he took on the role of Branch President in 2006 and held it for the next eight years, stepping down towards the end of 2014.

Leading the Branch during this period was no easy task as the University embarked on a voyage of continual change and upheaval which continues to this day. Ted was a tireless campaigner for the rights of his colleagues, an articulate, informed and passionate voice at the table, be it at Enterprise Bargaining or in defence of a single member.

Inclusive and always positive (no matter the adversity!), Ted’s leadership style was one of openness and respect for all.

Marked with a tireless smile and good humour, his positivity infectious. His performances at members’ meetings were always something to behold. Not one for sticking to the script, passion would often get the best of him and ‘angry Ted’ would make an appearance. It was always clear that Ted cared and that things mattered to him. Members knew they had a strong advocate and he won the respect of all.

Tony Stokes ACU Dr Tony Stokes joined the NTEU at ACU in 2001 and was a member of the Branch Executive from 2003-2016. He was an academic representative on the ACU Consultative Committee from 2005 to

2015, regularly challenging the University’s policies and procedures and the application of both in the interests of staff on behalf of the NTEU. A number of times he was involved in redrafting policies and procedures with management, as a result of concerns that he raised.

Tony was an NTEU bargaining representatives for three Agreements. As a trained economist, he was able to present his own evidence and data to support the Union’s case in bargaining, particularly in staff productivity, workloads and the University’s revenue and expenses.

On a day-to-day basis Tony was involved in providing advice and support to staff on workload matters. In addition, he fulfilled the role of being a ‘support person’ in meetings with management, including performance reviews and grievances against NTEU members. Tony also met on numerous occasions with the Associate Vice-Chancellor (Sydney) to discuss concerns about workplace health and safety, especially in regards to the ongoing building works at Strathfield.

In 2014 Tony stood for the position of NTEU Branch President at ACU. While he lost the election by one vote to the incumbent President it showed his commitment to the Union and also the respect that he was held in by NTEU members for the work that he had done across all six campuses for a considerable period of time.

Linda Kerr Macquarie Since starting work at Macquarie University, Linda has worked tirelessly for the Union. Her work is often unacknowledged but vital to its smooth functioning – she has rallied staff, booked rooms, provided hugs during times of stress and given voice to the concerns of professional and general staff across the University.

Linda’s optimism during the dark periods of bargaining and in particular the vote no campaign aimed at stopping the splitting of academic and professional Agreements during the Steven Schwartz era has always been valued by the Branch Committee and members more broadly. She has represented member’s interest on the Macquarie University Consultative Committee and been active in working parties such as staff mobility schemes.

Her work as a delegate and in particular her emails to ‘her girls’ in the Faculty of Science and Engineering during a change proposal was key to keeping members both informed and well supported during difficult times.

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My Union Rod Crewther Adelaide After 30 years of tireless work on behalf of his university colleagues, Dr Rod Crewther has resigned from his NTEU positions, including Adelaide Branch Vice-President (Academic), SA Division Vice-President (Academic) and National Councillor, to concentrate on his health. He is a foundation member of NTEU, one of its stalwarts, described in John O’Brien’s history of the NTEU as one of its longest serving office holders and “known for his dedication to his members”.

For several years before the NTEU was formed, Rod was active in the Federation of Australian University Staff Associations, one of the five unions that amalgamated to form the NTEU on 1 October 1993.

While he had been a longstanding opponent of amalgamation, once it happened he was elected to leadership positions in the Union at the Branch and Division level.

Rod’s experience and guidance was always offered freely and passionately. He has been an exemplar of dedication, conviction and commitment. No group of members was too small to meet with; no issue too insignificant. As a dedicated volunteer, he would often work late into the night to keep up his commitments to members and to the Department of Physics.

Rod led the Union Negotiation team at Adelaide for every one of the first 6 rounds of Enterprise Bargaining. He assisted hundreds of individual members as well as taking a significant role in the running, resolving and winning of group grievances. He always listened and never judged.

He put members’ goals first in all matters, while being honest and realistic about what could be achieved. He did all this as a volunteer.

Rod was a constant thorn in the side of management during his 6 terms as an elected staff member on the University of Adelaide Council. It was only by having the University Act amended to limit Council membership to 12 years that they could finally get rid of him! His often-controversial ‘Rod’s Council Notes’ were sent to an email list of many thousands. Rod has strong views and was unafraid to express them within and outside the Union. His message to all members, delegates, activists and officers is a powerful legacy – if you want a strong union, you have to roll up your sleeves and make one happen.

Sue Bevan VU

Richard Gough VU

Sue Bevan was Academic Vice-President of the VU Branch from 2006–2011. Sue was always a good supporter of members’ rights, participating in many Enterprise Bargaining committees and providing strong and thoughtful arguments. Enterprise Bargaining is difficult, and Sue always provided a strong rational voice in the fog of industrial warfare.

Richard Gough took over the President’s job at the VU Branch at a time when not many would have taken it on. It was the beginning of yearly global change plans at VU with attendant job losses which would continue uninterrupted for the next ten years. The first of these plans was rolled out in 2008 involved the proposed retrenchment of 140 academic staff.

Sue was also important in conceiving of the academic workload model at VU, particularly pioneering workload categories which previously had not been accepted by management. One of these was the scholarship of teaching and learning. As most teaching staff know, a specific kind of work associated with academic work is staying abreast of one’s academic disciplinary areas and updating course materials so they remain relevant to students and of high quality. In addition, the scholarship of teaching and learning may also involve investigation of one’s own teaching and involve collegial interaction with one’s peers in developing new pedagogical ideas and practices which improve the quality of teaching. This work which is often of great benefit to academic institutions but is very rarely recognised in academic workload allocations as a form of work. While negotiating the VU academic workload model in 2006, Sue led the way on developing this concept as a recognised workload category. This category still remains a category in VU workloads today and all academics are allocated 10% of a total workload for this activity today.

Many such change plans were to follow and Richard took on his role with great perseverance and courage – despite being thrown off the deep end with not much of an apprenticeship to ease himself into the role. Richard would go on to lead the Branch through a number of difficult change plans and successful Enterprise Bargaining periods.

During industrial action at VU in 2010, one of the onerous tasks that Sue took charge of was the Exemptions Committee which was set up to provide student exemptions to the marking ban which had been implemented by the VU Branch. The VU Branch was flooded with hundreds of applications from students seeking exemptions to the marking ban. Sue showed great energy and common sense in this exercise and was a sympathetic but fair negotiator with academics seeking exemptions for their students.

Sue was also a delegate in the School of Biomedical and Health Science for 6 years.

She showed great energy in strongly representing staff in this area.

NTEU Life Membership is a fitting reward for his dedication over three decades to union members in the university sector.

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The chief weapon in Richard’s armoury was his capacity to negotiate and wear down the other side. His negotiating style of endless but unfailing courtesy to those he faced across the bargaining table wore them down and they had often great difficulty in reading him.

Richard’s many sessions with VC Liz Harman were legendary and like watching an extended Lendl and McEnroe rally at Wimbledon, as arguments were batted from one side of the table to the other. Richard was a rationalist in the best traditions of academia and he demanded that the university bosses should provide reason for what they did – even if there was very little reason provided in most cases at all. His dogged arguments often forced the other side into corners and into giving hard won concessions. He was always determined to play with a straight bat – even if management were not.

A great achievement of the VU Branch in the 2010 Enterprise Bargaining period was a self-sustaining marking ban. Seven VU staff members, dubbed ‘the Legends’, withheld all the results for overseas campuses and were consequently stood down by management without pay. There was clearly a danger the ban would fall over if these members were not supported. The Branch set itself the task of raising enough money to ensure that the Legends could maintain their marking ban and still put food on the table. There were many in the Union who scoffed at the time about whether such a feat was possible. A great characteristic of Richard, however, was always his optimism and his belief in the capacity of ordinary members to provide support for industrial action. He tirelessly tramped the hallways at VU, arguing and

My Union impressing upon members the importance of the action and he would not let them go until they had made a promise to make a pledge. The feat of the self-sustaining marking ban was achieved in a few weeks and soon after management were bought back to the negotiating table.

Richard now is an honorary fellow at VU but still finds time for Union work and more recently has been again talking to members about the current cutbacks at VU in his College. His efforts have never stopped even in retirement

Stuart Rosewarne Sydney Stuart Rosewarne, who retired from the University of Sydney in July 2017, made major contributions to NTEU at the National, Division and Branch level over many years, and was active in the Union’s predecessor organisations.

Upon commencing employment at the University of Sydney in 1980, Stuart joined the Sydney Association of University Teachers (SAUT). He was later elected to the SAUT Committee and took on the roles of Treasurer and Secretary. He became a foundation member of NTEU in 1993 and was elected to the University of Sydney Branch Committee. Stuart was active in the Branch Committee over many years – from case handler to Enterprise Bargaining negotiations and served as Branch President from 1996–1998. He served as an NTEU National Councillor 1996–2008 and was NSW Division President 2004–2008 in which role he was instrumental in garnering funds to facilitate the purchase of the Division Office.

Stuart never used his position to advance his own interests or to become ‘friends’ with management. He was a tough negotiator, straightforward in taking members’ demands to the University administration and tough and persistent in representing the interests of individual members.

Stuart recognised the importance of facilitating the participation of others within the Union. To that end he took on a mentoring role to many who would go on to become activists and office bearers of the NTEU. He gave selfless service to the Union and its members. As an office bearer and NTEU activist, Stuart prioritised service to the Union and its members ahead of career advancement. Nonetheless, Stuart became a highly regarded, internationally recognised scholar within the discipline of Political Economy. He pioneered scholarship in the field of ecological and feminist economics and produced important work on labour migration and exploitation.

Peter Blakey ACU What has Peter done to deserve this honour? Longevity has something to do with it. That and persistence, perhaps.

Being a Unionist is as much a statement of who you are, as it is to the performance of your duties to the best of your abilities. As Shakespeare observed ‘to thine own self be true’, it was your bargaining chip in all negotiations – the value of your labour. It was measured by the effectiveness of what you did and the environment in which it was allowed to occur. Not just as a ‘wage slave’ but within ‘your duty of faithful service’ and all that this meant.

Peter has a background that grew out of representing general staff in a new university with a tradition of entrenched hierarchies. A part of the Sydney organisational landscape, moving from manager of overhead projectors, and the maker of small instructional videotape productions, marriage and relocation to Brisbane saw the role change to focus on the increased technological responsibilities of the University’s ‘Intranet’ service. He took a backward step and found a degree of vulnerability in the work place, with new managers coming in and laying down a new cultural order, and looking to make strategic ‘killings’ of those who were weren’t playing for the team. Changing unions was an option, and given the history, not one readily accepted.

The Branch acknowledges the efforts of Peter Blakey in representing Professional staff at Australian Catholic University, his work in supporting the endeavours of our First Nation’s membership, his leadership in the development of Workplace Health and Safety Policies in the Sydney College Campuses and later with ACU HR. Peter was considered the genuine article, not in it for himself, but always appreciating the balance between the needs of the Unionist and the capacity of the Organisation to meet these desires.

Ian Gomm VU

ous mistake in trying to take on a group of mathematicians by fudging the numbers.

Ian took on a leadership role within this group, recruiting every non-member so that the Branch had 100% density within the Mathematics discipline group. With his colleagues tightly organised behind him, Ian led the charge and systematically demolished what had appeared to the Branch to be an imposing edifice. All of the jobs were saved and management abandoned their plans of cutting jobs from that area.

Shortly after this, Ian joined the VU Branch Committee, noting at the time that the Branch Committee was seriously lacking in Union people who were numerate and could add up.

Ian quickly became an important asset to the VU Branch: first participating in Enterprise Bargaining in the 2013 round and in then in the extremely protracted and painful negotiations on academic workloads which followed bargaining.

Ian was one of those members you always want on your bargaining team. He would sit back and analyse everything, taking it in carefully considering it and then either providing insightful comments to the team or interjecting with rapier-like comments which were usually incisive and smart. He was always quick to point out to the management team their illogical strategies and the errors in their calculations, much to the consternation of their side.

Ian became Branch Secretary in 2010, a role he held for 6 years. Ian also continued to do the extremely difficult job of acting as the Union delegate for the College of Engineering and Science. This College was by and large very conservative, so it was difficult to raise Union matters. Despite this, Ian regularly and emphatically put the Union view at College meetings – often under considerable adversity – so much so that members on many occasions contacted the Branch unprompted, indicating what a fantastic job Ian was doing and the meritorious nature of his service.

Ian has now retired from VU but has continued to support the Union as a retired member and regularly helps the Union with functions and can often be found serving behind the bar at these functions.

National Council Dinner presentation images courtesy Patrick O’Sullivan

Ian first came to the attention of the VU Branch Committee when his entire discipline group was threatened with retrenchment. Much of the justification for this action centred on some obscure and extremely complicated machinations around teaching hours and delivery. However, management had made a very seri-

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My Union National Council Workshops Workshops were held each day of National Councils across a broad range of topics. Presenters were invited to write reports for Advocate.

Asserting the public benefit of universities National Council voted to campaign for free university education. University education is not a ‘private benefit’ to be ‘paid back’. 100% of higher education is for the public good. But what does this mean?

What is the public benefit of universities – how can we advance it?

A (neoliberal) tide, on the ebb Over the last 30 years the assumed distinction between the private and public benefit of universities has been the basis for a withdrawal of public funding from universities.

By 2014 students in Australia were funded at just 22% of per-capita GDP – the OECD average is 26%, in the US 28%, in the UK and Germany, 38% (World Development Indicators, World Bank). In the OECD Australia has almost the lowest public funding for universities as a proportion of GDP. Last year the sector was forced back from the brink of full fee deregulation. We now have the opportunity to make real gains – to reassert the public university and

demand the $10b, about 0.5% GDP that we need annually to make university free again.

Public universities – public pedagogy At National Council a group of about 30 delegates met to discuss campaigning for the public university, against the idea of private benefit. The discussion started with the familiar funding issues but quickly moved to teaching and pedagogy.

Teaching pedagogy is not an area usually covered by Enterprise Agreements. It has not been a focus for the NTEU in the past – though the intensity raised in the workshop suggests it could become a key aspect of the public university campaign.

There was consensus that if we are serious about overcoming the ‘user-pays’ university then we must collectively address what goes on in classrooms.

A key issue is what drives vocationalism and instrumentalism in universities. Conventionally students are said to demand ‘job ready’ degrees, to repay their university loans.

Staff who pursue intrinsic knowledge, that is reflective and transformative, are positioned by universities as barriers to student aspirations and realities. Vocationalism, though, is not a student agenda.

Many reported how it is driven by the search for full fee-paying international and domestic students, on a model that treats students as profit centres. It is driven by a form of managerialist pedagogy, emptied of purpose and content, and confined

to compliance and to ‘responsibilising’ students.

Against the managerialist university, students have demonstrated they do not want to be passive customers. They value critical and reflective thinking and want to be creative thinkers. They resent being trained rather than educated, knowing it has limited shelf-life. Yet, increasingly, it is precisely the more reflective and critical aspects of university teaching, the aspects that cannot easily be monetised, that are under threat.

There is, as many argued in the workshop, a strong public understanding and support for university education as education for society, rather than for employment.

It is widely recognised that educating society only becomes more important in a context of technological flux, with the capacity to shift in and out and across roles, to flourish in a musical chairs life and career.

In this context, the focus on what we do as teachers was seen as especially important – it is the area of our work where we can have most direct impact, and where public purpose is central. We have the shared vision to transform the user-pays university into a genuine public university. And collectively, our teaching has the power to transform society. Let’s find ways to use it.

James Goodman James Goodman is an Associate Professor, Social and Political Sciences Program at UTS.

Register for a symposium on advancing the public benefit of universities, at UTS on 1 Dec: https://socialimpact.uts.edu.au/apbu

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My Union Supporting trans and non-binary members NTEU has a vital role to play in creating a more welcoming and inclusive space in our sector and broader society for trans and non-binary people. This article is based on a workshop run at National Council on building respectful engagement with trans and non-binary people within our sector.

While there are no specific transgender unemployment statistics for Australia, trans people face significant discrimination in the workplace. US studies suggest that unemployment rates are double those of the cis community, and this is made worse where transphobia intersects with other experiences of oppression.

The trans community also experiences heightened levels of violence – this is most clearly demonstrated by the Transgender Day of Remembrance marked on November 20 to commemorate the trans people murdered globally each year, who are overwhelmingly trans women of colour.

This violence also articulates itself as verbal abuse and harassment, the 2012 Private Lives 2 report found that 40 per cent of trans people reported experiencing verbal abuse over the previous 12 months and 25 per cent reported harassment.

As individuals it is possible to create environments which are respectful of trans and non-binary people. This includes addressing micro aggressions, for example misgendering, which confront trans and non-binary people each day, steps that we can all take to avoid doing this are: • Avoid assuming people’s gender and using gendered language to describe people.

• Seeking to consensually pronoun people (where you actively identify and correctly use the pronouns of others).

• Normalise the asking of pronouns by providing yours when you introduce yourself.

• Providing mechanisms for people to publicise their pronouns such as on name tags – this is particularly impor-

tant where people are interacting with large numbers of new people each day.

of the change of name, gender and/ or other identifying records.

While trans and non-binary individuals are technically protected from transphobic discrimination in the workplace and other areas of public life covered by the anti-discrimination acts operating in the various jurisdictions.

These recommendations could be adopted by institutions more broadly.

There are exemptions to these protections, as was recently demonstrated in the AFL’s decision to not allow Hannah Mouncey to nominate for the ALFW Draft. There is greater protection under the anti-discrimination acts for individuals who are able to have their gender legally changed – however, the requirements for this are oppressive, intrusive and vary significantly from state to state While employers, government agencies, and other organisations are not required respect affirmed identities in all circumstances, they are able to and should do so. Science in Australia Gender Equality makes a number of recommendations as to how science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) areas within universities could be more trans inclusive, as part of promoting gender equity in STEMM, including: • Introducing streamlined processes for changing gender on documents and records without requiring elaborate or intrusive forms of ‘proof’.

• Options for not recording gender and for non-binary genders to be recorded on the records of current and former staff and students.

• Strict processes for maintaining confidentiality such as: • Complete removal of all old records and record histories that contain outdated name and gender information.

A final area of significant contention around trans rights and inclusion is access to toilets. Which toilet to access when in public spaces is an important question both in terms of sense of self and personal safety. This is has been made more prominent with the survey on marriage equality – as the Australian Christian Lobby, emulating similar organisations in the US, has sought to mobilise transphobia to secure a victory for the ‘No’ camp.

While this is unlikely to be successful, a victory for marriage equality is unlikely to see a reduction in attacks on trans access to toilets. The achievement of marriage equality in the US has seen an explosion of bills seeking to criminalise trans people using toilets of their affirmed identity.

While some supporters of trans people are advocating the creation of gender neutral toilets – this can only be a partial solution as requiring transgender people to use gender neutral toilets is potentially unlawful, more importantly it does nothing to combat transphobia or to ensure that people, whether they are trans or cis, are able to use the toilet of their gender without fear of harassment or violence.

Lisbeth Latham Lisbeth is an Industrial Organiser at the University of Melbourne Branch. They are a trans feminist, and their preferred pronouns are she, her, hers, or they, them, theirs – if you would like to discuss the trans and non-binary inclusion feel free to contact them via llatham@nteu.org.au

• Policies supporting a single point of contact who is the only person aware

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My Union How to campaign Mention the word ‘campaign’ and the image that comes to mind is often one of visible activity and tactics that unions and other groups seeking change often employ. Rallies, marches, strikes, blockades, sit-ins and pickets, flash mobs, videos, petitions, stunts and street theatre are what end up on the news and are usually the time when the largest number of people directly interact with the campaign.

France leads the way when it comes to eye-catching tactics – auto-workers kidnapping their bosses, farmers dismantling a McDonalds or, recently, releasing thousands of sheep onto the streets of Lyon.

These tactics are, however, just the conspicuous tip of the iceberg. What is not seen, and is usually unreported, are the months or years of hard work put into the other elements that make a campaign effective.

We need to campaign and to win, if simply because those with an agenda opposed to ours are doing it, and are gaining ground. Since the 1970s our conservative opponents have campaigned unrelentingly to privatise public services, abolish free university education, destroy TAFE, enable the hyper-casualisation of our sector, and re-regulate industrial relations so that a greater share of the proceeds of increased productivity goes to profit and less to wages and salaries.

Our opponents don’t resort to rallies or sitins as their tactics; rather, they rely on their greater resources and their greater access to decision makers.

But, equating a campaign with its tactics dooms it to failure. The term ‘campaign’ is often defined as a planned sequence of organised actions to achieve a specific goal, which in turn implies a series of elements – determining what the goal is, working out how to reach it (identifying who is the target or decision-maker, and who in turn influences them), and assessing each party’s strengths and weaknesses. Above all, there is organisation, without which there is nothing.

Campaign training run by NTEU in NSW takes delegates through nine sequential stages of a campaign plan. Of these nine,

settling on tactics comes seventh. Whether the tactics actually work depends on the more difficult, time consuming, less exciting, yet more important work of building organisation and developing a strategy.

The very existence of a plausible-sounding plan helps builds organisation. Faced with a challenge that affects a constituency, the hope that a plan just might work provides the circumstances for people to take action. It’s the job of leaders to articulate the plan in a way that builds organisation by providing ways for others to be involved.

Recognising the importance of strategy, leadership and organisation is not new, but recent campaigns like ‘Fight for $15’ in the US have captured attention for their impact.

Two recent books have drawn upon groundbreaking campaigns: Hahrie Han’s How Organisations Develop Activists, and Becky Bond and Zac Exley’s Rules for Revolutionaries, which examines what they learned working for the Bernie Sanders primary campaign.

Building your structures

the people who already strongly agree with them – as, says Han, their opponents in the gun control lobby do.

Han is a progressive academic who was recently in Australia as a keynote speaker at the ACTU’s NexGen conference in Sydney. She later spent time working with the largest branch of the largest union in the country, the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, on how they could build their capacity by reinvigorating their branch structures.

Han’s How Organisations Develop Activists is a study of two national organisations in the US. It compares the chapters (branches) that have high engagement with members and those that don’t. She concluded that the level of engagement was strongly influenced by the type of leadership.

Low engagement chapters were characterised by a lone wolf leadership style, where leaders built power by expertise and information — through advocacy, oversight, contributing to committees, public comments and other forms of consultation.

Following the recent horrific mass murder in Las Vegas, UCLA Professor of Political Science Hahrie Han wrote an article for the New York Times: “Want Gun Control? Learn from the NRA”. Based on her research of organisations, Han argues that the National Rifle Association has “built something that gun-control advocates lack: an organised base of grass-roots power”.

Other chapters featured mobilisers who built power by being able to call on large numbers of people to contribute, engage in change and take action.

Through the NRA’s local chapters, Han says, the NRA organises by bringing together people with something in common (for example, a need for cheap accident insurance for gun owners) to attract huge numbers to their network. Once drawn together by common identity, political education follows. They don’t start with

The most effective groups both organised and mobilised their constituencies.

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The third style of leadership were organisers who built power by identifying, recruiting and training future leaders in a distributed network; developing a community and protecting its strength.

The model of distributed leadership that Han suggests is most able to produce change is completely suited to confronting the challenges facing higher education workers and the NTEU.

My Union Deploying power effectively Han’s model of distributed leadership aligns well with what Becky Bond and Zack Exley call ‘big organising’ in Rules for Revolutionaries, where they document the lessons they drew from the extraordinary Sanders campaign.

What they came to call ‘big organising’ was their answer to a huge problem campaign organisers had. With the initial hype of the Sanders campaign came thousands of volunteers wanting to help – basically saying: “Don’t you see that if you idiots put us to work effectively, there are enough of us to win this election?” (p. 28). With hardly any staff, this question explained why they could “barely sleep in those first couple of months”.

Of their 22 rules, six of the most apt for the NTEU start with rule one: You won’t get a revolution if you don’t ask for one. The problems confronting tertiary education are big, and they require big solutions – having an incremental claim as your campaign goal won’t be enough to inspire your constituency to act, and yet their active involvement is crucial.

Rule five, get on the phone, captures not just the importance of one-to-one contact, but the time consuming development of trustful relationships. For the authors, there was little better use of their time than that spent than talking face-to-face or on the phone to supporters because through these conversations they grew and developed local leaders.

Rule six is the work is distributed, the plan is centralised. Working with local volunteers doesn’t lessen the need for strategic planning at the centre; it heightens it. With scope for local adaptation, in big organising “leaders operate with a high level of autonomy and creativity while all working toward the same, centrally determined, shared goal” (p2).

What they call ‘barnstorming’ in rule eight were the mass volunteer meetings at which volunteers were briefed and set on their course of action. It’s what the authors of the Rules came up with as the most efficient way to get volunteers on board a plan to deploy in a local area. They held ‘barnstorm’ meetings throughout the country where volunteers were tasked with their actions of voter contact.

A typical, well attended NTEU general meeting might be attended by 10–20 per cent of the members – in reality, the active core, and a great base to deploy in a campaign. The best of the general meetings I’ve attended over this bargaining campaign easily fit the ‘barnstorm’ mould.

Rule ten may frighten IT professionals: give away your passwords. Now, what Bond and Exley are talking about includes literal passwords, but the rule is more about giving up some control. The risk of what might happen by relinquishing control is dwarfed by the risk of lost opportunities and potential activists not being engaged.

Closely related to this rule is rule eleven: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the big. Volunteers won’t do things exactly as envisaged, and this is fine. It’s more important that the action happens on a large scale, even if imperfect, than not.

Bernie Sanders did not win the Democratic nomination, but over 100,000 volunteers made more than 75 million calls to voters. Over 100,000 volunteer-led events were held, and 2.8 million people donated money. This put Sanders closer to being chosen to run for President than he was ever predicted to get.

Building organisation, thinking strategically (not tactically) Can these elements and principles be incorporated into campaigns for free education and secure jobs in our workplaces?

Absolutely – and in the most effective of our campaigns, they already are. By giving conscious consideration to what works, we can avoid spending time on things that do not help us win, and thus open up resources that can be better focused on what does.

Paul Doughty, Senior State Organiser, NSW Division

Opposite: Campaigning at UTS. Credit: Nagida Clark

References Bond, Becky. & Exley, Zack (2016), Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organising Can Change Everything, Chelsea Green, White River Jn, VT. Han, Hahrie (2014), How Organisations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century, Oxford University Press, New York.

Clare McCarty NTEU Women in Leadership Mentoring Program An initiative designed to increase the number of women participating at leadership levels within the Union was launched in SA in March 2017.

It was named for long serving and dedicated unionist and mentor to many, Dr Clare McCarty, who passed away in 2016.

Women’s Action Committee (WAC) representatives and staff are working with NTEU women members in SA trialling and developing a mentoring program that fosters relationships both within the NTEU and across other SA unions; provides participants with support and advice from women who have negotiated the difficult path of finding balance between their family obligations, work obligations and Union activism; and also helps to develop their capacity to move forward and mentor others.

The Union is working with the mentoring team to review the progress of the pilot project, and liaise with participants. There are also a number of other women who were not available at the time the program was set up, who have expressed a desire to become involved. Information sessions will be held for them in November.

The Seminar that launched the Program was video recorded and is available online (see link below). A pack with details of the pilot, information about how to replicate it, and documents detailing the mentoring contracts and relationships is being put together and will also be available online soon.

Juliet Fuller, Branch Organiser www.nteu.org.au/women/ initiatives/clare_mccarty_ leadership_program See Agenda article for more info: www.nteu.org.au/agenda

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My Union 2017 NSW Delegates Conference

Stand Up, Fight Back When workers’ rights are under attack, what do we do? ‘Stand Up, Fight Back’ was a theme that resonated with the 60 delegates from around NSW who attended the NTEU NSW Delegates’ Conference at Sydney Trades Hall on 15 September.

For many delegates who were in the midst of bargaining campaigns, including those from the University of Sydney who had led a successful 24 hour strike just two days beforehand, the conference was an opportunity for reflection and planning together with their counterparts from the 11 public universities and many other private providers based in NSW. ACTU President Ged Kearney addressed the conference, saying the ability of employers like Murdoch University to terminate an Agreement made with staff, and in doing so sweep away underlying conditions won over decades, demonstrates why the rules that govern our rights at work are broken.

She outlined the union movement’s Change the Rules campaign.

Former Unions NSW Assistant Secretary and National Organising Director of Professionals Australia, Adam Kerslake fired up delegates with how their union was achieving growth by thinking big and engaging members in campaigns to win on their issues.

Campaign strategist Jason Mogus, who has worked on the campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline and more recently

with Stop Adani activists in Australia addressed the conference by video-link from Vancouver. He took delegates through his four principles of what he calls directed network campaigns, having conducted research into 47 campaigns identifying the factors that enabled the success of the most effective of these.

had a thumping victory over the employer’s attempt to subvert the Union through a non-union ballot, while the UTS Branch, from which several delegates attended, had secured support of up to 95 per cent for taking strike action in pursuit of bargaining claims in their industrial action ballot which closed that day.

Popular workshops included National Policy Coordinator Paul Kniest’s presentation on understanding and analysing university finances, and National Growth Team Coordinator Rifai Abdul’s workshop on conversations that move people to action. During his time with the National Growth Team, Rifai has personally signed up over 1500 new members into the NTEU. Former NTEU ACU Branch Organiser and now ACTU Educator/Organiser Bec Muratore addressed the core business of delegates in a session on building power in the workplace.

University of Wollongong delegate Theresa Harada valued the opportunity the conference gave to feel part of something bigger, and amongst many more people

With the then looming termination of the Murdoch Agreement at the forefront of attendees’ minds, NTEU NSW President Sarah Kaine led a plenary session called What if it happened here. Delegates planned their response if a NSW employer took an aggressive, union-busting approach onto a NSW campus.

“Our organisers and Branch committees know that the most important thing we can do to address the huge issues across our sector is work towards having a delegate in each and every higher education workplace”.

As the one day conference came to a close, NTEU NSW Division Secretary Michael Thomson was able to announce two pieces of news that broke that afternoon: that NTEU James Cook University Branch had

“It was nice to see other people experiencing similar things. I think sometimes we’re so isolated in our offices that we don’t get to share some of the challenges so it was nice to hear that it was shared by more than me” she said.

Michael Thomson congratulated delegates for their attendance and enthusiastic participation in the conference.

“Member volunteers like delegates and Branch committee members do the vast bulk of the work of the Union, and higher education staff, whether NTEU members or not, and continually spreading this around to new delegates is key to our continued growth and effectiveness”.

The next Delegates’ Conference in NSW will be held in Sydney in early 2019. Training sessions and workshops are scheduled monthly in the NSW Division office in Surry Hills, and when required on campus and in workplaces.

Paul Doughty, NSW Division Organiser For information on upcoming training and resources for Delegates and Branch committee members in NSW, go to: www.nteu.org.au/nsw/delegates

Above: Ged Kearney, ACTU President. Left: Rifai Abdul, National Growth Organiser. page 54 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

My Union New resources for Delegates As part of the ongoing development of more active Workplace Delegate networks we have produced a new Delegate’s Kit, to better resource and assist Delegates with their union activities.

The Kit comprises a new Delegate’s Handbook to guide Delegates and provide them with informa-

Delegate spotlight

The juggling act of a casual academic Dr Theresa Harada has been working in the tertiary education sector for eight years, but only recently became an NTEU delegate.

With a PhD in Human Geography, Theresa’s specialty is sustainability and energy efficiency, however she wears many hats in her line of work — researcher, lecturer and facilitator, as well as collaborating across several projects at a time.

Theresa was drawn to her union, and eventually to becoming a workplace delegate, as she experienced increasing levels of dissatisfaction with job insecurity as a casual academic.

“Having to stitch together different projects, having to cover those long, non-teaching periods during the year.

tion on union matters: a Recruitment Toolkit with information and resources to assist them with recruiting new members, a Delegate badge, NTEU stickers, lanyard, and NTEU business cards.

The Delegate’s Handbook is based on the experiences of NTEU members and staff. It contains information about how to approach colleagues to join NTEU, how to organise workplace meetings and how to build activism around workplace issues.

Delegates play a vital role within NTEU, and their contribution is much appreciated. Union strength and influence depends on more

than just the size of its membership. It relies on members being active and engaged and identifying with the Union.

We hope that the Delegate’s Kit, as well as comprehensive training and support available from Organisers, will enable Delegates to continue to build the Union and give members the best possible representation at work.

Michael Evans, National Organiser If you are interested in becoming a Workplace Delegate or finding out more, please visit our Delegates site: delegates.nteu.org.au

Especially over the Christmas break it’s just horrendous because you have no income,” she tells Advocate.

“I kind of always had that acceptance of ‘that’s the system, that’s just the way it is’, until I met people who said ‘no, we don’t have to put up with that’. They’re very strong advocates and very passionate, and that really inspired me.

“I was very complacent before and thought, ‘oh, the union can’t do anything’, but now I think I’ve been converted. Now I’m putting the pressure on some fellow PhD students in the hallway, and everyone I bump into. The more people that we have, the better representation we can make.”

Theresa’s is an increasingly common story for casual and fixed-term academic staff, with many working across different institutions and roles to make ends meet and cover gaps in employment.

“Face-to-face teaching is much better paid. But the big problem with that for casuals is the non-teaching period. That’s why I’ve got so many research projects on the go, to try and cover those non-teaching periods. And that in itself is a huge juggling act.”

For Theresa, there are many practical challenges of working across multiple institutions, including the time required to master new technologies and systems.

“By dealing with three or four different universities you have to learn a different payroll system, a different email system.

They’ve got different platforms like Moodle or the Feedback Studio or whatever they have, so you have to learn a different type of technology for each

university that you’re dealing with. It’s a pain.”

Theresa believes her role as a delegate is important for increasing visibility of the Union, “just having somebody visible, like I’ve got the little sign on my computer, so people know now that I’m part of the organisation, so just knowing who to come to”.

Being involved in the NTEU has provided Theresa with a more optimistic outlook on the future of work for academic staff.

“I’m only a new member, so the thing that it’s given me so far is a little spark of hope that things might change. Whereas before I was convinced that there was no way things were going to change. So if we can garner enough support, yes, perhaps we can push our point of view and get some better conditions.”

Nagida Clark, Media, Communications & Campaigns Organiser, NSW Division

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My Union University staff ‘getting with the strength’ NTEU membership has reached its highest ever level, topping 28,000 for the first time in October.

There are a number of reasons for this: • University staff appear to be responding to the potential threat to their salaries and working conditions (if other universities were to follow Murdoch University’s lead and seek to cancel existing Enterprise Agreements), by joining NTEU and getting active in bargaining campaigns at their institutions.

• Bargaining generally encourages staff to join the Union, when it can be seen to be actively involved in gaining improvements or seeking to fix major concerns. Our focus on job security in this bargaining round is clearly resonating with staff. The successful bargaining campaign at the University of Sydney resulted in a net membership gain of 142 people in September 2017.

• NTEU has conducted high profile public campaigns over several years to oppose the continual threats to university fund-

Member notice Notice to NTEU Members about a Post-Election Report Identifying an NTEU Rule which is said to be difficult to interpret or apply The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is required by law to make a Post-Election Report after it conducts an election for the NTEU. It has done so about a recent election [E2017/63]. In that Report, the AEC considers that Rule 72.15B is difficult to interpret or apply. The relevant extract of the Report reads as follows:

ing by successive governments, and is seen as one of the main defenders of Australia’s higher education system.

• NTEU Branches have put a stronger focus on recruiting new members and seeking their active involvement in the Union’s activities.

“The circumstances around Murdoch and the reality of difficult bargaining negotiations is helping staff recognise the value of joining their Union. Without the Union, who stands up for staff in the face of such hostile management approaches?” NTEU National Assistant Secretary Matthew McGowan said.

“Our recent work in surveying new members has also helped us. We better understand the needs and expectations of new members. As a result, we have improved our communications to members, particularly for new members who don’t This rule should read as follows: Rule 72.15(b) requires the Returning Officer to recall nominations for unfilled offices. The recall of nominations should close 14 days after the date of declaration which confirms the number of unfilled offices to be recalled. This action provides for a 14 day nomination period which reflects the minimum period for the calling of nominations.

NTEU response NTEU’s written response to the Post-Election Report is as follows:

Rules used for the election:[283V: Incorporates alternations of 2/12/2015 in matter R2015/237] Rules difficult to apply/interpret:

The matters raised by the Returning Officer from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) have been considered by the National Tertiary Education Industry Union (NTEU). They are in substance the same concerns as those included in the Post-Election Report for Election 2016/100 provided to the NTEU in January 2017.

Rule 72.15(b) requires extension of the closing date for nominations until noon on the 17th day after the date initially fixed as the date for the close of nominations for unfilled offices.

NTEU does not accept that the existing rule is difficult to interpret or apply, for the reasons set out in the NTEU’s written response to that earlier Report, part of which is reproduced here:

This rule does not allow time to check the eligibility of candidates or to allow time for a defect period which usually occurs in these elections.

The unfilled offices cannot be confirmed until the declaration has been issued for the initial call of nominations. The declaration can take up to 10 to14 days leaving a 3 day nomination period for the calling of nominations for the unfilled positions.

Under the NTEU rules, as they are actually applied, every member individually receives a nomination form and notice that she/he can nominate, before the ordinary closing of nominations. Each member has every opportunity to nominate for any position for which they are eligible.

Rules

. . . the primary purpose of the extension [of nominations after the closing date where no-one

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have any experience of unions to help them understand how they can make their voices heard. We are also working to develop a stronger focus on developing active delegate networks and a more visible Union presence in workplaces,” he added.

A large proportion of the new growth has been in fixed term and casual employment, where it has often been difficult in the past to make people aware of the importance of union membership.

Our current focus on job security, the major concern facing staff whether they are in ongoing positions or not, is showing all staff that their issues are central to the Union’s work. It appears to be starting to show, with staff seeing the Union as more relevant.

Michael Evans, National Organiser

has nominated] is so that the officers and committee members and intended candidates can attend to the following problems: (1) The original nomination being invalid or late or where an intending candidate forgot to lodge their nomination on time; and (2) It was expected that a person was going to nominate or renominate for a position, but in the end they did not, leaving an unexpected vacancy. ... Nevertheless, NTEU proposes to suggest a rule change to its 2017 National Council to change “seventeenth day” to “nineteenth day” in Rule 72.15.

I can confirm that at its meeting this week, the Union’s supreme decision-making body, the National Council will be considering the following motion to amend the Union’s Rules to extend the period of extension of nominations from 17 days to 19 days.

This written response is made pursuant to Sections 197 and 198 of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 and Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Regulation 141. I have been authorised by the General Secretary of the NTEU to provide this written response.

Ken McAlpine, National Union Education Officer NTEU Rules can be found online at nteu.org.au/myunion/about_us/rules The AEC Post-Election Report can be obtained from the AEC. A copy the Report and NTEU’s Response can also be obtained by writing to NTEU General Secretary, PO Box 1323, Sth Melb VIC 3205, or via kmcalpine@nteu.org.au

My Union Joan Hardy Scholarship

Joan Hardy was active in higher education unionism for over 30 years, during which time she held many positions at local and state levels. She was the first woman President of UACA (one of the predecessors of NTEU) a position she occupied for five years.

Joan was a tireless advocate for union amalgamation and was a key negotiator in the formation of NTEU, becoming Vice-President when the Union was formed in 1993. The Joan Hardy Scholarship for postgraduate nursing research recognises the contributions Joan made to higher education and higher education unionism.

Jessica Taranto is the 2017 recipient of the Joan Hardy Scholarship for postgraduate nursing research. Her Masters thesis is investigating parents and carers experience of familycentred care during an extended stay in the recovery room at The Royal Children’s Hospital.

Jessica is doing her Masters of Nursing Practice through Deakin University.

Jessica is passionate about her work as a nurse. “Working as an Associate Nurse Unit Manager in the recovery room at the Royal Children’s Hospital is exactly where I want to be,” she says. “I also work as a theatre and anaesthetic nurse and I have a casual job at Holmesglen Private Hospital.”

Jessica is a single mother who worked as an enrolled nurse while studying to become a registered nurse. “Hospitals and, in fact the whole medical profession, intrigues me and I’ve wanted to be a nurse as far back as I can remember,” she says. “I worked for ten years with the elderly, work which I loved, but my body got very tired.

During my study, I enrolled in a surgical program in paediatrics and when I graduated I started working in theatre. I then moved to the recovery room.”

The recovery room (also referred to as Stage 1 Post Anaesthetic Care Unit) at the Royal Children’s Hospital cares for 75 patients on average each day. The children may have had cardiac surgery, neuro surgery, general surgery, plastics/craniofacial or ENT surgery. Sometime a delay occurs when a patient is discharged back to the ward. Little is known about the parent or carer experience when a delay occurs and how delay affects the delivery of family-centred care. “Family-centred care”, says Jessica, “is a central element in the provision of quality health care, therefore determining what it signifies to families at different stages in the surgical journey is imperative. For this reason I decided to interview parents and carers who spend an extended amount of time in the recovery room about their experience.”

The family-centred care framework that most hospitals use is underpinned by four key principles: enabling the parent/carer to participate in the care of their child; sharing information with the parent/carer about the child’s surgery, medication, etc.;

respecting and supporting the role of the parent/carer in the child’s recovery and collaborating with the parent/carer in decision making. “When children are patients in a hospital,” says Jessica “their parent or carer becomes involved in all aspects of the child’s care during the perioperative journey and this provides a great sense of comfort to the child. Therefore, an effective partnership between the nurse and the parent or carer is critical for the provision of family-centred care.”

The preliminary findings of Jessica’s research indicate that the nurses in the recovery room practice these principles so well that most parents/carers interviewed for this study say they feel well-cared for and supported.

Jessica has indicated that the scholarship will help her to purchase the necessary software to fully analyse the data, produce a much needed education package and take time off from my full-time work to complete her thesis.

What else is on the cards for Jessica? “A very exciting trip,” she says. “Now that my son is 19 years old and living independently in Sydney, I applied for and was accepted to work with Mercy Ships in 2018.” Mercy Ships is a global charity that has operated hospital ships in developing nations since 1978. Mercy Ships uses hospital ships to deliver free health care services, capacity building and sustainable development aid to those without access in the developing world. “The ship I will be on for three weeks will be travelling along the coast of Africa,” she adds.

The $5000 Scholarship, was established by the NTEU in memory of the late Joan Hardy, who died in 2003. It is available to a

student currently enrolled in an academic award of an Australian public university and undertaking postgraduate study of nurses, nursing culture or practices, or historical aspects of nursing as a lay or professional practice and expects to submit the thesis within one year of being awarded the Scholarship. The student does not need to be or have been a nurse and can undertake the study in disciplines other than nursing.

Helena Spyrou, Union Education Officer www.nteu.org.au/myunion/ scholarships/joan_hardy

Carolyn Allport Scholarship As reported in Agenda (Sept 2017), Jodie Kell is this year’s recipient of the Carolyn Allport Scholarship, a postgraduate scholarship in feminist studies.

Jodie is doing a PhD in ethnomusicology at the Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. Jodie’s research explores how women in Maningrida, traditional country of the Kunibídji people on the coast of north-eastern Arnhem Land, use musical performance and expression to negotiate agency and identity. NTEU established the scholarship in 2014 in recognition of the late Dr Carolyn Allport’s contribution to the NTEU in her 16 years as National President. www.nteu.org.au/agenda

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 57

The CapsTone ediTing

Early Career Academic Research Grant for Women $5,000 for one female academic to assist with the costs associated with a research project leading towards a publication.

The CapsTone ediTing

Carer’s Travel Grant for Academic Women $3,000 for a female academic to assist with childcare costs in relation to travel to conduct research or present a paper at a conference.

Applications for both grants are open annually from 1 July to 30 May. Each grant is awarded on 30 June every year.

For more info or to apply, please visit capstoneediting.com.au/scholarships

My Union New NTEU staff Nagida Clark Media, Comms & Campaigns Organiser NSW Division Prior to joining the NTEU in July this year, Nagida was a Digital Campaigner at the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, mobilising supporters across their land-clearing, climate and marine campaigns.

Nagida has a background in community and union organising, including working in the ACTU’s digital campaigns team in the lead-up to the 2013 federal election.

Lachlan Clohesy Division Organiser ACT Division Dr Lachlan Clohesy joined the ACT Division as an Organiser in mid-2017.

Lachlan comes from our membership – he is a former Branch Committee member at Victoria University and also a former National Councillor. He taught at both VU and Swinburne, and also briefly worked in the ACT for ANU’s Postgraduate and Research Students’ Association (PARSA). In addition, Lachlan has worked part-time as a Member Organiser for the Victorian Division, working on secure work campaigns (particularly at Deakin University).

Jesse Page Industrial Organiser Deakin Uni Jesse joined the Deakin Branch as an Industrial Organiser in August of this year.

He has worked as an Industrial Organiser with the CFMEU, an Industrial Advocate with the FSU and as an Early Interventions Officer with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Campbell Smith Industrial Officer National Office Campbell comes to the National Office after a brief stint in the Victorian Division. Before that he worked at the Young Workers Centre, a community legal centre based at Victorian Trades Hall while finishing his law degree and Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice.

Campbell will be admitted as a solicitor in November 2017.

Staff movements Chloe Gaul has been appointed as Victorian Division Organiser.

Alex Cousner will be transferring from the WA Division to the National Office Industrial Unit.

Dan Coughlan, CQU Branch Organiser,will be retiring in December 2017. Barbara Williams, Qld Division Organiser, will also retire at the end of the year after 27 years with the Union. Barb has been serving Queensland members since before the NTEU even existed, starting work for the NTEU’s predecessor, Queensland Association of Academic Staff in Colleges of Advanced Education in January of 1991. (See article on Barb Williams in Agenda 2017, available at www.nteu.org.au/agenda.)

We wish Barb and Dan all the best in their retirement.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 59

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For more information, email info@memberadvantage.com.au or call 1300 853 352. page 60 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 24 no. 3 • November 2017 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

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