Advocate 23 03, November 2016

Advocate vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au • ISSN 1329-7295

It’s hard to innovate on a six-month contract

A Fair Go for all university staff ɓɓCampaign for secure jobs ɓɓEvery member counts ɓɓVET-FEE HELP is dead ɓɓResearch policy & funding incentives ɓɓIs there clarity on higher ed policy?

ɓɓUnion members on university councils ɓɓACTU pledge to support A&TSI workers ɓɓChallenging the privatised university ɓɓPauline Pantsdown: I don’t like it! ɓɓTools to assist member recruitment

ɓɓCentre for Future Work ɓɓWomen, careers & universities ɓɓNational Council 2016 ɓɓLife Members ɓɓ... and much more.

Contents It’s hard to innovate on a six-month contract

Cover image: Posters for the NTEU’s Fair Go campaign Advice (Original Advocacy Action design by Shane Wales).

Go to fairgo.nteu.org.au to tell our universities to put people before profits.

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Senate swings with different shades of Right

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 Noel Gardiner Feedback, advertising and other enquiries: advocate@nteu.org.au All text and images © NTEU 2016 unless otherwise stated.

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p. 32

It’s hard to innovate on a six-month contract

From the General Secretary

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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

The haves and have nots

Editorial, Jeannie Rea, National President

CORRESPONDENCE & EVENTS

Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

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NTEU history falters on UASA

2016 NTEU Lecture: Dennis Altman

UPDATE 5

LNP election dog whistling a distraction from policy failings

TPP threatens irreversible damage

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Aggressive tactics employed against NTEU in bargaining

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ACTU Taskforces

LGBTI conference: Raising Our Voices

9 Govt adverts false and misleading

Union democracy video

Go Home On Time Day 2016

10 Bluestocking Week 11 Anna Stewart Program UNICASUAL NEWS 12 #MakeThePledge 13 SuperCasuals update A&TSI NEWS 14 National Council condemns CDP 15 A&TSI Forum 2016

Survey reveals staff insecurity

16 ACTU Pledge to support Aboriginal workers 17 Flinders Ranges nuke waste dump FEATURES 18 A fair go for university staff To move towards more secure employment, we are fighting for a Fair Go for university staff.

Environment ISO 14001

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.

Advocate is available online as a PDF at nteu.org.au/advocate and an e-book at www.issuu.com/nteu NTEU members may opt for ‘soft delivery’ (email notification of online copy rather than mailed printed version). Details at nteu.org.au/ softfdelivery

22 Union members on uni councils NTEU is seeking to increase the accountability of university councils.

Go to fairgo.nteu.org.au to tell our universities to put people before profits.

31 Challenging the privatised university At the privatised university, degrees and Advice Advocacy Action research are products for sale; students are consumers, and academics are entrepreneurs and service providers.

Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

32 Pauline Pantsdown: I don’t like it Advocate talks to NTEU member Simon Hunt, aka Pauline Pantsdown, long time parody performer of One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson.

34 Plebiscite & Referendum: Paving the road to hate speech Drawing parallels between the Government’s push for a plebiscite on equal marriage and its campaign for Constitutional Recognition.

35 Centre for Future Work The Centre for Future Work is a new research institute set up to undertake progressive economic research into work and employment.

36 Women, careers and universities Where to from here?

Glenda Strachan’s research shows that in a changing system, equalities – or inequalities – can change – and we need to be aware of this.

39 The F word Davina Taylor reflects upon the feminist legacy of Jean Beadle.

40 Rock solid slogans What geological characteristics you might attribute to universities’ marketing slogans?

41 Recruitment: Every member counts A desktop calendar and Z cards are among the tools for NTEU members to recruit colleagues.

INTERNATIONAL 42 Turkey’s education sector purged 43 South Africa: Fees must fall COLUMNS 44 Virtual worlds – virtual teaching staff?

Guest column, Prof Stuart Bunt

45 Tam U will cram you!

Lowering the Boom, Ian Lowe

46 What I enjoy about working in academia Thesis Whisperer, Inger Mewburn

47 Productivity Commission is played by a scheming government Letter from NZ, Sandra Grey, TEU

YOUR UNION 48 National Council 2016 52 Genevieve Kelly retires 53 Di Zetlin life membership

Life Members

57 Recruitment Toolkit for Members

The Union’s approach to gender equity

58 Obituary: Helen Kelly

Victorian Division Gala Ball

59 NTEU staff news

UNE Council participation vindicated

23 Workshop on university councils hits the mark

p. 43

p. 48

24 VET-FEE HELP is dead The Government has conceded that education is far too important to be left to the market.

26 Is there clarity on higher ed policy?

Post-election, are we any clearer about the future direction of higher education policy?

28 Watt the? Research policy and funding incentives under Turnbull The federal election taught PM Turnbull that innovation does not rate in the electorate.

30 Sponsorship code of practice needed The Government has made it clear that the role of universities is to support research, development and ‘innovation’ in the private sector.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 1

From the General Secretary Grahame McCulloch, General Secretary

Senate swings with different shades of Right Australian politics and culture has not yet seen a rightward shift akin to Donald Trump’s Republican nomination, the rise of Marine Le Pen, the Brexit vote or the proliferation of right wing nationalist parties and governments in Central and Eastern Europe. But many of the same underlying tensions driving these European forces can be seen at play in the big swing against the major parties in the 2016 Senate election.

The stagnation of economic growth in much of the developed world, job losses and insecurity driven by expanded free trade and deregulation, anxiety about immigration, unstable financial markets, rising asset prices and large increases in income disparities, have seen voters on both the Left and the Right move away from the major parties. However, in the recent Senate election the big beneficiaries of this swing have been those on the Right of the populist revolt. Emblematic of this are the four seats won by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and the very strong performance of Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania.

From the perspective of both the university system and the organised labour movement, it is important to understand both the similarities between One Nation and Jacqui Lambie, but also crucially to understand the important differences between them. There is a principled basis on which NTEU can engage with a right wing populist such as Lambie, but there is no such scope in the case of One Nation.

The Pocket Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘populist’ as ‘a member or adherent of a political party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people’ and ‘a person who holds, or who is concerned with the views of ordinary people’.

Both One Nation and Lambie claim to speak for ordinary people. They agree that ordinary people are buffeted by financial oligarchs, uncontrolled migration and free trade. And they agree that ordinary people are best served by a stronger defence culture, an aggressive and strong State anti-terrorist capacity, a crackdown on criminals and a lack of tolerance for Islamic cultural and religious expression.

There is no prospect that One Nation’s outlook can ever be reconciled with the interests of NTEU and the trade union movement more broadly.

Note that the definition of populist entirely turns on how one defines both the interests and identity of ‘ordinary people’.

Such definitions can be arrived at by both inclusion and exclusion.

Hanson and Lambie probably agree that farmers, sub-contractors, itinerant workers and small business owners are ‘ordinary people’ whose interests need to be defended. But Lambie also regards single mothers, the unemployed, the disabled, unionised blue-collar workers, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people and LGBTI Australians as ‘ordinary people’. Not only

NATIONAL EXECUTIVE

NATIONAL OFFICE STAFF

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

Industrial Unit Coordinator Sarah Roberts National Industrial Officers Linda Gale, Wayne Cupido,

Susan Kenna

General Secretary Grahame McCulloch National Assistant Secretary Matthew McGowan

Policy & Research Coordinator Policy & Research Officers

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander (A&TSI) Policy Committee Chair Terry Mason National Executive: Rachael Bahl, Stuart Bunt, Damien Cahill, Sarah Caine, Gabe Gooding, Andrea Lamont-Mills, Colin Long, Virginia Mansel Lees, Michael McNally, Kelvin Michael, Felix Patrikeeff, Catherine Rojas, Melissa Slee, Ron Slee, Michael Thomson, Lolita Wikander

National A&TSI Coordinator National A&TSI Organiser

Paul Kniest Jen Tsen Kwok, Terri MacDonald Adam Frogley Celeste Liddle

National Organiser Michael Evans National Publications Coordinator Paul Clifton Media & Communications Officer Andrew MacDonald National Membership Officer Melinda Valsorda Education & Training Officers Ken McAlpine,

Helena Spyrou

page 2 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

does Hanson not recognise these groups, her outlook systematically demonises them as outsiders or freeloaders.

At a wider level, One Nation harbours deep ideological enmity for trade unions and a conspiracy-driven hostility to universities, the liberal press, the ABC and intellectuals. While willing to support measures to maintain reasonable economic access to higher education, One Nation is otherwise hostile to the curriculum, structure and priorities of our university system (with a particular animus towards climate science and cultural studies).

On the other hand Lambie has respect for and understands the importance of trade unionism given the imbalance of power between employers and employees. Her concerns about the Government’s anti-trade union ABCC Bill underline this. She recognises that universities are important national institutions with an important economic and social role in regional Australia.

Attempts to seek engagement with the Hanson One Nation agenda are doomed.

There is no prospect that One Nation’s outlook can ever be reconciled with the interests of NTEU and the trade union movement more broadly.

The Union can and will engage with Jacqui Lambie providing critical commentary on her views while welcoming and encouraging her interests in trade unions and quality publicly funded tertiary education.

Grahame McCulloch, General Secretary gmcculloch@nteu.org.au

Executive Manager ICT Network Engineer Database Programmer/Data Analyst

Peter Summers Tam Vuong Uffan Saeed

Payroll Officer Jo Riley Executive Officer (Gen Sec & President) Anastasia Kotaidis Executive Officer (Administration) Tracey Coster Admin Officer (Membership & Campaigns) Julie Ann Veal Administrative Officer (Resources) Renee Veal Receptionist & Administrative Support Leanne Foote Finance Manager Glenn Osmand Senior Finance Officer Gracia Ho Finance Officers Alex Ghvaladze, Tamara Labadze,

Lee Powell, Daphne Zhang National Growth Organiser

Rifai Abdul

Editorial Jeannie Rea, National President

The haves and have nots The academic profession is in crisis. Today the proportion of research-only academics exceeds ‘teaching and research’ academics at most Group of Eight institutions, and the majority of teaching in most courses in most universities is done by casually employed staff.

The academic profession used to be characterised by research informed teaching and engagement. Half the staff in Australian universities (by equivalent full time, not an actual body count) are ‘academics’, proportionally less than in the past. Academic work is not stratified by promotion from Level A to E, but by those in positions where promotion is possible and those where it is not. Today there are thousands more teaching casually or on short, fixed term contracts than there are in promotable positions.

The question we face is what will the academic profession look like in the near future if the current trends continue? We need to be seriously asking whether this is desirable for those who are and want to be academics, and what are the consequences for students, for scholarship and the role of universities? Maybe framing the extreme issue of the normalising of precarious work through this lens will assist in focusing attention, challenging attitudes and hopefully motivating action for change amongst academics.

Casually employed academics are paid to teach. The casual hourly rate supposedly includes some preparatory and some student feedback and some marking time.

Fortunately, the NTEU has now established the entitlement to separate payment for marking, albeit still difficult to negotiate at a realistic level. Student feedback and ongoing communication is sometimes accounted for by a little extra payment at the ‘other duties’ rate.

The ‘other duties’ rate is also used to pay for preparation of subject guides, content for online platforms, etc. SuperCasuals at Deakin are currently campaigning for six hours pay for casual staff to keep up with university policies and systems (see p. 13).

Many casual academics perform these other duties for very little or no payment. Some casuals know more about their subject than anyone else and have to be employed to write the update. Their expertise is rarely

recognised in their remuneration as subject coordinators are directed to get as much as they can out of them for as little as possible.

Pay rates do not increase with experience.

There are no increments.

As universities’ reliance on casually employed academics continues to increase, the very premise upon which these pay rates were based is a fiction. Casuals were meant to be casual – a temporary or occasional event for both the person and the university. The notion of an academic aspirant being employed casually for a decade or more, with no pay increments or career prospects, was unimaginable less than two decades ago, before universities made the decision to divide the academic workforce into the haves and have nots.

The division is real and even petty. At NTEU National Council last month, Daniel, a casually employed academic at a Group of Eight university spoke of how he was denied a flu injection because he is a ‘casual’. The reality is that he is probably exposed to more students to infect and be infected by than the professors standing in line for their free vaccine.

Universities perpetuated the myth that casual academics were mainly guests providing some specialist expertise, new graduates or those interested in occasional academic teaching work while their main focus was elsewhere. (That last one was, and is, suspiciously similar to the myth that women with families are not seriously pursuing a career!) Regardless of whether some casually employed academics do fit these categories, there still is no excuse for no recognition of experience or opportunities for professional development. The vast majority, as the research confirms time after time, are seeking an academic career. They are perpetually held back and their prospects deteriorate as they teach on and on without any financial security or career advancement.

There has and continues to be some industrial success with conversion clauses (see Swinburne report, p. 13), and with schemes like the scholarly teaching fellows (STFs) achieved in previous bargaining rounds. But not only do the numbers of casuals keep increasing along with student enrolments, so does the proportion of academic work casualised.

And casualisation is not gender neutral either, as Professor Glenda Strachan and colleagues report in ‘Women, careers and

universities: Where to from here’ (see p. 36).

Casualisation varies amongst disciplines and is highest in traditional feminised disciplines and occupational fields. As well, women in traditionally male fields are more likely to be insecurely employed – in teaching and research.

Casually employed academics try and keep up in their discipline so they not only retain casual re-employment, but they hope to set themselves for a more secure position. They do their scholarly reading and writing in their own time and at their own expense. They try to undertake research, again in their own time and own expense, but this is not possible in fields where they need laboratory, equipment and materials access – as well as colleagues with whom to collaborate.

Fortunately, a few find some opportunities while on their teaching semester casual contract when they have access to university facilities, but this is switched off when they are yet again dropped from the payroll. However, universities have a an expectation that the casuals will keep up in their field. They are also not coy with counting in research and publications by casuals, even when the university did not financially support the scholarly activity.

Many more securely employed academics reading this will be thinking that they too spend a lot more time working than what registers in their official working hours or formalised ‘workload’. Those on fixed term contracts are well aware that they have to over perform to get the next contract. And those in ‘ongoing’ positions know that over performance is required for promotion, or to hold on with the constant spectre of another restructure and redundancy round.

However, the difference is that casuals are not on the payroll while they are doing all this work – and they generally have to juggle with other paid work to survive.

How much longer can this go on before we academics (half the NTEU membership) stand up and say no more? When will we say no to letting our profession slip away along with the flu ridden Daniels? Stand with casual colleagues campaigning for fair access to working conditions, decent remuneration and conversion. Support the renewal or, better still, conversion of those on fixed term contracts. All we are saying is give everyone a fair go! (see p. 18) Jeannie Rea, National President jrea@nteu.org.au

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 3

Correspondence & Events Seen something in Advocate you’d like to respond to or comment on? We welcome and value your feedback. Please send letters to the Editor via email to advocate@nteu.org.au.

Advocate is published 3 times a year, in March, June/July and November.

A Most Unlikely Union falters on UASA history To the Editor

We have read with interest the recent history of our amalgamated unions, National Tertiary Education Union: A Most Unlikely Union

by John O’Brien but we are dismayed by the number of errors we have found in his description of events leading up to the amalgamation, particularly those relating to New South Wales. We believe that these errors should be brought to the attention of NTEU members and that the Advocate is the appropriate forum for this.

We are both former Presidents of the Union of Academic Staff Associations (UASA), the NSW Branch of the Federated of Australian University Staff Associations (FAUSA) and life members of the NTEU. So when we read the description of UASA we were appalled to find that it has been called by the WRONG name. O’Brien calls it the Union of Academic Staff Associations instead of the University Academic Staff Association. We deliberately did not register the more general name because of regard for the college academics who were not, at that point, part of the Union. He calls it by the wrong name for the one and a half pages devoted to its description. We also consider that the largest Branch of the largest union that became the NTEU should probably have warranted more than one and a half pages anyway.

Another error of omission relates to ACTU affiliation. O’Brien spends some time discussing FAUSA’s reluctance to join the ACTU before a decision in late 1983, totally ignoring the fact that FAUSA’s NSW Branch, UASA had already affiliated some years earlier and had sent delegates to the 1983 Congress. It was because FAUSA refused to affiliate earlier in 1982 and 1983 that UASA affiliated directly to the ACTU. Neil Harpley and Meredith Burgmann went as delegates from UASA to the 1983 Congress. Not only was the delegation active within the Left and the women’s caucus but they were also part of the historic education industry vote which elected Jennie George onto the ACTU Executive – the first woman in 56 years.

The next issue which O’Brien fudges is when he incorrectly states that the first FAUSA industrial award was in Victoria in 1986 when UASA’s ‘tenure for tutors’ (the Carol O’Donnell case) in NSW preceded it by two years.

UASA, which existed from 1977 until amalgamation with the Federation of College Academics in the late eighties, was very important because it led the push for FAUSA to move towards industrial unionism.

As part of this industrial agenda UASA was the first registered state union, the first Branch to affiliate to its local union peak body (Labor Council), the first to affiliate to the ACTU, the first to gain an industrial award, the first to take a case to the industrial commission, the first to conduct a successful tenure campaign, and – most importantly – the first to hold a union Xmas party.

2016 NTEU Lecture

Dennis Altman: Reviving civic culture The NTEU is proud to announce that Professor Dennis Altman will present the 6th NTEU Lecture in Sydney on Thursday 1 December, under the title ‘Reviving Civic Culture: The Role of Universities.’

Professor Altman’s lecture will examine how the nature of the political world is changing, and how this requires shifts in how we think of the role of universities in fostering and developing a strong civic culture.

A Professorial Fellow in Human Security at La Trobe University, Dennis Altman the author of thirteen books, since Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation was first published in 1972. In 2006, The Bulletin listed Dennis Altman as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever, and he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2008.

The annual NTEU Lecture provides a public forum for eminent Australians to present unique perspectives on aspects of higher education and its impact on the economic, social and cultural frameworks of Australian society.

The lecture will be held at the Guthrie Theatre at UTS (Peter Johnson Building, Level 3, Building 6, 702 Harris St, Ultimo, Sydney) on Thursday 1 December. Pre-lecture drinks from 5.30pm, lecture from 6.15 to 7.30pm. The NTEU Lecture is free and open to the public, but reservations are essential.

Please book online by Monday 28 November.

Unfortunately, John O’Brien did not interview or seek information from anyone involved with UASA. Had he done so these errors could clearly have been avoided.

To book tickets please visit nteu.org.au/lecture/2016

Ralph Hall, UASA President, 1986-88, FAUSA President, 198894, and Meredith Burgmann, UASA President, 1985-86

The NTEU Lecture

page 4 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Above: Dennis Altman (Credit: Ponch Hawkes)

Update LNP election dog whistling a distraction from policy failings The Turnbull Government proved desperate to avoid talking about its funding cut and fee hike plans for higher education during the 2016 election campaign. That reluctance to discuss the sector, however, did not extend to attempted smears on one of its high profile figures.

Violent Extremism (PAVE), had made that a jailed self-styled Islamic preacher was a potential candidate for a de-radicalisation program.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, added her two cents, saying federal funding provided to PAVE was for mentoring young people before they are radicalised, and not for writing references to have convicted criminals released.

In defence of its member at the time, NTEU described the attacks as ‘Islamophobic dog whistling.’

incumbent Liberal Member Luke Simpkins, more than a week after the 2 July poll.

In the second last week of the campaign, Justice Minister Michael Keenan told ABC Radio that internationally-renowned WA academic, counter-radicalisation expert and Labor Candidate for Cowan, Dr Anne Aly had shown poor judgement and was soft on terrorism.

‘Dr Aly is an outstanding academic and acknowledged expert in counter terrorism, who is a far more competent authority on Islamic radicalisation and counter terrorism than either Ministers Bishop or Keenan,’ said NTEU WA Division Secretary Gabe Gooding in the media release.

NTEU would like to congratulate Dr Aly, as well as long-time NTEU members Senator Deborah O’Neill and Dr Andrew Leigh MP, for their successes in the recent federal election.

The basis for the claim was a submission Dr Aly, previously Chair of People Against

In a win for taking the high road, Dr Aly went on to declare a narrow victory over

Above: Anne Aly supporting the NTEU’s No $100K Degrees campaign.

TPP threatens irreversible damage Australia still has its sights set on a last minute ratification of the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), as unions and civil society organisations rally around the country, and even as the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (FADT) announced another review.

In their September trip to the US, PM Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop actively lobbied the US to ratify the TPP. Bishop pressed the point in meetings with the Clinton and Trump campaigns. In Washington, Turnbull pushed past questions about ISIS/ISIL, cyber-security, and the role of Australian forces in the bombing of Syria, to confirm he was encouraging the

Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, to pass the TPP in Congress’s ‘lame duck’ session, after the upcoming presidential election.

Contrary to the Australian Government’s pro-TPP position, rallies have been held in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth at public hearings of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT), which has resumed following the election. Further to this, the FADT Committee has initiated a review of the TPP, with the final report due by 7 February 2017.

Andrew MacDonald, National Media & Communications Officer

NTEU has worked with the AEU and IEU in calling for a comprehensive carve-out of education from bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, and recently met with the ALP’s Shadow Minister for Trade Jason Clare.

The education unions have warned that if Australia was to liberalise educational services in any area not specifically protected by Annex II, these reforms could be rendered irreversible, with the TPP allowing foreign providers to sue the Australian Government where there is ‘indirect expropriation’.

NTEU has specific concerns about the irreversibility of full fee or partial fee deregulation. While it appears the TPP will have a tough time in the US, the intention of the Australian Government in continuing to push for this deal to be ratified is a major concern.

Jen Tsen Kwok, Policy & Research Officer

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 5

Update Aggressive tactics employed against NTEU in bargaining Round 7 bargaining continues to unfold, predominantly in Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania. The management agenda in WA, and in Queensland at Griffith and James Cook University (JCU) in particular, is a regressive one, paired with an aggressive approach. At Murdoch University, management has engaged union-busting lawyers to break the NTEU, and is engaging itself in a highly legalistic field battle.

Nonetheless, our bargainers persist undaunted, with a successful protected action ballot now under our belt.

Deakin University Enterprise bargaining is a process that is similar to buying a house with someone you don’t necessarily like very much. Both parties have totally different wishlists, and this is particularly evident with Deakin this round in relation to the different kitchen we are after (workloads), the different bathroom (workplace flexibility) and whether we are buying a house or a caravan (job security).

At the moment Deakin management is encouraging staff to buy a tent, albeit one with an outdoor bush shower and a butane camp stove. The University has presented an entire draft Agreement as their Log of Claims – a glossy, well prepared and marketed brochure. The proposed Agree-

ment includes reductions in job security through reducing consultation rights and increasing categories for fixed-term contracts, has no improvements in workplace flexibility, and allows for further increases in workloads. It also attacks academic freedom through removing the right for academic staff to speak on anything but their area of expertise, and claims this as just ‘clarification’ of the intellectual freedom principles.

However, Deakin’s proposed Agreement is not a unilateral offer, and we have the opportunity to influence the outcome, both through the negotiation and through other actions we have already commenced.

NTEU will not recommend a Yes vote until we are sure that the Agreement provides acceptable accommodation, and a decent kitchen and bathroom.

Outside of this, we would like to congratulate Deakin on extending provisions for domestic and family violence leave to casual staff. Domestic and family violence does not discriminate and impacts almost equally across society, and we recognise the importance of providing domestic and family violence leave to all employees.

University of Tasmania At the University of Tasmania (UTAS), the NTEU bargaining team has gained considerable ground in the timing of casual pays, with management agreeing to pay casual staff fortnightly. Our team has also successfully negotiated to double paid partner leave (increased from 1 to 2 weeks).

However, management indicated that they wish to remove the Academic Workload Guidelines from the Agreement, cut the Academic Workload Consultative Committee and extend duration of the workload allocation cycle from three to five years.

These are all claims which we strongly oppose. Based on our opposition, management have agreed to discuss how the Guidelines can be varied to better reflect academic work patterns, and to include those teaching into Associate Degrees and VET programs.

Insecure work at UTAS is by far one of our biggest claims, and the NTEU UTAS bargaining team has put forward our clauses on improved job security, resignation notice periods for academics and study leave entitlements. Management is con-

sidering those claims and we hope to have a response soon.

As always, it is through the strength and input of members that our claims will continue to gain momentum in the negotiations. Stay tuned.

James Cook University After 15 days and half days of negotiations, totalling 62 hours of meetings, there has been little genuine progress in bargaining at JCU. Management have proposed changes, ranging from minor amendments through to complete removal, to virtually every single clause of the current Agreement. This approach has significantly delayed bargaining.

Management have not as yet agreed to a single claim put forward by the Union. The meetings have been endless discussions about the removal of rights and entitlements from the Agreement, where they are enforceable, to policy and procedure, where they are not in any way enforceable.

Most of management’s changes are specifically designed to allow for greater managerial prerogative, without the ability for members to challenge decisions being made about their workloads, assessment of their performance and their conduct. If management persists with seeking to strip out entitlements and protections from the Agreement, then it is likely that the Branch will need to consider industrial action.

Central Queensland University In the lead up to bargaining management at Central Queensland University (CQU) had lead us to understand that they were not interested in pursuing the aggressive agenda being pursued at universities in WA and at JCU. We deferred bargaining at CQU on the basis of these assurances and were hopeful of a quick and productive round of negotiations. We finalised our Log of Claims on 15 September, and negotiations were due to commence on 12 October.

Unfortunately, the NTEU recently received CQU management’s Log of Claims and it bears many of the hallmarks of the aggressive tactics employed in WA and at JCU. Examples include management’s claim to ‘adjust span of hours provisions to cater for the changing needs of the University as it services a global market’ and ‘remove misconduct and unsatisfactory perfor-

Protected Action ballots For any member taking industrial action at a workplace, the AEC requires your latest home addresses.

UPDATE YOUR DETAILS AT nteu.org.au/members

page 6 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Update mance process to policy’, which would mean they can subsequently change the process on a whim with nothing more required than token consultation.

If every NTEU member signed up one new member, bargaining If every member signed up one new member, would be overNTEU in weeks not years... bargaining would be over in weeks – not years...

Education v Justice v Rights

Griffith University NTEU attended the first meeting with management about bargaining on 4 October. Discussions centred around establishing bargaining protocols to assist negotiations. Once again, management asserted that they were ‘following their own path’ in regard to the aggressive line being pursued elsewhere.

Unfortunately, their Log of Claims tells a different story, seeking to ‘simplify’, ‘remove restrictions’ and ‘increase flexibility’: we know from experience this is code for stripping conditions of employment.

Western Australia

I recommend the NTEU because it offered me protection when I needed it most.

I recommend the NTEU because our influence helped stop the Abbott/Turnbull government from introducing $100,000 degrees.

In April, four WA vice-chancellor’s put out a joint message to staff indicating their intent to pursue common claims and outcomes in bargaining, something they have proceeded to do since bargaining commenced in earnest in June.

While their agendas and claims are not identical, they are effectively so, to the point that the same clauses with the same typographical errors are tabled at different universities on successive days! It is usually impossible to get the four VCs in WA to cooperate or admit that they have common interests, so obsessed are they with the uniqueness of their mission, so this level of cooperation and coordination is both out of character and disturbing.

Collectively they are set on a course that revolves around stripping out key rights and protections, under the guise of ‘simple, contemporary, fair’ Agreements.

Since many employees do not differentiate between policy that can be changed at a whim and enforceable and secure provisions in the Agreement, a key task of the Union has been to convince them that the #WordsMatter.

I recommend the NTEU because, working together, we secured excellent working conditions with a fair and decent pay rise.

nteu.org.au/join

are currently set on removing other important provisions including enforceable commitments to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment.

Bargaining has been intensive with 3–6 hours scheduled at each site each week, and at the time of writing we are have covered all clauses and claims in depth – and multiple times –at three universities and are close at the fourth, with over 400 hours of negotiation having been conducted.

It has been a tough gig for the bargaining teams who have been attempting to vigorously purse the Union’s claims whilst fending off a coordinated management assault on the employment conditions of the sector. The constant refrain from management that they want provisions that are consistent with the modern award or the Fair Work Act is the best possible indicator that they are seeking to systematically strip employment conditions back to the statutory or safety net minima.

While progress has been made at Curtin on modifying some of the more extreme elements of the employers’ claims, and at ECU management have agreed to extend maternity leave to parental leave, there has been no willingness on the part of the employers to agree to any of the Union’s claims on job security, superannuation improvements for casuals and domestic violence leave. Worse still, the employers

Members at Murdoch have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action in their Protected Action ballot and we expect that action to start soon. Murdoch management have engaged an international law firm with a reputation for union busting and have unsuccessfully sought an injunction against the NTEU to prevent us communicating what they want in bargaining. They have also taken Federal

Court action against the Union and two of our negotiators in a case that is yet to be heard. The personalisation of that action to individuals, and the serving of court papers on them at 10pm, is indicative of the nature of negotiations at Murdoch.

While there is little positive to report, along the way there have been many notable quotes from management in defence of their simple, contemporary and fair agenda. Perhaps the best of all is: ‘We want a simple agreement so that HR can understand it.’

However, ‘student evaluation of teaching is no different to asking a customer whether the mechanic has done a good job on their car’ must come a close second, as would the statement that domestic violence leave could be rorted by people with sporting injuries.

Together they indicate the size of the task being faced by negotiators in WA. For more on bargaining, see the report on the NTEU’s Fair Go campaign, p. 18.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 7

Update ACTU Taskforces benefit from academic input The decline in sheer numbers of union members, as well as density amongst workers, is a crisis. The consequences are that, in poorly unionised areas decent remuneration, employment and working conditions are declining.

Overall, unions do not have the influence or power of the past, yet ordinary people (in and out of paid work) are reliant upon unions acting for and with them. Earlier this year the ACTU established a series of taskforces to investigate the issues and propose solutions.

NTEU elected officers and senior staff participated in these taskforces and we also convened, for the ACTU, an academic roundtable to draw upon expertise within our own membership. This roundtable met for the first time in Sydney in August and a number of participants are already contributing to the taskforce process.

The roundtable is also assisting in improving the recognition of the contribution of academic researchers who are also unionists.

LGBTI conference: Raising Our Voices

inequalities that still exist in communities around the world.

NTEU has contributed to this work. Many members work actively by both contributing to our understanding of issues related to communities of diverse sexualities and genders through their research and everyday work as well as participating in union activism around issues including marriage equality.

The NTEU’s Queer Unionists in Tertiary Education (QUTE) caucus is organising the ‘Raising Our Voices’ conference in January 2017 in Melbourne.

Subtitled ‘Education, Activism and Change: Valuing LGBTIQ workers’, the conference aims to help empower members to connect with issues related to people of diverse sexualities and genders and represent these through activism at Branches.

The labour movement has a rich history of advocating for the rights of workers of diverse sexualities and genders. Unions have worked to eliminate discrimination in employment legislation, to recognise LGBTIQ issues in workplace Agreements, challenging homophobia/biphobia/ transphobia in workplaces and exposing

After many months of intense and honest discussions, the Taskforce steering committee has allocated funds to support a number of innovative projects across unions to trial different ways of campaigning successfully and recruiting and retaining members. An important project is the Systems Think Tank that is imagining a new IR system.

There is some excitement as officials and delegates get past narrowfocussed old debates such as organising versus servicing. There is still much excitement about digital technology, but we are getting there on seeing these as tools not solutions.

We are also getting past, ‘but we have always done it this way’ barriers to change.

Jeannie Rea, National President

page 8 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Building on our achievements through increased visibility of the QUTE caucus also raises the profile of our union which in turn contributes to increasing membership, and developing our activist base.

The conference will be held Friday 27 January and Saturday 28 January 2017 in the Federation of Education Unions (FEU) conference rooms in South Melbourne and will conclude with the Pride March in St Kilda on Sunday 29 January.

Each NTEU Branch is invited to send a delegate. Flights and accommodation will be organised and paid for by the Union where applicable. This is an opportunity for a LGBTIQ member or an ally to further the work of QUTE, as it is our goal to develop the caucus across the country so that each State has both a presence and an LGBTI activist base.

David Willis, Victorian Division Organiser Register your interest at nteu.org.au/qute/raisingourvoices

RAISING

OUR VOICES S AV E

T H E

D AT E

Education, Activism & Change: Valuing LGBTIQ workers.

Friday 27 – Saturday 28 January 2017

Update Audit Office confirms Govt adverts were false & misleading The recent release of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report on government advertising reveals that the Coalition’s public information campaign on higher education reforms was deceptive and that if the Bill had passed, the Australian Government would be contributing less than 40 per cent of course costs by 2018.

The advertisements claimed that the Commonwealth would continue to pay around half of an undergraduate degree. However, the Education Department has advised the ANAO that, for students experiencing the higher education reforms, the average Government contribution to undergraduate degrees would fall to 39.5 per cent by 2018.

As the ANAO itself addresses, government spending on public information cam-

Go Home On Time Day 2016 Go Home On Time Day rolls around again on Wednesday 23 Nov, and the NTEU will once again be encouraging staff in universities to do precisely that.

#nodebtsentence #defendourunis paigns should be accurate and verifiable.

The ANAO’s finding means that the former Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, was effectively using public funds to make factual misrepresentations to the Australian electorate about the effect of the legislative reforms.

Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

These events also suggest that the Department had overt political reasons to deny release of the student fee modelling, as the NTEU requested via a Freedom of Information request in the months leading up to the federal election. The NTEU believed that it would reveal that $100,000 degrees were on the cards.

According to The Australia Institute, the value of unpaid overtime Australians are donating to their employers each year has hit $128 billion. Meanwhile, data collected

by NTEU as part of our 2015 State of the Uni survey shows that Australian university staff donated more than 26 million free hours. That’s more than $1.6 billion in unpaid overtime, and an average donation of 250 hours per staff member.

The NTEU will be releasing further promotional material in the lead-up to Go Home on Time Day 2016, and will be encouraging university staff to donate their time to themselves and their families, instead of their employer.

The Department’s denial to release this modelling is now caught up in far more sinister motives.

Go Home on Time Day is an annual initiative of The Australia Institute, designed to promote work life balance among Australian workers.

Jen Tsen Kwok, Policy & Research Officer

nteu.org.au/gohomeontimeday

Union democracy highlighted in new video The democratic benefits of NTEU membership were the focus of a new video released by the Union in the lead-up to the 2016 National Council Meeting in October.

The short, colourful clip makes the point that members have the chance to make their voices heard across a range forums, events and campaigns when they join.

From workplace meetings, to involvement in Branches, Divisions and National

View the video at nteu.org.au/makeyourvoiceheard Office, to voting and running in elections, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved.

Tell a colleague, and encourage them to join so their voices can be heard too!

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 9

Update Bluestocking Week keeps up union tradition of a feminist agenda The theme for this year’s Bluestocking Week was ‘A Feminist Agenda’ – a deliberately empowering call that drew upon the traditions of the bluestocking movement to challenge the sustained attacks levelled at women who contest male power and control today, be it on campus, in traditional and new social media platforms, in the political arena or more broadly in both culture and society.

Bluestocking Week is named for the first generations of university women of the 19th century who grabbed the term and, even as it was used by their opponents as a derogatory dismissal of their achievement, proudly wore it as a badge of serious scholarship.

Calling on this tradition, during the late 1980’s through to the last decade, feminist student activists held ‘Bluestocking week’ events on university campuses across the country. It was an opportunity to campaign over important issues, such as violence against women on campus and the male dominated curricular of university discourse, while celebrating women’s participation and achievements in higher education.

However, Bluestocking Week largely disappeared as resources for students to organise on campus dried up due to the anti-student organisation (VSU) legislation of the Howard Government. This was a real loss, because Bluestocking Week drew attention to what women had won and were still fighting for in higher education.

It was not just about access and numbers of women at universities, but also about what was being taught and researched, and by whom.

In 2012 with the partial restoration of student union funding, there was a resur-

issues of importance to them – as had the original Bluestockings.

And, as with the women students of the 1980s and later, these events facilitated new activists on campuses, while at the same inspiring and reinvigorating our experienced women’s advocates and campaigners. In short, Bluestocking Week continued its important tradition of giving women the platform to spread the positive feminist message of empowerment for all women, and to challenge and seek change to the status quo.

Terri MacDonald, Policy & Research Officer

gence in student activism and campus culture, and both NTEU and NUS deemed that it was time to restore and renew Bluestocking Week, making it relevant for a new generation of university women.

Over the last five years, Bluestocking Week has grown, and this year saw over forty different events held nationally, including the inaugural NTEU Qld Women’s Conference (entitled ‘Speak Up, Speak Out, Be Heard’) and the launch of the Victorian-based campaign to extend domestic and family violence leave to casual staff.

Other events included trivia nights, fund raising events, exhibitions and displays, guided walks with Aboriginal elders to learn about the meanings of place, and collaborations with students and women’s groups to raise awareness on issues such as violence against women.

While at first glance there would appear to be considerable diversity in the types of Bluestocking Week events held, what all had in common was the opportunity for women in the higher education community to get together, share their stories and experiences and to speak out about

page 10 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Summary of the 2016 Bluestocking Week events and those from previous years: www.nteu.org.au/women/ bluestockingweek/events See also the 2016 edition of Agenda: www.nteu.org.au/agenda

From top: Liz Mackinlay, Amie Khosla and Di Lancaster at the Qld Women’s Conference; 2016 Bluestocking Week poster; Setting the agenda with a beer in Canberra.

Update Anna Stewart Program brings union women together Designed to encourage more women to be present and active in unions, the Anna Stewart Memorial Project is a two week long internship program consisting of two days each week at Trades Hall, with the remaining time in a union of choice.

The NTEU Queensland Division engaged in the Project in 2016, and was fortunate to both participate and host in the one week work experience section. The Division encourages others to consider participating next year – the benefits to all are immeasurable.

Jo Merley, an NTEU delegate from Griffith University spent time in the Division Office for the first half of the week. In the second half of the week she was then the

guest of the Media & Entertainment Arts Alliance (MEAA). In exchange, Mel Mackie, a station master and delegate from the Rail, Bus & Tram Union (RBTU) spent time with her union and then came to the NTEU for the remainder of the week.

The Victorian Trades Hall kicked off their Anna Stewart Program with a group of around 20 wonderful union women, two of whom were NTEU members: Amelia Sully and Eleanor Kennedy, both from Melbourne University.

At the launch, the Anna Stewart women ran through and destroyed a banner constructed from sexist ‘locker room’ comments heard in the workplace.

Barb Williams, Qld State Organiser & Bec Muratore, Melb Branch Organiser

Above: Victorian Anna Stewart women crash through the ‘locker room’ banter banner. Right: Mel Mackie and Jo Merley (Credits: Jo Taylor, Lachlan Hurse). www.vthc.org.au/ASMP

universitiesaustralia.edu.au/RespectNowAlways

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 11

UniCasual News #MakeThe Pledge Rosie Batty endorses NTEU campaign for Domestic & Family Violence Leave for Casuals The #MakeThePledge campaign, launched on 18 August this year, calls on Victorian vicechancellors to extend their domestic and family violence leave provisions to casual staff.

A key issue facing the increasing proportion of casual employees in universities is the exclusion from the increasing paid leave entitlements, which are available to permanent staff, but are not covered by the casual loading stipulated in Enterprise Agreements. This campaign also recognises the gendered nature of both casualisation and domestic violence.

DFVL growing in prominence Domestic and family violence leave (DFVL) as a workplace issue is gaining prominence and currency in Australia through various organisations, including the ACTU who are running a test case through the Fair Work Commission.

The Swinburne beachhead Thanks to campaigning by the NTEU, all Victorian universities now have paid domestic violence leave for permanent and ongoing staff. But by the end of 2015 only Swinburne University had extended this right to casual employees; a win was only achieved after three years of dedicated campaigning and negotiations.

On 29 July 2016, vice-chancellors of Victorian universities (except Swinburne) received a letter asking them to extend their domestic and family violence leave provisions to all staff, including casuals and fixed term employees. The letter was signed by NTEU National President Jeannie Rea, NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Colin Long and the women’s caucus of the Victorian Casuals Council (VCC).

At our #MakethePledge Bluestocking Week campaign launch we had two exceptional guest speakers who are experts in the field: family violence advocate and advisor, human rights academic, and family violence survivor, Liana Papoutsis; and Swinburne DFVL campaign leader and domestic violence survivor, Michelle Brocker.

Their stories of overcoming adversity were moving, and their calls to action inspiring.

Despite the seriousness of the issue, the overwhelming mood on the night was collegial and optimistic. Jeannie Rea also gave an impassioned speech about the importance of this issue for unions, and musician Justine Walsh captivated us with her beautiful voice.

We consolidated a strong group of activists keen to participate in local campaigns to ‘encourage’ the remaining VCs to commit to extending this important right to all staff.

VCs respond

Rosie Batty, domestic violence campaigner and 2015 Australian of the Year, has recently enthusiastically endorsed the NTEU campaign .

Four universities responded before the campaign launch , and we have had three more responses since then, following further discussion.

Those in insecure work are especially vulnerable. Domestic violence affects the ability of casual workers to do the work they rely on for financial security. If a casual employee misses work, she loses income, and could potentially lose her job.

University of Melbourne and Victoria University told us that they will consider it as a case by case issue until next year’s bargaining, where they will be willing to enter into negotiations on the topic .

Monash University said they will include casual staff in their current policy for applications for DV leave. However, the Agreement at Monash requires several levels of approval, so that it is effectively a case by case consideration, which means that it is not guaranteed.

La Trobe University, Deakin University, Australian Catholic University and Federation University have committed to include casual staff in their current DFVL policies and procedures, and we understand that this right will be reflected in the upcoming agreements at these universities.

Mobilising on the gendered dimension to insecure work is a crucial factor to building union power more broadly.

Through this on-going campaign, we are engaging casual members in an important workplace rights issue with a strategic campaign.

Amelia Sully, Eleanor Kennedy, Jo Taylor & Bel Townsend, Victorian Casuals Council We have several actions underway at the universities yet to pledge, including a petition: www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/ take-the-dv-leave-pledge

Above: Eleanor Kennedy, member of the VCC and Melbourne Branch Committee, at the Bluestocking Week #MakeThePledge event (Credit: Toby Cotton).

“Universities need to be best practice employers and they need to be setting standards on how we as a society approach the national problem of domestic violence.

By Making the Pledge, Vice Chancellors have a real opportunity to make their workplaces safe and progressive for all who suffer from domestic violence and to set the agenda for how casual staff are treated across the State.

The NTEU is deeply concerned about the high levels of casual employment in Australian universities and about the pattern of disregard for those staff, who are proportionally more likely to be women.”

Eleanor Kennedy, Victoria Casuals Council member

page 12 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

UniCasual News SuperCasuals update As usual, it has been an extraordinarily busy time for SuperCasuals in the Victorian Division.

Deakin University Deakin University does not pay casually employed staff to maintain up to date knowledge of its own policies and systems. All casual staff should be paid to stay up to date with occupational health and safety protocols, equal employment opportunity measures, assessment and plagiarism standards, and ever changing information technology platforms.

A group of Deakin SuperCasuals have responded by launching a campaign to demand that casual staff be paid for the work performed inducting and familiarising themselves with Deakin policies and systems. NTEU is claiming 6 hours of pay for every participant for the time spent self-training and self-inducting.

Already more than 50 casuals have joined this action, and the numbers are rising every day. Of course we would love as many people as possible to sign up – the more people who join the campaign the greater our ability to tackle the issue of casuals’ unpaid work.

A big thanks also to those who attended our BBQ campaign launch event at Burwood on 12 October. We’ll also be out to Geelong in coming weeks.

Stay tuned to see what’s next for our

campaign over T3. We invite all Deakin casuals to join this collective campaign.

If you have any questions, or wish to participate in or help organise, contact Lachlan Clohesy (lclohesy@nteu.org.au or 0418 493 355).

Swinburne Secure Work NTEU SuperCasuals has commenced its major sessional academic job security campaign at Swinburne focusing on the rights of academic sessional members to apply for conversion under new sector leading arrangements negotiated into the 2015 Union Collective Agreement.

Those rights were the culmination of four years of campaigning by sessional staff at Swinburne.

Senior Management at Swinburne responded to this new right by limiting the work of a number of sessional staff to make them ineligible to apply for conversion to secure work. We are pleased to announce that this issue has been resolved to the benefit of affected members after strong NTEU advocacy.

FIVE REASONS TO UPDATE YOUR DETAILS

Nearly 100 casual members have applied for conversion through this dedicated collective NTEU action. NTEU will be submitting the applications of members at the end of October and we will provide the advocacy required to secure the work of eligible NTEU casual members. We welcome the more than 30 sessionals who have joined NTEU since the commencement of this campaign. If you any questions about this campaign then get in touch with Dustin via email dhalse@ nteu.org.au. Stay tuned for news at supercasuals.org.au/swinburne_university.

Hands UP 4 Secure Work NTEU Melbourne Branch’s Hands UP 4 Secure Work campaign continues with dozens of members and activists fighting for conversion to permanent work.

Dustin Halse, Recruitment & Campaign Organiser, Vic Division Want to know more about the SuperCasuals? Call Dustin on 0478 835 429 or email supercasuals@nteu.org.au.

Above: Preparing for SuperCasuals BBQ at Deakin.

Your membership card To access great NTEU discounts, your member card needs to be sent to the correct address.

NTEU elections To vote in NTEU elections (run by the AEC), your contact details must be up-to-date.

NTEU magazines Set your preferences for the NTEU magazines you want, in hard copy or e-delivery.

Protected Action ballots For any member taking industrial action at a workplace, the AEC requires your latest home address.

Important information Set and check your email addresses to ensure you receive vital information from the NTEU. UPDATE YOUR DETAILS AT nteu.org.au/members

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 13

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander News National Council condemns CDP NTEU National Council 2016 voted unanimously to condemn the Federal Government’s regional and remote ‘work for the dole’ scheme – the Community Development Program (CDP) – on the basis that it is an exploitative and racially discriminatory program.

In passing this important motion, National Council delegates reinforced NTEU support for the ACTU’s Wages for Work, with a goal to have the CDP overturned.

In the same week a damning report by Job Australia was released on the outcomes of the CDP to date, leaving the Government scrambling to defend a program that has reaped little to no benefit whatsoever.

Moving the motion, A&TSI Policy Committee Deputy Chair Sharlene Leroy-Dyer said ‘The CDP is an inherently racist program.

While the Government has consistently stated that this is not the case, the fact is that A&TSI people make up 85 per cent of the unemployed people in the regions this program applies.

‘Anywhere else in this country, a 25 hour per week commitment year-round would be considered a part time job and would attract the protections and provisions that other jobs do, such as superannuation and occupational health and safety legislative protection. Additionally, it is hard to argue that this is not a program geared toward exploiting Indigenous labour when you consider other work for the dole programs run for 10 hours per week, and for only six months.

‘As the only payment for this work is the receipt of unemployment benefits, this equates to workers being paid $10 per hour or in other words, less than twothirds of the minimum wage. Considering that the majority of these placements are undertaking roles which, in all other parts of country, would be part of the ordinary services provided by local councils speaks volumes. Aboriginal people should not have to constantly give up their rights to receive the things that other people in this country take for granted.

‘This year, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wave Hill Walk Off, the fact that Aboriginal workers are still expected to provide free labour shows just how little things have progressed,’ Leroy-Dyer concluded.

Universities in CDP catchment areas While the specific implications for the sector might not be immediately apparent, it is important to note that of the 40 universities in this country, seven operate campuses in the regions included in the CDP catchment area.

In addition to this, member feedback suggests there have been preliminary discussions conducted with some institutions in relation to becoming providers for CDP. NTEU strongly opposes universities collaborating with the CDP, at a time when universities are consistently failing to achieve their agreed A&TSI employment targets. Universities should only be looking to proper employment opportunities for A&TSI workers.

NTEU will not only provide support to the ACTU’s Wages 4 Work campaign, but will engage in protest action and provision of information to Branches, Division and the membership more broadly.

During the ACTU Executive meeting in Darwin in August, union leaders along with the ACTU Indigenous Committee staged a protest against the CDP, erecting placards in the mall on the history of Indigenous labour exploitation and the Wave Hill Walk-Off (see p. 16).

This rally not only drew national media coverage, but was also backed up by an ACTU resolution to ‘pursue whatever community, campaign, legislative and legal mechanisms it deems appropriate to end the CDP and fight shoulder to shoulder with A&TSI workers in the pursuit of equality and fairness for all Australian workers.’

page 14 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Towards a post treaty union In addition to the motion on CDP, three other A&TSI motions were passed this National Council.

The first of these was a machinery motion recommitting NTEU to the goals outlined in the NTEU Ten Point Plan for a Post-Treaty Union (such as the A&TSI representational structure and the right to assert sovereignty within the Union), the ongoing negotiation and implementation of A&TSI clauses within collective agreements, active engagement in anti-racism campaigns on campus and the increase of A&TSI job opportunities within the Union.

The second motion built upon NTEU’s existing commitment to push for early access to superannuation for A&TSI workers in line with the current gap in life expectancy. It additionally calls on the NTEU to lobby relevant bodies on the matter of this early access.

The final motion noted the previous National Council motions on Constitutional Recognition (2015) along with Sovereignty and Treaty (2013) and built upon these commitments by acknowledging the principled stance the Victorian Government has since taken with regards to the matters of sovereignty and treaties. The motion also reaffirmed that the public stance of the Union is one where the negotiation of a treaty or treaties between A&TSI peoples is absolute, rather than the Union taking the symbolic and politically palatable path of Constitutional Recognition.

The A&TSI Policy Committee, together with the National A&TSI Unit, would like to thank National Council for endorsing these motions, and looks forward to working collaboratively to achieve these goals.

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

Above: Robert Anders (A&TSI Policy Committee), Adam Frogley and Gheran Steel, CEO of the Boonwurrung Foundation, at NTEU National Council 2016.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander News Forum 2016 The 2016 National A&TSI Forum in July saw almost 40 delegates from around the country – along with NTEU staff, officers and international guests – participate in two busy days of constructive conversations, bargaining planning and networking.

High on the agenda was the growing amount of insecure work A&TSI staff in higher education are finding themselves engaged in. Many delegates highlighted rolling casual and fixed term contracts as being of concern.

Discussions also covered the continuing mainstreaming and ‘whitestreaming’ agendas which have led to the scaling down of specific A&TSI academic and support programs, the cuts in real funding from Government for these same programs despite governmental advice to the contrary, and the additional weight ‘emotional labour’ provides to our workloads.

The implementation of A&TSI Enterprise Agreement clauses from the last bargaining round, and our aspirations for the next, were a central part of discussions. With a few sites already bargaining, we were told of the agendas of university management with regards to the A&TSI clauses. It is clearly going to be a difficult battle to maintain our previously hard won employment targets and conditions.

Though the winter weather in Geelong meant delegates were essentially locked in for the majority of the time at the Narana Cultural Centre, the conversation was collaborative and engaging. All the NTEU National Officers were in attendance. Our comrades from the NZ TEU, Vice President Hemi Houkamau and Lee Cooper, joined us again and reported on the struggles of Maori workers, both in the NZ higher education sector and more broadly as they struggle for social justice.

The next Forum is planned for July 2017. Division A&TSI Forums will be held across the country beforehand so that members have the opportunity to get together at a local level. We strongly urge all interested members to consider attending these.

Survey reveals staff insecurity In a recent NTEU survey, well over half of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander higher education staff reported that they are concerned about job security.

Consequently, they are worried about financial security, the capacity to undertake further study, and attend to community/ cultural business.

In September 2016, A&TSI members were invited to undertake an online survey that asked ‘How Secure Do You Feel?’ Respondents were invited to express their views on the security of their current employment, change management, contracted hours of employment compared to actual hours worked, compensation for additional hours worked and if job security factored as a consideration when seeking to undertake community and cultural business and additional study.

Forty per cent of the NTEU A&TSI membership completed the survey, with participation from 82 per cent of Branches. The ratio of academic staff to general/professional staff was 48 to 52 per cent.

Security of employment Members were asked to rate the security of their employment today, with 58 per cent indicating their current employment was insecure or very insecure. When asked about the security of their employment today compared to twelve months ago, 22 per cent expressed they were more secure in their employment, while 46 per cent indicated no change.

A telling note from the survey findings was that when members were asked to rate the security of their current employment into the future, 60.4 per cent thought it would decline, while 8.8 per cent indicated their employment would have greater security into the future.

Hours worked

somewhat different, with members reporting hours of work up to and exceeding 60 hours per week.

When asked if compensation was offered for additional hours worked, 48 per cent indicated they were not compensated for additional hours of work; and when compensation was offered, TOIL or a day off-inlieu, rather than financial compensation, was the preferred option of management.

Change management Change management and its impacts were a big issue, with almost three quarter of respondents indicating they had been involved in a change management process at their institution. When asked the impact the change management process had upon duties performed and hours worked, 48 per cent stated a negative impact upon duties performed and 45 per cent indicated a negative impact upon hours worked.

Study and further education Member responses on study and further education show that 62 per cent factor security of employment into considerations when seeking to undertake further education and study.

Of greater concern is that 35 per cent of members stated they have had to stop or reduce study and/or further education as a result of concerns for their ongoing employment.

Community/Cultural business A&TSI members were also asked about the impact community and/or cultural business has upon concerns for employment security. A total of 72 per cent indicated they had regular (weekly) community and/ or cultural business to attend to. Of those who undertake community and/or cultural business, half had to reduce or stop undertaking cultural and community business altogether as a result of concerns for their employment.

NTEU will publish the survey findings in a detailed report on the impact of job insecurity upon A&TSI members. The final report will also be sent to all A&TSI members.

Adam Frogley, National A&TSI Coordinator

Over 90 per cent indicated that they were contracted to work from 1 to 40 hours per week, although in reality 43 per cent detailed their actual hours of work were

Response to question: ‘Looking into the future, do you feel as though your current position and employment will be more or less secure?’

Less secure

60.4%

Same

30.8%

More secure 8.8%

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 15

A&TSI workers and the ACTU

Pledge to support Aboriginal workers ACTU Executive met in Darwin in August this year, the 50th anniversary of the Wave Hill Walk-Off ‘as a demonstration of commitment and bond between Indigenous working people and the wider trade union movement,’ according to ACTU President Ged Kearney.

Back in August 1966 around 200 pastoral and domestic workers and their families walked off Wave Hill pastoral station.

They were taking industrial action as local representatives of their employer, Vesteys, had refused yet again their request for equal pay with white workers.

The Walk-off mobs’ legacy They walked twelve miles and set up camp at Wattie Creek on Gurindji land. They then sent telegrams to the North Australian Workers Union (NAWU) and the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights (NTCAR, a majority Aboriginal organisation) advising that they were on strike and they needed assistance. They did not want to be attacked or starved back to the station.

This was not a spontaneous action, but well organised amongst the Aboriginal workers, the NTCAR and unions, which had employed an Aboriginal organiser Dexter Daniels. Equal pay had been granted some months earlier by the Arbitration Commission, but with a three year phase in, which led to pastoralists sacking Aboriginal workers and kicking them off the stations.

To add insult to injury, the determination also included a racist ‘slow worker’ clause which allowed bosses to label Aboriginal people ‘slow’ and still pay less.

The Wave Hill Gurindji were not the first mob to strike nor was this their first strike, nor were they the first to claim land rights, or to align themselves with supportive trade unions and political, faith and civil society organisations. However, following the much anticipated equal pay determination, they became a focus and a catalyst.

Eight years later the Whitlam Government, edging towards land rights legislation, symbolically handed back some of the Gurindji’s land in the form of a pastoral lease to Wave Hill leader Vincent Lingiari.

communities they established is that despite the many genuine supporters, most of those with power consciously tried to destroy the communities socially, economically and politically. This is probably drawing too strong a bow for Charlie Ward, but it is hard to not think this way after reading his new book A handful of sand: the Gurindji struggle, after the walk-off (Monash University, 2016).

The ACTU’s legacy

It is particularly poignant that in the ongoing struggle for land rights and self-determination the Walk-off mob always wanted to succeed in both Aboriginal and white terms. However, they were thwarted and rorted in both.

The trade union movement has always considered the support of some unions for the Walk-off and the Daguragu community (as Wattie Creek was renamed) as the shining light of solidarity between unions and A&TSI peoples. The lily has been gilded, as it was mainly left, indeed communist controlled, unions that backed the Gurindji at the time, and only a few of them maintained practical as well as political support. The Waterside Workers Federation (now part of the MUA) played a particularly significant role including convincing their members to pay a levy to help the Gurindji fence their land when they demanded their land back.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from the subsequent story of the Walk-off mob and the ongoing fragility of the

The ACTU having prosecuted the equal pay case in the Arbitration Commission was understandably, but somewhat

Soon after setting up camp at Wattie Creek, the Walk-off leaders demanded that the Government end the pastoral leases and give them back their land. They wanted to maintain their responsibilities as custodians, ensure the young people learned and observed Aboriginal law – and they wanted to set up their own cattle station.

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A&TSI workers and the ACTU unfairly, damned for the decision and outcome. The ACTU though has a chequered history of support for Aboriginal struggles, waxing and waning despite the ongoing pressure from Aboriginal workers and political activists and their supporters.

There is no lack of well-intentioned promises and even projects, but they have too often withered with little to show – and then the whole process of organising to get up policies and commitments starts again. This comment, based on my research, is not to diminish the role of the ACTU Indigenous committee, which has included many stalwart A&TSI union leaders over the years and has certainly pressed the cause.

But when the ACTU decided to come to Darwin and also hold a conference on Indigenous employment and leadership, some of us were concerned that again promises would be made with little to show. However, what may sadly make the difference this time is the stark reality that the dreadful living conditions and poverty of so many Aboriginal people in the Top End after almost a decade of the Intervention along with ongoing woeful government policy means that the conditions that forced the Wave Hill mob to walk-off are not as unimaginable as they should be fifty years later.

Wage discrimination continues As noted in the resolution carried by the ACTU executive, the Turnbull Government’s Community Development Program (CDP) is government sanctioned wage discrimination (see p. 14).

The CDP undermines the industrial rights of 37,000 of which 31,000 are A&TSI workers. It forces workers into 25 hours of labour, provides no federal OH&S or workers ‘compensation protection, no superannuation and no workplace employment standards. No wonder people are talking of slavery, as there will be employers who will see this as a source of free labour.

The ACTU Executive directed the ACTU officers ‘to pursue whatever community, campaign, legislative and legal mechanisms it deems appropriate to end the CDP and fight shoulder to shoulder with A&TSI workers in the pursuit of equality and fairness for all Australian workers.’

The ACTU executive did not get away with resting their laurels as ACTU National Indigenous Officer Kara Keys told some ‘uncomfortable truths’ in her address to the executive and Indigenous Leadership Conference (www.actu.org.au/actu-media/ speeches-and-opinion/our-history-ourfuture-speech-by-actu-indigenous-officerkara-keys-to-the-actu-executive), where she started by delving into the history of the

Nuke waste dump for Flinders Ranges

NAWU’s original interest in the Arbitration Commission case, which was because of concern that low Aboriginal pay rates would undermine white workers’ wages and conditions.

Keys also presciently quoted Pat Dodson’s comment back in 1999 at the Vincent Lingiari Memorial lecture: ‘Be warned, there is a serious move afoot in this country, by very powerful forces at the highest level of Government, business and society to return the position of Indigenous Australians to the situation that existed in Australia before the Wave Hill strike in 1966.’

He had also warned, ‘The hard men of Vesteys still walk the corridors of power.’

Dodson may well reflect upon these words, as he sits in the Senate with three One Nation senators elected on a platform of racism and bigotry, in a parliament where apparently One Nation preferences got two Queensland lower house ALP representatives across the line.

NTEU 10 Point Plan At the NTEU’s annual A&TSI Forum in July, (see p. 15) the delegates challenged the NTEU leadership to audit the 10 Point Plan For A Post Treaty Union developed by the Gubba caucus at Forum back in 2003.

As the NTEU has been critical of other unions, and it is more than a decade after drawing up the plan, an audit of how we are travelling is well overdue. The new National Executive will pick this up and Division Secretaries have already notified that they are taking this matter on in their Divisions.

Jeannie Rea, National President Jeannie Rea represents NTEU with Grahame McCulloch on ACTU Executive.

Opposite page: ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver (left) at the Wage Justice Now rally in Darwin, August 2016 (Credit: Van Badham/Twitter). Above: Celeste Liddle, NTEU A&TSI Organiser at the Darwin rally.

Traditional custodians and members of the wider community have voiced their upset and outrage at a proposal to house a lowgrade radioactive waste at a storage facility on the SA property of a former Liberal Senator and Party President.

The proposal to situate a waste storage facility at Wallerberdina station, near Hawker in the Flinders Ranges, has been condemned by many in the community, including families on neighbouring stations and traditional custodians who are all deeply concerned for the country on which this proposed site is to be situated.

Wallerberdina station is under longterm lease to the former Liberal Senator and Party President, Grant Chapman; who in 2015, proposed the site be considered along with five existing potential sites being considered by the Federal Government.

Traditional custodians, members of the public and concerned residents have orchestrated a campaign against the proposal, with approximately 3000 people holding a rally at Parliament House in Canberra on the 15th of October to highlight the dangers of a potential nuclear waste site. The protest was poignant for all attending; particularly so for those families in attendance who continue to live with the impact of nuclear testing at Maralinga.

NTEU strongly opposes the development of nuclear waste storage sites and encourages all members to sign up to the campaign against the waste storage site at Wallerberdina station.

For further information on the campaign and how you can be involved, visit the link below.

Adam Frogley, A&TSI Coordinator facebook.com/NoNuclearWaste DumpFlindersRanges/

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 17

Job security

A fair go for university staff A lack of job security is crippling higher education and its workforce. Changes in the sector mean that job insecurity is the norm. Only 2 out of 10 new employees were employed on a permanent basis or 3 out of 10 on a full time equivalent (FTE) basis. NTEU says it’s time for a Fair Go for Australian university staff.

Sixty four per cent of the total number of staff working in universities are employed on an insecure basis. And those who have secure employment fear for their ongoing security.

Job security provides employees with greater capacity to organise their work/ life balance and plan their futures, and in the tertiary education sector promotes educational quality, academic freedom, and integrity in research and institutional administration. It allows employees to develop their full participation in the life of the university and prevents the use of ‘redundancy’ to deal with perceived performance issues without a fair process based on evidence.

Job security has been in decline in Australian universities since at least the early 1990s. Casual employment has risen by around 94 per cent since 1996, such that few would disagree with the claim that a majority of teaching hours are now delivered by low-paid insecure casual employees. Fixed term contract employment has grown significantly during the same period.

Michael Evans National Organiser

page 18 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Barely one-third of employees in higher education now have ongoing employment. This reflects a deliberate management policy to transfer risk in the employment relationship onto employees, to create a fearful and compliant workforce.

NOT ANOTHER RESTRUCTURE!

Restructures wear our workplaces down.

They create tension and anxiety instead of happy and productive environments.

Constant and unnecessary restructures are inefficient and unfair.

Help us stop the rot, visit fairgo.nteu.org.au

Not having an ongoing position has eroded my confidence in both teaching and research.

Advice Advocacy Action

SPILL & FILL!

Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

Go to fairgo.nteu.org.au to tell our universities to put people before profits. can only be explained byAction incompetent or Advice Advocacy ideologically captured managerial levels.

The threats to job security are not limited to the excessive use of insecure employment types. Australian universities have been subject to wasteful and destructive rounds of so-called reviews, restructuring and redundancies on a scale that far exceeds any objective circumstances and, in fact, provides a positive incentive for poor work performance.

Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

Spill and fill creates unnecessary anxiety and places staff under pressure. You should be focused on your job, not constantly re-applying for it!

Spill and fills are inefficient and unfair.

Help us stop the rot, visit fairgo.nteu.org.au

Advice Advocacy Action Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

SHAM REDUNDANCY

f Out o work

ed work r e v O

Sham redundancies place pressure on our workplaces and are a huge waste of money. They put people out of work, reduce secure employment and create heavier workloads for remaining staff.

Sham redundancies are inefficient and unfair.

Help us stop the rot, visit fairgo.nteu.org.au

Most so-called redundancies in higher education are a sham. In only a small number of cases is the work no longer required, yet between 1 and 2 per cent of the continuing workforce are targeted each year.

These sham redundancies are either a crude attempt to dismiss people and replace them with cheaper employees doing the same work, an opportunity to remove targeted employees with no effective due process, or simply a means of intimidating the workforce generally. They are also a scandalous waste of public money – NTEU conservatively estimates the cost of targeted sham redundancies in recent years has averaged well in excess of $50 million.

The retrenchment of so many continuing staff in an industry with a relatively stable revenue stream, fairly stable and growing demand, a growing workforce and a huge ‘buffer’ of non-continuing employment,

Federal Government funding per student has declined, which has placed increasing financial pressure on institutions, and research funding has changed to a much higher proportion being funded by short or medium term contestable research grants. Yet universities have, compared to most industries, remarkably stable income streams and very stable and predictable workforce needs, even in most areas funded by research and similar grants.

The changes cannot justify the sector’s growth in job insecurity. Instead, management seeks to use the fear of job insecurity as a tool to enforce crippling workloads across the sector, reflected in the excessive workloads of many academic staff and widespread working of unpaid overtime by general staff.

Reverse the trends We want to reverse these trends and move towards more secure employment. We want university staff to join us in the fight for a Fair Go for University Staff.

NTEU will focus on improving job security as the key claim for this round of entercontinued overpage...

Advice Advocacy Action Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 19

Job security prise bargaining and extend this into other campaigns. The campaign web site at fairgo.nteu.org.au seeks to draw together the different elements of job insecurity for the three distinct groups – ongoing staff, casual staff and fixed term contract staff.

To support this work, a series of posters, social media memes have been developed and can be accessed from the web site.

We want staff to share their stories about the effects that a lack of job security has on their working and private lives. And we want to highlight our bargaining initiatives and other campaigns that are trying to do something about it.

One initiative has been around fixed term employment. Over 2,500 fixed term contract staff were invited to complete a national online questionnaire about their employment arrangements and conditions.

The campaign’s objectives are: • To identify and take action for any staff who may be employed on contracts that are contrary to the provisions in their Enterprise Agreements.

• To increase awareness of the Union’s efforts to improve job security among fixed term staff.

• To collect stories from these staff.

• To recruit new members and get them involved in the campaign. continued opposite...

I should be focusing on my work, not worrying about my job Go to fairgo.nteu.org.au to find out how we can help you transition to a full time job.

Advice Advocacy Action Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

Are you happy with your

FIXED TERM CONTRACT?

Anxiety

Go to fairgo.nteu.org.au to find out how we can help you transition to a full time job.

Some of Austalia’s best minds are working on

FIXED TERM CONTRACT?

distraction

Our best academics and researchers should be focused on their work instead of worrying about their jobs.

Support a return to fair workplaces in higher education go to fairgo.nteu.org.au

Advice Advocacy Action

Advice Advocacy Action Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

page 20 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

Job security Over 650 responses were received and after initial analysis, over 100 indicated a potential case. Work is continuing at Division and Branch levels to reach out to contract staff as part of our preparations for bargaining (or to assist bargaining where it has started already).

The NTEU will follow up individual cases to seek conversions where possible, to publicise these, and to recruit and organise contract staff on campus around this activity.

“Having to constantly apply for work is draining.”

Broader actions include: • Conducting meetings of all those in each Branch who responded to the questionnaire.

• Conducting meetings with staff in relevant areas to ascertain if the circumstances around a possible breach are perhaps systemic and extend beyond one person.

• Framing these discussions with a focus on the next round of bargaining.

What’s happening to job security in Australian universities is unfortunately part of a worldwide trend, with university staff facing these and similar issues in most industrialised countries.

Our sister union, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), are responding to the same issues in similar ways – nearly one-third of those who teach in Canadian universities and colleges are in precarious appointments, with no job security and often no benefits.

CAUT’s Fair Employment Week campaign in October will this year focus on the importance of improving working conditions for contract employees, under the banner of ‘Let’s Make It Fair!’.

Find out more and download all our Fair Go posters:

Go to fairgo.nteu.org.au to help make your workplace a fairer place for everyone.

Advice Advocacy Action Authorised by Grahame McCulloch, NTEU, 120 Clarendon St, South Melbourne VIC 3205

It’s hard to innovate on a six-month contract

fairgo.nteu.org.au

Go to fairgo.nteu.org.au to tell our universities to put people before profits.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 21

Advice Advocacy Action

Governance

Union members on university councils NTEU is seeking to increase the accountability of university councils.

In late September, Professor Margaret Sims and the NTEU reached a resolution on the long running dispute with the University of New England (UNE) over their attempts to silence Prof. Sims and force her to resign from her elected position on the University Council once she became the NTEU UNE Branch President (see article below).

Meanwhile in Victoria, where a change of government led to the restoration of staff (and student) positions on councils, most universities have failed to embrace a return of staff and student participation. At most institutions only one staff and one student position were created and attempts were made to stymie eligibility to nominate and then conduct an open election campaign.

Newly elected representatives at some universities are already facing the same opposition taken to extremes at UNE.

NTEU’s Council participation vindicated NTEU’s long-running case against UNE for excluding elected staff member and NTEU Branch President Professor Margaret Sims from University Council meetings was settled on 30 September.

In a joint statement issued by UNE, the Union and Professor Sims, the University finally acknowledged: • A material (conflict) of interest will not arise on Council by the mere fact of a member of Council also being an officer of the NTEU.

Staff representatives continue to be told that they have a conflict of interest that should exclude them from many discussion and decisions, and this is exacerbated if they are active or an office holder in the NTEU. As was made clear at the August NTEU national workshop for NTEU elected members of university governing bodies (see article, opposite), having an interest is not the same as a conflict. Staff and students have an interest and therefore can make invaluable contributions to governing bodies; AND they are also quite capable of identifying and declaring a ‘conflict’ where that may arise.

In other states and federally, negotiations go on as governments continue to amend the university acts as they succumb to lobbying to remove staff and students or curtail numbers in the ideological pursuit of recasting universities as multinational corporate businesses with the accompanying distrust and lack of respect for staff.

In this environment, NTEU members on councils and other governance bodies • There is no inherent conflict in Professor Sims sitting on the UNE Council and also holding the office of Branch President of the NTEU UNE Branch.

• The important and positive contribution Professor Sims has made, and continues to make, to the UNE Council and the University.

This statement clarifies, NTEU hopes once and for all, that the conflation of ‘conflict of interest’ with ‘conflict of opinion’ is misplaced in the university governance context.

Specifically, NTEU officers who are also elected as university councillors or senators should not be earmarked as having conflicts of interest in relation to matters which generally matter to staff, unless and until those matters present an actual conflict with the NTEU role, for example where there is to be discussion about enterprise bargaining strategy.

NTEU members and officers who are

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require all the support their Union can provide, and this was endorsed at National Council, along with the NTEU Policy Statement on University Regulation and Governance (see NTEU Policy Manual).

Council also called for the Union to investigate, publicise and, where required, take action on the excessive secretiveness and lack of transparency of university governing bodies, noting the practices of agendas, papers and reports being hidden; no observers allowed at meetings or only by vetted application; prohibitions on members reporting on council business to the university community; restrictions on members contacting other council members; and the validity of the propensity to declare anything ‘commercial-in-confidence’.

These findings will be compiled into a report which will also consider the impact upon the quality of university governance and obligations under the university Acts, as well as to the broader community.

Jeannie Rea, National President

elected to university councils or senates should not feel cowed by pressure applied by university managements alleging such staff have a standing conflict of interest in relation to all matters affecting staff. This is wrong.

Indeed, staff elected members of Council presumably comprise part of the Council structure because they have an interest in matters affecting staff. It is important that universities’ governing bodies have the benefit of the views of staff and students, as integral members of the university community. Universities’ founding legislation enshrines such participation, presumably for this reason.

Professor Sims’ case simply shows that universities are better served by their governing bodies focusing on the prosperity of the university, rather than boxing at shadows.

Sarah Roberts, National Industrial Coordinator

Governance Workshop on university councils hits the mark NTEU elected members of university governing bodies came together for a two day workshop hosted by the Union on 29-30 August 2016. As evidenced by the participant remarks (some of which are printed below) the workshop was an overwhelming success, and the NTEU has decided to make the workshop and annual event.

“ “ “ “ “

Two-thirds of the 33 participants responded to an evaluation survey, with all saying they found the workshop timely and useful. At the workshop, participants analysed current discourse and attacks upon staff and student representation on governing bodies, considered informed and expert views on key legal and ethical questions, and developed strategies to better position staff and the NTEU to challenge anti-democratic university management and governance processes and decisions.

The majority of survey respondents said the workshop offered valuable insights and changed their views about their work in relation to institutional governance because it gave them greater depth and knowledge of how to be an effective member of a governing body.

Most said that at their institution staff don’t receive Council agenda, papers and minutes. They also said that while most meetings are open to observers the decision regarding who attends is made by either the Vice-Chancellor or Chancellor.

Very well organised, good readings, interesting speakers, good activities – just a good workshop that was engaging and interesting and not full of rhetoric.

“

Although nearly all respondents received an induction, this was either inadequate or focused primarily on legal requirements such as a reminder that they are not to report to staff on confidential matters and very few received training on meeting procedure and how to intervene. Most said that staff are not encouraged to nominate for committees of Council.

The workshop ended with a plenary where participants agreed to investigate University Council processes at each institution with a view to reviewing the workshop’s impact on how people acted in their roles and with what outcomes.

The Union Education Unit will oversee that process over the next 12 months, and will develop a handbook on conflict of interest for members on Councils.

Helena Spyrou, National Education & Training Officer

‘I thought the speakers were excellent and the opportunity to talk with so many people from different unis and different systems was really helpful. I can look at the uni budget with new eyes and have a much clearer understanding of my role on Council.

Perhaps, the most significant clarification from the workshop for me was that the expertise of staff and students is important to university governance. I found myself reflecting on my own journey to and on Council, and the ways in which the focus on commercial and managerial expertise has made it quite challenging at times to bring my particular expertise (as a rather eclectic – and perhaps even accidental – academic teacher, researcher and administrator, including my early accidental steps as an elected officer on my undergraduate Student Representative Council) to the Council forum.

Liz Jones, Griffith University Council

Richie Howitt, Macquarie University Council

Louise King, Charles Darwin University Council

Terrific – gave me much greater clarity about my role and how to approach preparing for Board meetings in particular, as well as connecting me with a group of others seasoned in these matters. The legal and procedural sessions were especially good, and the role play was surprisingly helpful.

Ben Etherington, Western Sydney University Board of Trustees

The focus on issues that are actually faced, with authentic examples from the persons involved. The lawyer’s briefing on the ‘conflict of interest’ challenge and the financial briefing were very instructive.

Lee Duffield, Queensland University of Technology Council

The workshop was short, intensive and challenging. It offered insight into the need for members like myself to think and speak from the expertise we bring as constituent members of the university about governance. I came away with deepened passion to contribute to good – indeed continually better – governance of Macquarie University as a public institution that matters to the sort of society we build and to which we contribute.

“ “ “

Re-emphasised the importance of playing a role in university governance and being vigilant and vocal.

Mitchell Parkes, University of New England Academic Board

Gave me a broader understanding of issues and courage to stand my ground.

Julie Caswell, James Cook University Council

The workshop was an optimum size in terms of numbers, so there were plenty of people with expertise, but plenty of scope to participate. It was a good short length in terms of time, no too intensive, nor protracted or filled with inessential activities – an actual workshop.

Lee Duffield, Queensland University of Technology Council

“

It was good to network with other like-minded members of university councils and get their perspective on some of the issues. The workshop also raised a few issues that I hadn’t previously considered, despite nearly eight years of experience on UC Council.

Dale Kleeman, University of Canberra Council

Richie Howitt, Macquarie University Council

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 23

VET-FEE HELP is dead The Turnbull Government has conceded that education is far too important to be left to the market. On Wednesday 5 October 2016, the Minister for Education, Senator Simon Birmingham, announced that it was his intention to abandon the existing VET- FEE HELP scheme and replace it with a new VET Student Loans Program from 1 January 2017.

Stories of profit driven providers using heavy handed marketing tactics or inducements to enrol students into totally inappropriate courses and leaving them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt have forced the Government to act decisively.

As noted in previous Advocate articles, hardly a day has gone by without another dodgy private, for-profit, VET provider being exposed as rorting VET-FEE HELP and ripping off vulnerable students.

Twenty failed attempts to fix-up the totally discredited VET FEE-HELP scheme has no doubt rocked the Minister’s faith in the market, especially as it became increasingly clear that some private for-profit VET providers do not seem to be encumbered with any ethical or moral code, especially when it comes to dealing with their students. As a result of this experience, Senator Birmingham has arrived at the only viable conclusion and that was to abandon the current system and start again.

Photo credit: Federico Rostagno

A need to start again

Paul Kniest Policy & Research Coordinator

page 24 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

While it is yet be determined whether the new VET Student Loans programme will restore integrity to VET regulation and save the Government more than $25billion over ten years as anticipated, the NTEU is encouraged that the new scheme will involve far greater scrutiny of eligible private providers, limit the level of loans students can access and restrict the

number of courses and students that will be eligible for new loans.

According to the Minister, the new scheme will: • Feature a new application process for providers which will include an assessment of their relationships with industry, student completion rates, employment outcomes and their track record as education institutions.

• Limit eligible courses to those that align with industry needs and provide a high likelihood of leading to good employment opportunities.

• I nclude three bands of loan caps at $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000 per course depending on cost of delivery.

• Require a 12 month review of loan caps.

• R equire students to log into and engage with the VET Student Loans online to ensure they are active and legitimate enrolments.

• I ntroduce strengthened legislative, compliance and payment conditions, including powers to suspend poor performing providers from the scheme, cancel their payments and revoke their approval.

• Prohibit providers from using ‘brokers’ or directly soliciting prospective students (including ‘cold calling’ or socalled ‘lead generation’) and limiting the subcontracting of training.

A cap on student loans While the loan limits and courses to which they apply will be reviewed in the first 12 months of operation, initial indications are that all commerce and management courses will be covered by the $5,000 loan limit, while engineering, agriculture and environmental courses will initially be allocated to $15,000 loan limit. Other courses including nursing will be covered by $10,000 loan limits. The loan limits apply to whole course. This loan cap will in effect operate as a cap on fees especially for those private providers that exploited VET-FEE HELP to enrol students, who could not afford to pay upfront fees, into very expensive courses.

This decision to impose caps on the amount students will be allowed to borrow is in stark contrast to the Government’s initial policy position in relation to higher education which, as readers will recall, was to allow universities to charge students whatever they liked for a degree.

It also makes a mockery of the Government’s scathing attacks on the ALP’s policy to limit VET-FEE HELP loans to $8,000 announced during the 2016 election campaign.

A limit on eligible courses The number of eligible courses eligible for new VET loans will be more than halved with the more than 800 qualifications cur-

rently eligible to be reduced to about 350.

Again while subject to review, the Minister has indicated that the Government will not provide loans for what it considers to be irrelevant, ‘lifestyle’ or very employer focused courses.

Irrelevant or lifestyle course to be excluded, include Diploma of Styling (Fashion, Image and Media), Diploma of Creative Arts in Christian Ministry, Graduate Certificate in Hairdressing Creative Leadership and Diploma of Ayurvedic Lifestyle Consultation. Specific employer focused courses include Diploma of Local Government (Elected Member) Decisions and Advanced Diploma in Police Witness Protection.

A need to support TAFE and public provision While the Government has made it clear that public TAFE colleges will automatically be eligible for access to the new VET Student Loans Scheme for eligible courses, it remains unclear whether the wide range of non-vocational, often necessary and community based courses offered by many local TAFEs will be funded into the future. To what extent will State and Territory governments continue to subsidise their TAFEs? What happens to students who cannot afford to pay upfront fees but want or need to enrol in preparatory or enabling courses that might not qualify for VET Student loans?

In other words, while the Government’s announcements might be considered a move in the right direction, the health of VET in Australia will continual to require adequate level of public investment in TAFE.

A limit on student enrolments In addition to loan caps and limiting the number of eligible courses, the Minister has announced that the Government is also considering imposing limits or caps on the number of student that individual providers would be allowed to enrol.

According to the Minister, each provider will, on an annual basis be expected to advise the Department of Education of their intended enrolment numbers across different courses.

The Department would then have the capacity to impose enrolment caps in courses as a way of ensuring providers are meeting quality standards, employment outcomes, course completions and other expectations.

Without wishing to accuse the Minister of plagiarism, this aspect of his proposed policy borrows heavily from the NTEU’s 2015 Budget submission where we advocated for the use of Public Accountability Agreements in higher education to ensure university could only enrol the number of students where they could demonstrate each student had the opportunity to successfully complete their students and achieve positive labour market outcomes.

A critical response from private providers While the Minister’s announcements have been welcome more broadly, they have attracted criticism from private provider groups. For example, Rod Camm, CEO of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training (ACPET), has been highly critical of the Government’s announcements because he claims: • The new more rigorous approvals process which all provide would have to go through imposes unnecessary and high compliance costs of quality providers with a proven track record.

• The three loan limits of $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000 per qualification (which he interestingly described as price bands) will unfairly disadvantage high quality providers who will not be allowed to charge a higher price for higher quality qualifications.

• The loan limits have equity implications especially for students from remote locations, students with disabilities and/or for students with need of high end support because providers will be reluctant to offer places to students for which loans will not cover higher costs.

• The Government is trying to pick winners by nominating (and in doing so, effectively halving) the number of eligible courses for which new VET loans will be available.

• The announced reforms do not include the establishment of an independent funding body.

An inevitable conclusion: Education is far too important to be left to the market The policy position being adopted in relation to VET is at 180 degrees from the Government’s position in relation to the demand driven system in higher education. In higher education, the Government continues to vigorously argue against putting restrictions on the level of enrolments on the basis that this would be inequitable and limit student access and opportunity.

Despite this glaring inconsistency, the NTEU is acknowledges that, in relation to VET at least, the Minister has finally come around to our way of thinking and come to the conclusion that education is far too important to be left to the market.

More importantly, we hope this signals a change in the Minister’s approach to higher education and that he learns from this faith-shattering experience and abandons any plans to open up the demand driven system to private, for-profit, higher education providers.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 25

Federal Election 2016

Is there clarity on higher ed policy?

Are we any clearer about the future direction of Australia’s higher education policy following the 2016 Federal election?

While the Coalition Government has given up on the centrepiece of their higher education policy – ‘full’ undergraduate domestic fee deregulation– indicated that they are prepared to undertake further consultation, they refuse to give ground on contributing $2.5 billion from higher education to ‘financial sustainability savings’.

Driving further consultation The higher education policy taken to the 2016 federal election by the Turnbull Government was to promise, yet further, review and consultation. Interested parties were asked to respond to policy options proposed in the Driving Innovation, Fairness and Excellence in Australian Higher Education discussion paper released on Budget night.

An expert panel consisting of Dr Michelle Allan (Chancellor, Charles Sturt University), Professor Sally Walker (former VIce-Chancellor, Deakin University), Peter Noonan (Mitchell Institute, Victoria University) and Andrew Norton (Grattan Institute) was recently appointed to assist the Minister in undertaking further consultation and analysis of around 1,200 submissions.

At this stage it remains unclear when the expert panel is expected to report back to the Minister and whether their advice will be made public, but an initial analysis of the submissions of the university peak bodies – Universities Australia (UA), Group of Eight (Go8), Innovative Research Universities (IRU), Australian Technology Network (ATN) and Regional Universities Network (RUN) – indicates a far more cautious approach to some important policy issues.

General agreement Before addressing the more contentious issues raised in the Driving Innovation paper, it is worth noting that there was general agreement by the university peak bodies on a number of issues including: establishing an independent expert advisory body; reviewing existing cluster funding arrangements; restoring equity funding; and, improving student information through the strengthening and expansion of the Quality Indicators of Learning and Teaching (QILT) framework.

The NTEU has reservations about the usefulness of an advisory body and instead we are advocating for the establishment of an independent body with regulatory and funding responsibilities.

Cutting public investment The keystone of the Government’s higher education policy is the proposed 20 per cent cut to the level of public investment per Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP). Without these savings, that the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) estimates to be $20billion over a ten year period, the Government will not be able to offset the cost of some of its other proposals, especially the expansion of CSPs to sub-bachelor qualifications as well as non-university, including for-profit, providers.

The NTEU’s strong opposition to the proposed reduction in public investment per student is shared by UA, RUN and IRU. This

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opposition is informed by the fact that there are significant positive returns to public investment in higher education; at 0.7 per cent of GDP, Australia already has one of the lowest levels of public investment amongst OECD countries; and that Australian students pay amongst the highest fees in the world to attend a public university. UA’s submission also reiterates that Australia’s continued under-investment in higher education is unsustainable.

Increasing student contributions In order to compensate universities for the proposed cuts in public investment, the Government is considering increasing maximum student (HECS) contributions.

One option is for the student and ‘Commonwealth’ to pay 50 per cent each. Currently the average student contribution is 42 per cent with the average Commonwealth contribution being 58 per cent.

The IRU submission clearly anticipates an increase in student contributions to achieve the 50:50 split. Without any reduction in the Commonwealth contribution, this would require an increase of 38 per cent in average student fees. The IRU says it also remains interested in exploring a Phillips-Chapman tax model where universities would start losing a proportion of the Commonwealth contribution if they increase fees above a certain amount.

Federal Election 2016 Somewhat surprisingly, this proposal has virtually no support from anyone in the sector. The only group to not reject the proposal is the IRU, which says it favours some fee flexibility, while noting that the complexity and compliance costs could well outweigh any potential benefits.

Expansion of Demand Driven System

RUN, which states it could not withstand a 20 per cent cut in funding, is prepared to accept a moderate increase in student contributions if the Government insists on cutting the level of public investment in higher education.

The Go8 is calling for a major redesign and realignment of current Commonwealth and student contribution amounts across the different funding rates so as they reflect actual costs of delivery.

While UA’s submission does not directly address the issue of increased student contributions, it does highlight the inadequacy of current funding levels and the need for greater investment to support teaching innovation and educational quality. The source of any increased funding is left open, but presumably could involve an (albeit capped) increase in student contributions.

NTEU rejects the premise that the only way to achieve an increase in the level of total investment per student is through increased student contributions. Increased Commonwealth funding per student could be cost neutral if the allocation of CSPs were better planned and managed through the use of Public Accountability Agreements, as outlined by the NTEU in previous budget submissions. Interestingly, this is the approach Senator Birmingham is planning to adopt in relation to future VET funding (see VET report, p. 24).

Partial fee deregulation and flagship courses The Government’s decision to not proceed with ‘full’ fee deregulation was clearly a direct response to the NTEU’s $100,000 degrees campaign. However, in order to keep faith with its belief in the market and price flexibility the Driving Innovation paper proposes introducing ‘flagship’ degrees, where universities could charge higher fees to a limited number of students (maximum of 20 per cent of CSP load) enrolled in excellent and/or innovative programs.

There is widespread support by the university lobby groups for the expansion of the DDS to sub-degree qualifications and the consideration of expanding this to limited professional postgraduate qualifications.

‘In principle’ support for expansion to private providers is however, qualified by concerns that the only way to fund this expansion would be to cut the level of public investment per CSP. While the NTEU is strongly supportive of increasing the number of alternative pathways into higher education, we do not support this being achieved through expanding the DDS. Instead we support the expansion of enabling programs which should be offered free so eligible students could test the waters without incurring considerable debt.

Reining in the cost of HELP The discussion paper raises a variety of options for reining in the costs of HELP debt, including: reducing the income threshold levels at which debts commence being repaid; not allowing retirees access to the loans scheme to undertake ‘recreational’ degrees; introducing a household income test in an attempt to get repayments from ‘wealthy mothers’ who work part-time or not at all; recouping debt from deceased estates and imposing lifetime caps on how much HELP debt can be borrowed.

Among the university peak bodies there is general support for measures aimed at reining in the ballooning cost of HELP, especially the lowering of the income repayment threshold. However, UA makes the very important point that the blow-out HELP costs have been a direct consequence of the rapid expansion in VET-FEE HELP loans.

is the proposal to eliminate the administrative fees (of 20 per cent or 25 per cent) that attach to some HELP loans. The PBO estimates the elimination of these fees would cost the budget some $9.2 billion over twenty years. While there is general agreement that these fees are inequitable, there is little consensus as to how this might best be dealt with.

Grattan Institute higher education expert and Coalition supporter Andrew Norton, who is one of the members of the expert panel, has suggested that a cost neutral way of addressing this inequity would be to impose a lower (5 per cent to 10 per cent) administrative fee on all HELP debts, including those that currently exempt.

Conclusion At this stage it seems that if there is no intention by the Government to increase the level of total investment per CSP. Instead the focus is still on increasing student contributions. But rather than deregulating fees, this is now likely to be achieved by realigning cluster funding arrangements and increasing the average maximum student contribution. The extent of any cut to public investment in a university education will largely depend on what policy options the Government elects to adopt in relation to expanding the DDS and administrative fees charged to some students with VET and FEE HELP loans.

At this stage the most important unknown of the Government’s response is whether it will insist on expanding the DDS to private, for-profit, providers. While the Government will no doubt be under pressure from its supporters, the NTEU hopes the harsh lessons from its experiences with the deregulation of VET will result in the Government coming to the inevitable conclusion that education is far too important to be left to the market.

Paul Kniest, Policy & Research Coordinator

The NTEU’s view remains that the best way to reduce the costs associated with operating HELP is to lower the average level of debt by students by retaining caps on the fees students can be charged. Lower fees means less debt incurred.

Administrative loan fees Another major policy option which involves a large cost to the budget NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 27

Watt the?

Research policy and funding incentives under a returned Turnbull Government Innovation does not rate in the minds of the electorate.

This is one of the great lessons learned by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the recent election. Once it was the pointy policy end of how Turnbull wished to reinvent his prime ministership. It was the portfolio cherry-picked to explain why, ‘There has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian’. Then the first six months of 2016 happened.

The policy announcement failed to make headway in the gruelling 2016 campaign.

In the end, the Coalition Government’s eighteen seat majority was reduced to one, the Prime Minister lost one of his key lieutenants (Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy), and the Coalition’s double dissolution strategy produced an even more ungovernable Senate.

In the midst of these failures, the return of a Coalition Government signals danger for university staff in terms of research and science policy.

It’s not just about start-ups

Photo credit: Luis Francisco Cordero

The Coalition’s innovation policy, the National Innovation and Science Agenda (NISA), is best described as Janus-faced. To the broader public, it is reducible to startups and building a more entrepreneurial culture. Optimistic, but largely irrelevant to most people.

Jen Tsen Kwok Policy & Reseach Officer

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For universities, it is all about leveraging public research into new sources of economic activity, giving handouts to business, while achieving the larger ideological aim of reducing public funding. We saw some of this funding cuts agenda in the catastrophic organisational changes at CSIRO, which at last count still involved the loss of over 200 jobs.

More importantly, when we unpack NISA, we find the implementation of the Watt Review of Research Policy and Funding Arrangements, which fundamentally seeks to repurpose $1.8 billion per annum in research block grants (RBG); representing a key funding lever shaping university research culture and behaviours, as well as research training.

We had not known just how far the Turnbull Government would go to refashion public research into the service of industry and big business. With the Government’s response to the Watt Review, we can see that the Coalition is willing to fundamentally change the nature of Australian research.

Changes to research block grant (RBG) funding At the end of September 2016, the Department of Education and Training (DET) released revised research grant guidelines that represents the most significant changes to the allocation of RBG funding since the Howard Government’s Backing Australia’s Ability in 2003 or perhaps even since the original establishment of the Research Quantum in 1990.

In simple terms, the changes reduce what have become an array of existing block grants known by any array of strange abbreviations (such as RIBG, JRE, SRE, RTS), down to two, the RSP (Research Support Program) and RTP (Research Training Program). In more problematic terms, the establishment of these two block grants means the measure of quality in research and research training relies largely upon research income, except for the 50 per cent of the RTP which is also measured by student completions. Research income is now the Government’s substantive proxy for quality of research and research training and the move has recharacterised ARC and NHMRC research income (Category 1) as ‘competitive’ and other industry and government research income (Categories 2, 3 and 4) as ‘engagement’.

We should be rightfully concerned that this will undermine the fabric of the Australian research landscape, further delegitimising humanities and social sciences (HASS), interdisciplinary research, and important but less costly scientific research such as many Branches of mathematics and physics. With this move, the Coalition Government is clearly signalling what it believes is meaningful and valid research, and encouraging an unhelpful war between disciplines.

Since 1958, the Australian Universities’ Review has been encouraging debate and discussion about issues in higher education and its contribution to Australian public life.

Similarly, the introduction of the RTP means that universities have the freedom to determine how much postgraduate students are paid in terms of stipend, ranging from $26,682 to $41,682. It also ensures that universities can provide weightings in the competitive selection for particular kinds of students. While this makes sense in relation to ensuring greater numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or low SES postgraduates, it also provides the possibility of a bias towards students from particular disciplines.

Considering that research income is now the key proxy for research training quality, it is clear universities will create incentives that privilege students in disciplines that attract the most research dollars. This might result in universities enrolling less social science and humanities postgraduates. It may also limit the capacity of less research-intensive universities to enrol and train HDR students.

It also appears that the RSP can now be used to fund the direct and indirect costs of research including things like capital works, salaries of teaching and research staff and research only staff. However, the Australian community will be denied public accountability, with government advice stating that in relation to RSG, ‘DET will not be proceeding with any additional reporting requirements’.

Surely it would be wise to ensure universities collect data about the number and type of staff, research outputs and research projects supported directly or indirectly by the RSP as the Department originally considered. The guidelines fail to provide for the collection of data about any factors that actually shape the culture of research support and research training, such as data about workforce turnover, or the scale of insecure employment, nor does it guarantee postgraduate research students minimum resources.

Other research policy measures The Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) may not yet be a dead duck, but it is certainly heading that way. Its role, together with research publications in the allocation of RBG funding has now been extinguished. The NISA announcements last December included the Australian Research Council (ARC) funding to develop a measure of research impact. We can expect a pilot assessment to take place in 2017. It is possible this will be used in the future allocation of RSP funding but when, how and why is not the subject of public consultation.

Along with these changes there is a discussion paper for the 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap, a document meant to guide future investment decisions in the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. An Exposure Draft is expected before the end of the year.

The ARC Linkage Projects scheme have been opened for the continuous submission and assessment of proposals on 1 July 2016.

A positive move in the trickle of policy pronouncements has been the proposed reforms to the R&D tax concession, a generous program that represents the primary mode of supporting business innovation, costing the tax payer $2.95billion each year. A recent review highlighted that the program fell short of its ‘stated objectives’ and was not actually building innovation.

It proposes a set of six reforms, most of which have merit, including the introduction of a ‘collaboration premium’ that will require participating businesses to use at least 20 per cent of the tax offset to collaborate with publicly-funded research organisations such as universities as well as employing STEM graduates.

The public interest These current changes have largely been protected from media scrutiny and the Coalition’s election win clears the path for a reform agenda focused not only on industry-research collaboration. The reliance upon research income as a proxy for quality fundamentally reshapes the Australian research fabric. It also could be described as state-sponsored interference in the exercise of academic freedom.

The NTEU will continue to scrutinise the outcomes of these poorly-formed decisions. Unfortunately though, the track record does demonstrate that changes in institutional behaviour are likely to come at the expense of academic integrity and protections for academic freedom, and will bear down on basic research, research diversity, and interdisciplinary collaborations and even research excellence. They will also come at the expense of non-research intensive institutions and less-costly research.

For more information on the changes https://docs.education.gov.au/ documents/detailed-information-newarrangements-research-block-grants

AUR is published twice a year by the NTEU. NTEU members are entitled to receive a free subscription on an opt-in basis .

If you are an NTEU member and would like to receive AUR, please email aur@nteu.org.au

www.aur.org.au NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 29

Privatisation

Sponsorship code of practice needed The Turnbull Government has made it clear that they believe that the role of universities is to support research, development, and ‘innovation’ in the private sector. And with the added incentive of research grants favouring such collaborative work, universities will be stepping up their already deep and broad commitments to private industry and government in research and engagement.

What is lacking in this environment in Australia is a consistent and publicly transparent code of practice governing relationships between universities and industry. For decades there have been concerns about the impact of government and industry sponsorships upon research, curriculum and governance of universities.

Much of the focus of the Challenging the Privatised University conference held late last year at the University of Queensland, organised with the Friends of the Earth Emerging Technology Group, was upon the secrecy in university and industry and government collaborations. The tendency to declare anything ‘commercial in confidence’ is part of the problem, but the consequences extend from implications for freedom of intellectual inquiry to employment arrangements.

Even at the conference, participants employed on some sponsored projects or in university centres revealed that they had

little idea of what was in their fixed-term contracts, who their actual employer was, and what they could do about it. In most cases the reality is that they are university employees and subject to the enterprise agreement. (If that is not the case, the NTEU would still like to know what is going on and why!)

The core features of such a code of practice would include:

The urgency of the need for a code of practice was reinforced internationally earlier this year when it was revealed that the University of Mainz in Germany had accepted sponsorship from the pharmaceutical company Boehringer that gave Boehringer a right of veto over academic appointments. Some German universities, such as the University of Frankfurt, already have such codes.

• Academic autonomy and integrity: Academic decisions about staff will be made by properly constituted university appointment committees and will be wholly independent of private sponsor influence. There will be no right of veto over appointments by the sponsor.

There is a substantial record of pharmaceutical companies in particular seeking to influence publications concerning their products (see Marcia Angell, The Truth about the Drug Companies and Ben Goldacre, Bad Pharma for examples and references). But it is not only the pharmaceutical companies.

Consequently, at the NTEU National Council meeting in October a resolution was carried calling for all universities to adopt a publicly promulgated code of practice, preferably a consistent code at the national level, which will govern universities’ sponsorship arrangements with private industry, and that will govern university-industry links more broadly, in the interests of transparency, probity, and academic integrity.

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• Transparency: the code of practice itself to be publicly available and promoted.

• All contracts between universities and private industry sponsors should be published.

• There should be no veto over publications by the sponsor with the exception of a strictly limited embargo period for commercially sensitive material. This would also apply to dissertations and other research by students.

• Sponsorship arrangements should be subject to rigorous ethical screening.

The focus for advancing such a code would be with Universities Australia and the major grants bodies.

If you are interested in pursuing these issues do contact Jeannie Rea, National President jrea@nteu.org.au and Associate Professor Andrew Bonnell, National Vice President a.bonnell@uq.edu.au.

Jeannie Rea, National President For more on the Privatised University Conference see the article opposite.

Privatisation

Challenging the Privatised University Today’s universities are defined by their commitment to neoliberal logics (an oxymoron, I know), with CEOs at the helm on salaries of $1 million or more, and military, pharmaceutical, biotech and fossil fuel industries driving commercial research agendas. At the privatised university – or ‘edufactory’, as I sometimes think of it – degrees and research are products for sale; students are consumers, and academics are entrepreneurs and service providers.

The privatisation and neoliberalisation of universities is associated with the rise of private sector-style management, cuts to public sector funding, and a government-led push toward fee deregulation.

Such developments are of course not unique to higher education. Neoliberalism has led to what feels like the almost complete commodification of people and the planet, and its violence is manifested in new forms of dependency, environmental destruction, exploitation, an ever growing gap between the rich and poor, and growing public and private debt.

The violence of the privatised university also finds expression in the hearts and minds of university staff and students: in the emphasis on an individualised performance-based existence, and in the

associated dispiriting stress and anxiety of those who pass through this system. These experiences are exacerbated in the context of disciplinary metrics, which includes ranking systems, journal impact assessments, citation counts, competitive grants, and numerous performance evaluations.

While the neoliberal cheer squad is loud and prominent, another type of university is possible. Resistance to the privatised university continues to grow.

Campus-based protests against the deregulation of university fees, as well as universities’ failure to divest from fossil fuels – including my own, the University of Queensland – has driven activism on many university campuses in Australia and beyond.

New and long established movements such as slow/free universities, the multiversity and ecoversity, progressive colleges and foundations, as well as alliances, networks and unions that champion collective learning, all demonstrate that education is not simply a commodity to be traded on the open market. These, and other alternative approaches to universities foster collective, collaborative and inclusive research and education, as well as re-centering service and the public good as institutional mandates. Democracy, communal decision-making, de-colonising pedagogy, learning from indigenous and local knowledges, and horizontal learning are also all part of the alternative university paradigm.

importantly, how these developments are currently being challenged.

The intention of both the conference and the subsequent special issue, is to encourage public debate about the current state of our universities. Importantly, it is hoped they each might contribute to thinking about how universities might be reconstituted to maximise their contribution to the common good, rather than simply to private interests.

If this all sounds like something you believe in, then I encourage you to follow the link below and read ‘The Brisbane Declaration’, a statement that emerged from the Conference about what a University for the public or common good should look like. You are welcome to sign up, and join the growing army of academics, administrators, students, activists and others, who are committed to seeing Universities play a vital role in contributing to building a fair and sustainable future.

Kristen Lyons, School of Social Science, University of Queensland Kristen Lyons, Jeremy Tager and Louise Sales were guest editors of Australian Universities’ Review, vol. 58, no. 2 (September 2016): www.aur.org.au The Brisbane Declaration: friendsoftheearthmelbourne.good.do/ thebrisbanedeclaration

In the latest edition of Australian Universities’ Review (vol. 58, no. 2), Jeremy Tager, Louise Sales and I have pulled together a special issue on these themes, entitled ‘Challenging the Privatised University’. The special issue builds from a conference organised jointly by Friends of the Earth, the Ngara Institute, the NTEU and the National Alliance for Public Universities, and held at the University of Queensland in November 2015.

The collection of papers examine the ways in which neoliberal ideology, privatisation, corporate funding and influence have changed the nature of universities and,

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Pauline Pantsdown

I don’t like it To many, Simon Hunt is probably better known as Pauline Pantsdown. The NTEU member, lecturer, performer and activist stepped into the mainstream media spotlight in the late 90s, when his parody character and pop song I Don’t Like It, featuring cut-up sound bites of Pauline Hanson’s not-so-dulcet tones, struck a chord in the national psyche.

One Top 10 hit, and an unsuccessful senate tilt in the 1998 election later, Hunt’s character embarked on a lengthy hiatus.

The same can’t be said of Pauline Hanson’s political ambitions, after the One Nation leader failed in her own bid to win re-election in the lower house that same year.

Hanson rising Fast forward to 2016, and with Pauline Hanson back in the Federal Parliament, many are now asking if a Pantsdown comeback single is on the cards.

‘To me it’s not quite that simple,’ says Hunt in response to a query he’s fielded ‘hundreds’ of times since the election.

‘In 1998 while there were a lot of racist people in Australia, there was a certain decorum of decency, or an understanding that when these words were spread wildly via media, via politics, via whatever means, that it could cause harm and hurt to people. Pauline Hanson was the one who blew the lid off that.

Andrew MacDonald National Media & Communications Officer

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‘She became, quite dangerously so, the representative of those ideas. She would put herself forward as a working class figure, with concern for the working class, but it was all just a shell and I felt that by emulating her, by taking on the packaging, I could show what was inside, the pure racism and xenophobia that was there.

‘We’re in a different time now where she has to compete against a lot of racist and bigoted candidates. Due to her media profile, maintained by paid roles in breakfast television, she was able to recapture that, but at the same time, she’s not even the most racist person in the Parliament.

‘In terms of engagement with her now, I am happier to sit back and watch for a while. I thought that if I were to have come out with a song a couple of weeks after the election, that it would just be a slap in the face to a large proportion of the halfa-million people who had voted for her – who have been taken in by the idea that she’s going to do something to make their farms economically feasible, that she’s going to cut Chinese ownership of business and properties, all these things that she has no real policies on, that are just really words spoken on the stump.

‘Wait a while and everyone will see that she is just another politician, and nothing special, along with the cast of McDonald’s villain-type characters that she has brought into the Senate with her.

‘So while I might take her on again and might do another song at some stage, I’m not in any rush with it. I sort of want to let her show herself for what she really is.’

Expanded activism While Pauline Pantsdown was placed on the backburner following the 1998 Senate race, the character has not been without a voice in more recent times.

Just as the political landscape has changed since the late ’90s, so too has the media environment. In perhaps another sign of the times, Hunt re-launched Pauline Pantsdown in 2013, this time as a social media presence to campaign on LGBTI issues and other progressive causes.

‘I have been using humour, mainly in graphic form. So it’s taking a serious issue, but trying to use humour get some direct, effective political action happening from it,’ says Hunt.

‘I have been utilising the space to engage activism that has gone beyond Facebook ‘clicktivism’. We have had some successes, and have managed at various times to shut down a far right extremist Christian conference, as well as an anti-gay bigot opera singer from Georgia. We’ve managed to shut down a meeting of the Australian Christian Lobby, and campaigned on other causes.

‘So in some ways I’m almost disappointed that Pauline (Hanson) has come back because I had been feeling like I had moved the character beyond the single focus.

Then again, it also makes me realise that we all sort of live inside our own media bubbles, and to the outside world and outside that bubble, I may just be a one hit wonder from 1998.’

Marriage equality Another issue which has become a key focus of Pauline Pantsdown’s social media persona, is marriage equality. Speaking the day after the ALP indicated it would be opposing the Government’s planned plebiscite, Hunt said while he was confident marriage equality would happen eventually, the debate so far had raised some disturbing issues.

‘There’s the actual issue itself of marriage equality, which is a very simple thing. It’s just something that needs to happen,’ says Hunt. ‘My other main interest is what’s been constructed as the ‘no’ campaign, which has had nothing to do with the proposed changes to the Marriage Act at all. It’s really been about groups like the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) conducting what I consider to be a war on transgender people, a war on science itself and targeted attacks on both individual and collective groups of children, whether they be in schools or within families with LGBTI parents.

‘A lot of people talk about the ACL not being representative of Christians, but I think what needs to be made clear is they don’t actually use arguments of Christianity. They’re not quoting the bible against homosexuality, they’re using sort of non-peer reviewed junk science from the fascist USA right.

‘I think that stopping the plebiscite has been incredibly important in, at the very least, shutting down funding for those sorts of campaigns. It would have been a really dark stain on our history if we had funded a ‘no’ campaign for this issue, because it wouldn’t have been about marriage equality at all.’

Academic career Performer, political satirist and activist, Hunt also wears a hat as a media lecturer at UNSW Art and Design, where he has worked full-time for the past 15 years, and ‘on and off’ including as a casual, for the past 25 years. He’s also an NTEU member.

‘I have been an NTEU member for something like 20 years now. I started off as a casual. As with a lot of people I called in the NTEU at an early stage where I felt I was getting ripped off as a casual, and then just continued my membership from there,’ says Hunt.

‘It’s an unusual career in that I didn’t complete high school or go to university myself. It was back in the day where I was employed as a casual because of my experience and skills within the art world.

When the full-time job came up, I had had a fairly long and varied career in the arts and that was taken into account.

‘Unfortunately there won’t be too many more like me in that way now, because these days you pretty much need a PhD in order to get an interview.’

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hunt’s array of experiences and interests outside of the lecture theatre intersect with and inform his work as an academic and teacher.

‘The media degree covers a wide variety of work that people produce. It’s mainly, obviously, art made with media, but also the academic study of media itself,’ says Hunt.

‘That was really part and parcel of what my interest was in the process of doing Pauline Pantsdown, because I was always fascinated with the media construction of Pauline Hanson, and the media construction by the people around her.

‘As well as being great fun and being able to run around and behave like a 12-yearold, like I did in 1998 – and when you dress like that you can say and do anything and you can get away with more – I was also fascinated at that time with the process of getting myself into the same media space as her.

‘In 1997-98 we had the internet but it was nowhere near as ubiquitous as it is now. I had a little fanclub webpage, but people would know me mainly from radio television and newspapers. It was more single focus and there was a definite line between mainstream media and alternative media.

‘I guess the tie in between Pauline and that was really about that academic analysis of media and the way that I have always tried to incorporate that, in the same way now that I am fascinated with the mechanisms of interaction between social media, mainstream media, independent media and the different ways that you can make an impact across those forms, and the way that they work.’

Connect with Pauline Pantsdown: facebook.com/paulinepantsdown666

Above: Pauline Pantsdown $5 note (Credit: Paul Kidd)

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Plebiscite & Referendum

Paving the road to hate speech Over the past few months, the discussion regarding the Government’s push to hold a plebiscite on same sex marriage has been raging. While it looks like common sense will prevail with the Labor Party deciding to block the bill, watching the conversation unfold has been somewhat reminiscent of the Government’s campaign for Constitutional Recognition, despite the two being incredibly different causes.

Recently, Melbourne University academic Professor Marcia Langton come out in opposition to the same sex marriage plebiscite. Professor Langton argued that LGBTIQ community fears that the plebiscite would open vulnerable people up to hate speech were well-founded.

She added that should the plebiscite not be ditched, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be the next group to be subjected to damaging hate speech during the referendum discussions on constitutional recognition.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ advocacy group Black Rainbow had been similarly critical of the plebiscite; pointing out the already exorbitant rates of suicide within the Indigenous community and highlighting the devastating impacts these discussions might have on already struggling young people.

Certainly, these community fears have significant merit. The incredibly socially-con-

servative Australian Christian Lobby, for example, have consistently argued against LGBTIQ and women’s rights. Their interests lie firmly in reinforcing ‘traditional’ notions of marriage, whatever that is. Then there’s the likes of Reverend Fred Nile and his group who have consistently protested at the Sydney Mardi Gras.

that debate, you have the social conservatives who not only consist of a strong and influential section of Coalition voters, but who also contribute a sizeable amount of indirect financial support to the Liberal Party. It is therefore in the Government’s interests to ensure that these groups are kept happy.

Yet, if I were to draw a parallel between the campaign for a same sex marriage plebiscite and the referendum for constitutional recognition, it would be the ways in which the Government has sought to dictate the debate in both these instances.

Radical Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activists though are most certainly not a group the Liberal Party wishes to cater to. Considering that sovereignty activists wish to fundamentally change Australian society so that Original Peoples receive the recognition and compensation they are due, it is in the Government’s interests to ignore them. A compounding factor in this instance is of course the perceived threat to mining magnates and pastoralists – again very influential and wealthy groups whose support the Liberal Party wishes to retain – that any sovereignty claims over land will have.

In the case of the plebiscite, Malcolm Turnbull has continually tried to smooth over LGBTIQ community concerns that allowing the public debate would not descend into hate speech. He even accused the LGBTIQ community of having a lack of faith in the civility of their fellow Australian citizens.

In the case of the referendum, however, for an incredibly long time now the ‘yes’ side of this campaign has been funded by the Government to the tune of several million dollars under the name of Recognise. Conversely, a ‘no’ campaign has never been funded. Initially, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members were told that the Government were concerned that constitutional conservatives would squash the positive aspirations of the campaign.

However, thanks to the power of social media, along with some incredibly strong street activism and some critical news coverage it has become apparent that the major opposition to the Recognise campaign is actually sections of the Indigenous community itself. The movements for recognition of sovereignty and negotiation of treaties have become consistently stronger while Recognise has been severely diminished beyond corporate support.

It’s therefore telling that the Government would, on one hand, insist on the plebiscite to encourage ‘debate’ while on the other hand, ignore debates provided by pro-treaty movements. With regards to the plebiscite and the potential ‘no’ side of

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So much is said about the need for ‘free speech’ by the wealthy white men of this country. When it boils down to it though, the only type of speech they really wish to support is the speech of those who support the agenda of the ruling class or who will support their own ambitions to retain power. They’ve got no interest in centring and fostering the diverse conversations held within the communities whose rights we are expected to vote on.

When it comes to recognising the rights of any marginalised groups in the country, these community-based discussions are precisely the views we, as thinking and discerning individuals, need to ensure are front and centre. For how qualified are we to make an informed decision in solidarity if this is not allowed by the Government to be the case?

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

Centre for Future Work

Researching our working lives The Centre for Future Work is a new research institute, based in Sydney, set up to undertake progressive economic research into work and employment in Australia.

A project of the Australia Institute, the Centre will deliver reports, commentary, and economic literacy training for trade unions and others concerned with the negative trends affecting work and workplaces in Australia’s economy.

Economic debates are usually dominated by employers, the business community, and right-wing think tanks. The Centre for Future Work will help level the playing field, by adding to and coordinating high-quality, credible research on the core economic issues facing working people and their families: decent jobs, fair wages, quality public services, globalisation, fair taxes, income inequality, and more.

We want to show politicians, the media, and union members that there are credible, positive, progressive solutions to the economic challenges we face.

The Centre is headed by Dr Jim Stanford, a labour economist with over 20 years of trade union experience. Jim recently relocated to Australia from Canada, where he worked as Economist and Director of Policy with Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector trade union (formerly called the Canadian Auto Workers). His book, Economics for Everyone, a progressive ‘textbook’ on economics for trade unionists and other concerned citizens, is used as a teaching resource by unions and community organisations around the world.

The Centre for Future Work has been launched with generous support from several sponsoring organisations, including the NTEU. Its activities are guided by an Advisory Committee composed of representatives from funding partners (in-

Total Labour Force 12.5 million

Working Age Population 19.25m

Unemployed 760,000

Not in labour force 6.75m

Run Business (with employees) 740,000 Part Time Self Employed 490,000 Full Time Self Employed 770,000

Full Time Paid Employment with Leave Full Time Paid Employment 9.75m

Part Time Paid Employment 3m

5.98 million

Australians in paid full time work with leave entitlements now account for just: 61% of paid employment 48% of the labour force 31% of adult population

Who has a good job anymore, anyway?

Source: Centre for Future Work, based on ABS data, for 2015.

cluding NTEU National President Jeannie Rea), together with independent labour market and social policy experts, many of whom will be NTEU members.

The Centre has already published several reports, commentaries, and other resources on its website. One of its research priorities is documenting the erosion of job security across Australia’s labour market – a trend that is deeply concerning to academics and other university workers. For example, its recent report on the expansion of precarious work showed that less than one-half of the labour force, and under one-third of the working-age population, still retain a full-time paid position with normal leave entitlements.

The majority of Australia’s workforce now experiences one or more dimensions of precarity in their work lives: including parttime, temporary, agency, and self-employed positions (see chart above).

Supported by the Australia Institute’s effective communications outreach, the Centre is already attracting considerable media coverage – including a recent

feature on ABC TV’s Four Corners program about employment precarity, a radio documentary on RN’s Future Tense show regarding the epidemic of unpaid work, and a series of commentaries published online in the Huffington Post. The Centre will also oversee the Australia Institute’s long-running ‘Go Home On Time Day’ project, which measures unpaid overtime and encourages workers to leave work on time.

This year’s report, released on Wednesday 23 November, will feature an in-depth look at the attack on paid holiday leave.

Jim Stanford, Director, Centre for Future Work The Centre very much wants to work with progressive researchers. To subscribe to the email list, or learn about activities and publications, please visit: www.futurework.org.au Follow the Centre on Twitter: @cntrfuturework

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 35

Women, careers and universities Where to from here?

Photo credit: Andrew Rich (istock)

Don’t we know all there is about gender and equality in university employment? Aren’t women the majority of staff? The answer to this last question is Yes, women are the majority of university employees. But the answer to the first question is No. And these issues of gender and equality are particularly important as universities change their employment models. In a changing system, equalities – or inequalities – can change – and we need to be aware of this.

Professor Emeritus Glenda Strachan Griffith University

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In early October the Women, careers and universities: Where to from here? report was launched. The research was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, originating from a proposal from the NTEU. The NTEU was joined by Universities Australia Executive Women and UniSuper as industry partners. The results are based on analysis of more than 23,000 Work and Careers in Australian Universities (WCAU) survey responses from staff at 19 Australian universities, conducted in 2011.

Most academic research on gender equity in universities has focused exclusively on permanent academic staff, thus omitting the majority of women who are professional staff and work of insecure contracts.

A feature of this research project was its inclusion of both professional staff and staff on insecure employment contracts.

A number of key messages emerge from the research including insecurity in the form of fixed-term contracts and hourly paid teaching academics (casuals) are a major component of the university workforce who deliver essential services.

Women are more likely to be in this group than men and there is no certainty of on-going university employment. With employment on serial contracts, gaining expertise in their specialty, it is rare to receive additional pay and there is very little chance of promotion or appointment at a higher level. Fixed-term contract staff may

not be able to access all gender equity and family leave policies, and casual staff fall outside of these policies.

Women might be the majority of staff, but their employment patterns are marked by obvious vertical and horizontal segregation. Women are under-represented about HEW 8 and at Professor and Associate Professor (levels E and D). Women are also under-represented in some disciplines and in some professional staff areas. So the second important point is that there are many ‘labour markets’ within a university.

Universities have been good at introducing university-wide policies for permanent staff such as paid parental leave and the ability for professional staff to move from full-time to part-time to full-time work, but this study shows that there are different employment patterns in the different labour markets, so policies that respond to these specific gender equity issues are needed.

Vertical and horizontal segregation Vertical segregation by gender remains, and women are disproportionately represented at the lower levels while men are disproportionately represented at the higher levels of both academic and professional staff. Between 2001 and 2011, women’s attainment of higher level appointments among both academic and professional staff had increased; however, inequity persisted relative to men.

Gender equity in Australian universities amongst academic staff, as benchmarked against the Australian Public Service (APS), was relatively poor. Women were especially under-represented in senior academic levels compared to the APS. Even for upper-middle tier academics (level C) there was a sizeable gap with women’s employment in the benchmark tier of the public service.

For academic staff, horizontal segregation occurs through both discipline and role specialisation. Both have an impact on women’s advancement. There is not a single labour market for academic staff, but rather a series of segmented labour markets organised around disciplines.

Some of these had higher levels of female participation than others. Gender inequities varied by discipline and role specialisation and therefore require action that takes account of disciplinary and specialisation effects.

There were differences between professional staff areas in their degree of gender concentration, though most (with two exceptions) were female dominated. In all but the area of facilities management, women were under-represented at senior levels.

Work and working conditions Approximately three-quarters of the professional staff and just over half the academic staff held permanent appointments

(excluding casual staff ). More women than men among all university staff held fixed-term appointments. Consistent with other industries, women were more likely to work part-time than men. Part-time staff were more likely to have fixed-term appointments than full-time staff.

Long working hours were typical. Almost half (43 per cent) of full-time professional staff usually worked more than 40 hours a week. Almost all (90 per cent) full-time academic staff worked more than 40 hours a week. Nine per cent of full-time professional staff and half the full-time academic staff (51 per cent) worked 50 or more hours per week.

Academic women were more likely than men to undertake more teaching, and especially more administration, than their contract indicated. Such ‘overloads’ in teaching or administration tended to lead to staff wanting to work fewer hours, and expressing lower satisfaction with careers or work–life balance.

Receipt of pay loadings among both professional staff and academic staff was higher for men than for women. In both groups, this was especially the case for market and, to a lesser extent, performance loadings, and not all of this could be explained simply by differences in level.

The value of the loading was greater for men than women.

One-quarter of staff had experienced harassment or bullying in the workplace, and this was slightly greater among women and highest for academic women. Fewer than half of the staff who had experienced harassment considered taking formal action due to the adverse impact it was expected to have on their career.

Insecurity in the academic workforce Approximately 67,000 individuals worked as casual academic teaching staff in 2010, approximately 54 per cent according to UniSuper data, and 57 per cent from the survey were women. In comparison, women represented 45 per cent of the permanent and fixed-term academic workforce. Casual academic teaching staff, typically hired on a semester basis, were the largest component, on a headcount basis, of the academic workforce. Women constituted more than half of the casual academic teaching workforce.

The overwhelming majority (84 per cent) of research academics were employed on fixed-term contracts, and women were a little more likely to be on a contract than men (88 per cent of women, 82 per cent of men).

Women and men had a similar desire for more secure work, and there was no evidence to suggest that casual or fixed-term work was favoured by women as a means to achieve flexibility. A significant proportion of casual academics aspired to an ac-

ademic career. However, while their work experience was viewed as preparation for an academic career, they received limited access to resources or supported professional development to assist. Despite their important work with students, the survey data showed how casual academics were invisible in the university, and often excluded from university activities.

A characteristic of fixed-term and casual academics was the lack of career path.

New appointments were frequently made at the lowest level irrespective of the staff member’s experience. The nature of their contracts limited opportunity for conversion to a permanent position and with it the opportunity for career advancement.

Fixed-term positions were significant in all disciplines, but were rife in the research-heavy (mostly STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] ) disciplines. There is a strongly gendered aspect to this insecurity. Women were more likely than men to be in insecure positions and more likely to end up in insecure career pathways. Fixed-term academic women, both research intensive (RI) and teaching intensive (TI), were much more dissatisfied with support in their careers than men. Two-thirds of research intensive (RI) academic staff, the majority employed on fixed-term contracts, had made no advancement since their first appointment.

Career advancement The initial level of appointment for women was in a lower classification than for men, among both academic and professional staff.

Part-time work acted as a small but measurable ‘brake’ on career progression for female professional staff. Women who had only worked part-time were less likely to have advanced than those who worked full-time or those who had periods of working both full- and part-time.

Women aspired to higher-level positions at least as much as men, among both academic and professional staff. Women, both academic and professional staff, applied for promotion at the same rate as men, and were just as likely to be successful in these applications. Among professional staff, success rates in reclassification applications were the same for women and men.

As discussed for academics there were a series of segmented labour markets organised around disciplines and some of these had higher levels of female participation than others. There were three important structural ways in which women academics were disadvantaged in seeking to advance academic careers and which related strongly to discipline: Insecurity. The tendency, within each role specialisation, for women to be more likely continued overpage...

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 37

Women, careers & universities continued from previous page than men to be in fixed-term rather than continuing jobs.

Marginalisation. The greater tendency for newly appointed women to be placed into teaching-intensive positions (some of them teaching-only positions), which are widely seen as lacking the career opportunities that are available in more balanced TR positions; and Funnelling. The reducing proportions of women with movement into higher academic levels.

Each of these was linked to discipline, and was a particular problem for women in research-heavy disciplines (that is, mostly STEM disciplines).

Work, family and careers Mothers were more likely than fathers to perceive problems with the attitude within their university to workers with family responsibilities, with the majority of fathers neutral on this issue. Mothers were also more likely than fathers to report missed opportunities for promotion or other career-related opportunities.

Mothers were more likely than fathers to want, request, and be granted shorter working hours. These findings suggest that the male breadwinner model persists, and its prevalence is impeding efforts to reduce gender inequities.

Mothers were more likely to perceive problems and to report some missed career opportunities in male dominated, compared with gender neutral or female dominated, work units. However, there were contrasting patterns across work units between academic staff and professional staff, and fathers and mothers, in access to flexible working arrangements.

Overall, the findings were consistent with the persistence of male breadwinner norms, indicating that in spite of the introduction of a number of ‘family friendly’ measures, universities are making only limited progress towards more gender egalitarian outcomes.

were uncovered, such as level of first appointment and the payment of loadings on top of the regulated salary, need to be addressed urgently.

in areas where gender inequity has been identified to play an active role in the development of specific equity policies and their implementation.

Universities, both in the chancellery, HR departments and within local departments, need to be aware that gender inequity remains and is enacted in various ways each day. Vertical and horizontal segregation remain a feature of university employment and need to be discussed and addressed. Because of the ‘local’ characteristics of horizontal segregation, gender equity strategies need to become the responsibility of managers across the university, in addition to centralised university HR functions. Line managers should be asked to devise specific strategies for gender equity within their organisational units. As university employment and gender inequities do not stand alone, universities should liaise with professional bodies and the Academies to counter sexism and discrimination in career progress.

The major issue for insecure staff on fixed-term or casual contracts is how to retain their job and advance their career.

Therefore universities should investigate and find ways in which this can be done for this large and growing group of university staff who provide vital services for the university.

Harassment and bullying, both sexual and non-sexual, was part of the working experience for many staff. The prevention of, or subsequent handling of, harassment and bullying should be part of managers’ training. Cultures need to be promoted which ensure that cultures of non-harassment are promoted within the organisation, and that staff have confidence in the integrity of complaint systems. Particular attention should be paid to academic areas, where higher rates of harassment of women were found.

Universities provide all staff who have managerial and supervisory responsibilities with mandatory training in combatting ‘unconscious bias’ which leads to stronger weighting given to the qualifications and achievements of male candidates and a lower weighting to the achievements of female candidates for positions in areas that historically were male dominated.

What should be done?

New areas of staff specialisation are being developed and universities need to develop explicit career paths for these groups, for example teaching intensive academics, and for transfer to other specialisations if the staff member desires.

In the context of the changing university and changing employment, continual vigilance is needed. Policies that appear to be working well, such as promotion, need to be monitored. Areas where inequities

Universities need to pay particular attention to the relationship between gender and teaching intensive (TI), fixed-term academic appointments in research-heavy (STEM) disciplines, requiring managers

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Universities need to develop (or extend) ‘gender egalitarian’ work/family policies, that is, policies designed explicitly to erode male breadwinner/female carer norms. These could include extending parental – as opposed to only maternity – leave entitlements and ensuring that policies such as temporary, part-time, or other flexible working arrangements explicitly state that they are open to men as well as women. These policies should be publicised internally and include examples of successful flexible arrangements taken by individual staff.

Finally, while the WCAU survey was focused on gender equality, it revealed that 1 per cent of all university workers identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and two-fifths of staff were born outside of Australia. Universities need to reflect on the issue of intersectionality (which refers to the interconnected issues of, for example, gender, ethnicity and age) and how this impacts on working conditions and career advancement. Policy needs to be extended beyond gender to take consideration of these under-represented groups.

Strachan, G., Peetz, D., Whitehouse, G., Bailey, J. Broadbent, K., May, R., Troup, C. & Nesic, M. (2016). Women, careers and universities: Where to from here? Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University, Brisbane. www.griffith.edu.au/businessgovernment/centre-work-organisationwellbeing/research/work-institutions/ projects/gender-equity-in-australianuniversities

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council.

Feminism

The F word The NTEU focus on feminism through Bluestocking Week and Agenda, drew much popular feedback, including leading Davina Taylor to reflect upon feminist legacy of Jean Beadle.

I am many things to many people – mother, wife, daughter, academic, welfare worker. I am also a feminist and union member. I am dismayed to have others question my choice to describe myself as a feminist and unionist.

In the past, I have spent countless hours validating my reasons by reciting statistics relating to structural and gender inequality in the workplace and the need for social collectivism and activism.

I knew from a young age that feminism and unionism would play a role in my life. During primary school, my class was asked to do a presentation on our favourite Australian. While others spoke of Kylie Minogue, Donald Bradman and Bob Hawke; I very proudly stood in front of my peers and talked about my ancestor, Jean Beadle. It is recently that I have rekindled my reflections on Jean Beadle’s legacy, and how her activism shaped my life.

Jean Beadle was born in 1868 at a time when a woman left the paid workforce upon marriage and took her place within the confines of domestic and parenting duties in the husband-financed home.

Jean, instead, chose a life as a feminist, trade unionist, social and political activist and suffragette.

After experiencing the working conditions within factories and on the goldfields, Jean dedicated her life to improving the lives of women and children in Australia. Her list of achievements include, but are not limited to, being a founding member of the first Australian Labor Women’s Organisation, Vice President of the Women’s Political and Social Crusade and President of the Women’s Justice Association. Jean was one of the first female Justices of the Peace in Australia, served on the Children’s Courts of Western Australia and also worked to improve the lives of women in prison.

Jean passed away in 1942. Well before her time, Jean led an extraordinary life and paved the way for other social and political activists.

It is women like Jean Beadle that have influenced my reason to be a union member and a feminist. It is because of trailblazers like her that I work a 36 hour working week, I have a safe workplace and access to paid maternity leave. I have the right to vote and the right to choose a multifaceted set of challenging careers; motherhood, educator and researcher. I am a feminist because I feel that anything else would be disrespectful to all the women before me who sacrificed so much

Jean Beadle (Source: UWA Publishing) and worked so hard so that I could have so many opportunities.

I also know we have a long way to go. As I look at my young daughter, Lilian Jean, and think of the endless possibilities but also the challenges available to her, I know it is my job to carry on what Jean, and so many others like her, started. In years to come, I want my daughter to look back on the pay gap, the dismal state of superannuation for retired women, the casualisation of employment and other injustices experienced by women around the world and know that I did all I could to improve the situation for her and the collective of women walking alongside her.

I look forward to the day that I tell Lilian about the tireless work of women like Jean and so many others who came before her.

I also know that when people ask me why I am a feminist and union member, I can proudly say ‘it is in my blood.’

Davina Taylor, CQUniversity

The NTEU Women’s Action Committee (WAC) strongly supports the Universities Australia & Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) National Student Survey on Sexual Assault and Harassment. WAC urges members to encourage students to complete the survey, which was supported at National Council. NTEU is also collaborating with AHRC on a survey on workplace sexual harassment in universities. > HOW STUDENTS CAN PARTICIPATE: 1. STUDENTS MAY BE RANDOMLY SELECTED TO COMPLETE A CONFIDENTIAL ANONYMOUS SURVEY I STUDENTS AREN’T SELECTED, 2. IF THEY CAN STILL HAVE THEIR SAY

BY GOING TO HUMANRIGHTS.GOV.AU /UNIVERSITYSUBMISSIONS

univrsitiesaustralia.edu.au/RespectNowAlways

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 39

University marketing

Rock solid slogans This year’s $Z10 trillion igNoble prize in economics was awarded to Dr Mark Avis (Massey, NZ), Dr Shelagh Ferguson (Otago, NZ) and Dr Sarah Forbes (Birmingham, UK) for a paper that criticised the use of brand personality scales commonly used in marketing research by applying it to pictures of three rocks. The research revealed that by asking people to attribute human characteristics to a rock, they came up with highly elaborate descriptions including rocks being described as ‘a gypsy or a traveller, a hippie’ or ‘liberal, attractive and female’.

phic rocks being created by the intense pressure of swirling magma deep within the earth’s crust. Other Group of Eight universities that also see themselves being part of metamorphic process include Queensland, where an unformed student can ‘Start your journey to create change’, and UNSW which asks ‘How will you change the world?’

So what would happen if you reversed the logic underlying this study to see what geological characteristics you might attribute to some of our universities based on branding personality as revealed in their marketing slogans?

The University of Wollongong is clearly confused as to its geological origins and is appealing to students’ inner fossicker with ‘Finding your way’. In declaring itself a place where students are not just learning it, ‘You’re living it’, Charles Sturt University is clearly under the misapprehension that it is pyura chilensis, or a living rock, which, unfortunately for CSU also happens to be a marine bottom feeder. La Trobe, where you ‘Come bright, leave bold’ is promoting itself as being luminescent, but without asking the obvious question: why nobody uses radium anymore to make watch dials glow in the dark?

The marketing slogan of Australia’s oldest university, Sydney – ‘What will you start here?’ – is unmistakably sedimentary in nature. Students are given a clear impression that they are but one grain of sand settling into layer upon layer of accumulated knowledge which will eventually contribute to form the sandstone of which the grand spires of higher learning are constructed.

By contrast, the University of Melbourne’s ‘Where potential collides with ambition’ is far more characteristic of metamor-

While it would be tempting to characterise Monash’s urge for students to ‘Make change’ along similar (fault) lines, on further examination it is probably using the modem idiom of the phrase and is a and therefore a clear reference to the production of metal coins and the emergence of the entrepreneurial university. The University of South Australia is far more upfront by calling itself ‘The university of enterprise’. Adelaide’s invitation to ‘Start today to lead tomorrow’ has a distinctly ‘no convicts here’ tone.

Some of our younger universities seem less confident that their students will emerge as fully formed rocks. In proclaiming themselves as ‘A world of opportunity’ and ‘Unlimited possibilities’, RMIT and Western Sydney University are in danger of characterising themselves as places where students are buried in peaty quagmires that, might, hopefully, eventually turn into something useful, namely coal.

By contrast, QUT is not too embarrassed to characterise itself as a university working at the coal face of Australian higher education, by proclaiming itself a university of the ‘Real world’.

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By declaring that ‘Together, we can do this’, the University of New England suggests it is unhappy with Mother Nature and is prepared to mix together lime and clay and other rocks and minerals to create higher education concrete. Federation University is the clay on the potter’s wheel in promising to ‘Shape your future’.

Flinders University has clearly been formed from a meteor by inviting students to boldly ‘Go beyond’. Edith Cowan is far more down to earth characterising itself as the Uluru of higher education by declaring itself ‘Destination ECU’. ACU wants to associate itself with Kakadu’s uranium deposits with its promise to ‘Power your purpose’. In asking whether you think all universities are the same and, if so, to ‘Think again’, Murdoch is reflecting on another geological icon of the Australian outback, the opal.

Curtin University’s slogan, ‘Make tomorrow better’, is more a cry for help than it is a marketing exercise. Clearly a large dose of iron is needed to stiffen up its anaemic branding efforts.

The last word however, must go to CQU which is using ‘Qualifications just don’t melt away’ to promote its current summer schools. By referencing a recently discovered exotic alloy, which is a combination of the rare metal hafnium, carbon and nitrogen, with a melting temperature two thirds the temperature of the surface of the sun, CQU is not only promoting the enduring value of its qualifications, but also promoting itself as being highly innovative, if in nothing other than marketing.

Paul Kniest, Policy & Research Coordinator An edited version of this article was published in The Australian, 11 October 2016.

Recruitment

Every member counts Successive NTEU surveys indicate that about a third of new members say one of their main reasons for joining is having a conversation with a colleague about the Union.

Research also indicates that unions are largest and strongest when there are delegates or active members in a workplace, talking and working with potential new members.

Challenges ahead in bargaining Universities entering a new round of enterprise bargaining where the employers are already indicating a coordinated approach to reduce long-held employment conditions. Meanwhile, a lack of job security has become the most important issue facing the vast majority of university employees, including those with so-called ‘ongoing’ jobs.

If we want to protect what we have and improve job security, we need to be united. We need to get as many staff mem-

bers as possible involved.

We need to build the Union.

Tools for colleague recruitment The NTEU wants to assist the process of members talking to their colleagues about why it is in their best interest to join the Union, because we think this is the most effective way to recruit. If every member signed up one colleague today, we would double the size of the Union overnight and greatly strengthen our legitimacy at the bargaining table and in every workplace.

Above all else, a visible NTEU presence and activity in the workplace is the main thing that will attract new members and make existing members stay in the Union. ‘Building power’ is about staff experiencing what can be achieved through collective action.

This year we have produced a 2017 NTEU desktop calendar that will be sent to every member in late 2016. We hope it will provide part of a visible NTEU presence and be used as a conversation starter about joining the Union.

Included with each calendar will be two ‘Z card’ format leaflets to further assist with the task of signing up colleagues. The Z cards contain testimonials from real NTEU members about their experiences and reasons for joining the NTEU (see image, p. 7), as well as a membership form.

We have also produced an easy-to-use Recruitment Toolkit to guide and assist members in talking to their colleagues (see p. 57).

It’s in all our best interests that the Union is strong and legitimately represents staff views. It’s also important that members participate in determining the Union’s collective view.

NTEU is fiercely proud of our strong democratic structures and welcomes all members to get involved to whatever extent they choose.

So do yourself a favour – talk to a colleague today about joining the NTEU! Michael Evans, National Organiser

Above: The 2017 NTEU desktop calendar.

Left: The recruitment Z card.

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Turkey

Education sector purged In early September 2016, more than forty Turkish academics were deemed ‘supporters of terrorism’, dismissed and banned from service along with thousands of other education sector workers.

Dismissed under the state of emergency, they will neither be able to appeal the decision nor ever work again in the public sector. Their passports have also been revoked.

These academics were among 2,000 higher education workers who in January signed the peace petition, entitled ‘We will not be party to this crime.’ It called for an end to the persecution of the Kurdish people by the Turkish state. Since January the ‘Academics for Peace’ have faced continuous harassment including suspension and forced resignations.

The Turkish Government has sought to associate the Academics for Peace, along with members of the Education and Science Workers Union and thousands of teachers and higher education academics and administrators, with the attempted coup on 2 July. The attempted coup has become a useful excuse to crack down on any critics or opposition.

Education International (EI), the global federation of education unions, has called upon Turkish authorities to observe the rule of law and uphold the democratic values of Turkish society. EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen said that the education ‘purge’ is only the latest action taken by the Government to muzzle its critics since the attempted coup. The coup was followed by thousands of arrests, more than 200 deaths, the suspension of over 15,000 education staff and the revoking of the licences of 21,000 teachers employed at private schools.

‘EI will not stand silent as our profession is targeted in what amounts to a ‘witch hunt,’ said van Leeuwen. ‘Although our organisation firmly rejects the attempted coup, we demand that the Government of Turkey shows that democracy is the only answer to the unlawful actions of the military rather than justify what amounts to an abolition of citizens’ rights.’

Scholars at Risk (SAR), the international network dedicated to protecting scholars and the freedom to think, question and share ideas, and to which NTEU is affiliated, says that the forced resignations, suspensions, detentions and travel bans have reportedly affected thousands of individuals in Turkey and abroad, and ‘threaten the future of higher education in Turkey’.

SAR has written that the suspension of 1,500 faculty deans has a chilling impact on those involved and also sends a message to remaining staff and students that dissenting voices will be silenced.

An unprecedented number of Turkey’s scholars are facing threats to their careers, well-being and constitutional right to academic freedom. SAR has received over 30 applications from scholars from Turkey for assistance in relocation right after the attempted coup, more than they received in the first 15 years of SAR’s existence.

SAR said, ‘We are particularly concerned that the scale and speed of these actions suggest a lack of due process or evidence-based response to the attempted coup of July 15th. Rather, these suggest a broad campaign against intellectuals and intellectual expression, in violation of Turkey’s international and domestic legal obligations to protect institutional autonomy and academic freedom, including under Turkey’s constitution.

‘If not quickly reversed, these actions risk irreparable harm to higher education personnel and to the reputation and operation of Turkey’s higher education sector, which had been suffering already in recent

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months from prosecutions and undue pressures on over 2,000 academics.

‘These actions against the higher education sector, moreover, are counterproductive to the legitimacy and long-term stability of the state. The asking of questions and expression of ideas, especially disputed or unpopular ideas, is not only essential to quality higher education; it is the root of democratic legitimacy and rule of law.

‘The higher education sector has a special responsibility within democratic society to ask and debate questions in a safe space, without resorting to force, and to impart information and ideas to the public. This ensures that sensitive issues may be more widely understood, and affords the public a means of forming opinions based on evidence and reason over passion, prejudice, ideology or even threats of violence. This in turn encourages public investment in democratic discourse and processes; an investment which proved so essential in the resistance to the July 15th coup attempt.

It is precisely at this moment of instability when society needs more space for open, democratic discussion. If the university space shrinks—and it certainly will if the current pressures continue—the risks to Turkey’s democracy will only grow’.

The NTEU strongly supports this view, and emphasises that the importance of universities and intellectuals as critics and conscience of society should not be underestimated. The NTEU continues to protest and to work with higher education workers and our unions locally and internationally for the reinstatement of the Turkish workers, dropping of charges and an end to harassment and persecution.

Jeannie Rea, National President Excerpt from speech given at a rally in Melbourne, 17 September 2016.

Above: Turkish police detain a teacher during a protest in Diyarbakır, 9 September 2016 (Source: AFP).

South Africa

Fees must fall The current South African student protests are the biggest mobilisations of students since the end of apartheid. The ‘Fees Must Fall’ protests are of such magnitude that they could close down the higher education system.

The Fees Must Fall campaign was a direct response to the announcement in early 2015 of a 10.5 per cent fee increase.

Occupations began at the elite University of the Witswatersrand and quickly spread throughout the country. This led to a back down by the ANC Government which announced a freeze on the increase and a commitment to working towards the aspirations outlined in the ANC Freedom Charter of free higher education. However, this decision was not accompanied by any further finance for the universities and thus the universities were supposed to make-up the shortfall themselves.

The recent wave of protest was a response to an announcement of a new fee increase in contravention of promises made in 2015 and a failure to make progress on the central demand of free access to higher education. Students and staff supporters continue to call for free education.

Educational inequality South Africa is a country of grotesque inequality. Today, two decades after the end of apartheid, the predominantly white minority live in conditions comparable to those of middle-class Australians while the majority, still overwhelmingly black or coloured, live lives of desperate poverty.

According to Oxfam’s Global Inequality Report, two white South Africans, the Oppenheimer brothers, own more than 50 per cent of the rest of the population combined. According to the same report, one in four South Africans regularly experience food poverty.

Educational inequality is central to this broader problem. Many students fail to finish high school and of those who do finish, few proceed to higher education. The

end of formal racial segregation meant improved access to the elite universities, and on the face of it there is a marked improvement.

For instance, the University Currently Known as Rhodes* (UCKAR) has a student body comprised of 60 per cent of students who identify as black and 40 per cent who identify as white. However, when this is placed in the context of the fact that 79 per cent of the South African population identifies as black, and that most black students at UCKAR are from elite private and Model C schools, the situation becomes stark.

Students from poorer backgrounds are under enormous financial pressure. Often the first of their family to attend university, their parents make profound sacrifices to support them in the expectation that they will achieve high paying jobs and in turn be able to support their families.

Rising graduate unemployment and high student indebtedness is rapidly destroying this prospect.

The recent NTEU National Council unanimously carried a motion expressing solidarity with academic staff in South African universities facing intimidation, and re-affirmed the long standing NTEU policy of support for the principle of free and universally accessible higher education.

The NTEU will continue to participate in solidarity actions through Education International and also support capacity building of unions in the South African tertiary education sector.

Dr Richard Hamilton, University of Notre Dame Australia *UCKAR is the designation favoured by students and staff who object to an institution of higher learning being named after a racist genocidal colonialist.

Above and below: Recent #FeesMustFall protests (Sources: Chaotic Front; Nomonde Tshomi/Twitter).

The Government’s response continues to be extremely heavy handed. Armed police patrol the campuses often accompanied by private security guards. Apartheid-era legislation has been invoked to ramp up the level of policing. This is partly in response to incidents of damage to university property and intimidation by a small minority of student protesters.

Staff solidarity There have been reports of management threats to academic staff who refuse to teach under unsafe conditions or in solidarity with protesting students. This has either been direct threats of dismissal such as at Wits or else has come in the form of a ‘friendly warning about South African labour law’ from senior members of the law faculty at UCKAR. NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 43

Guest Column Stuart Bunt

Virtual worlds – virtual teaching staff?

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) have been around for decades but have only recently reached the crucial transition point to commercial viability. When we see Google cardboard glasses on sale in airport shops or given away with newspapers, and virtual reality glasses on sale in Harvey Norman, we know their time has come.

The proliferation of these ‘disruptive technologies’ raises the question: what will their impact be in the tertiary education sector? At the recent NTEU National Council I ran a workshop on this issue and there was a clear wish to know what all the hype was about, as for many in academia it is still all mystery. It is difficult to convey in words or 2D the nature of AR and VR. In short, by wearing special goggles with built-in motion sensors, VR immerses you in a 360 degree world. This can be video of real life places such as Paris, a completely artificial scenario such as a recreation of the Pueblo Ruins in New Mexico, or a fully ‘functional’ chemistry lab. Sitting at your desk you look down and see, not a wellworn carpet, but the dusty floor of the American desert, look up in ‘Paris’ and not see the air-conditioning vent but cloudy skies partially obscured by the Eiffel Tower rising up above you.

In its simplest form this virtual environment can be created simply by placing a smartphone in a goggle-like holder ($20) and running an app that splits the screen into stereo pairs; while at the top end the likes of HTC Vive ($1,300) allow the wearer to physically walk around and ‘touch’ (with handsets) objects in a virtual room.

AR is a different beast. With this technology extra information is overlaid on the

real world. This requires a camera on the phone or tablet, which shows the real world on the device, and then the AR app adds an overlay. Pokemon Go has brought this to public attention, overlaying monuments and parks with small creatures you can virtually ‘collect’. Google Translate is a more practical application when pointed at, for example, a Chinese menu, it overlays the image with text in your native language so you can avoid ordering the fried snake testicles by mistake. The first time you use the app it is quite astonishing, as you find yourself peering behind the phone to confirm that the menu is still inscrutable, the Chinese characters unaltered.

At the high end of AR equipment we had the unsuccessful Google glasses that projected AR information onto the user’s field of view; causing paranoia as people envisioned the user checking their LinkedIn and Facebook profile while they talked to them! Microsoft is trying again with the Hololens, on sale in Australia for $A3,500.

Similar in operation to the Google glasses, the Hololens is sold for indoor, private use only. Hololens applications include a dramatic projection of whole body anatomy in space to a virtual toolkit allowing users to build virtual machines or buildings in the empty space in front of them. These can then be printed and turned into concrete 3D objects (literally, since we now have enormous 3D printers that can print concrete houses).

There are (for now?) severe limitations to the technology. The more advanced viewers are expensive, and therefore impossible to provide for large classes. Individuals must be seated and monitored, as they are effectively blind while immersed in the virtual world. Each headset requires a dedicated computer with decent graphics.

With HTC Vive it can take three helpers to monitor the movement of the mobile ‘VR adventurer’ and prevent them crashing into unseen walls. One of the biggest restrictions is that perhaps 1-in-3 students rapidly succumb to motion sickness. Not surprisingly, most applications are restricted to hardcore gaming.

Mobile phone based VR is simpler to use and more affordable – but also more restricted in its application, providing limited graphics capability and low reso-

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lution. For equity we may have to provide the small percentage of students without phones the correct devices.

So what is the potential impact of this technology on tertiary education? As some of the above examples indicate, AR and VR have enormous potential, particularly in disciplines with complex technical, ethical or health and safety requirements.

However, it is concerning that these technologies are already being hyped by ignorant management as the cure for all ills. No more costly, messy chemistry labs where students can burn themselves or set fire to the building, no more dangerous microbiology labs with real bacteria and viruses.

Of course no real world skill acquisition either… When the programs are written management might reach that holy grail of NO AWKWARD, COSTLY STAFF! How feasible is this Orwellian vision of teaching without teachers? The unique features of AR and VR are still being explored. There are clearly many niches where it can provide things that other approaches cannot; however, it is costly to produce quality products for VR. Education, with its limited budget, will always struggle to match the multimillion dollar budgets of game producers.

The Danish Government has invested heavily in producing a virtual laboratory but it has cost millions to produce what is still a pale imitation of the real thing. As is the case with MOOCs, VR may have a place where students cannot access the real thing either because of cost, time or geography.

It should not be forgotten that the much-maligned PowerPoint can be shown to hundreds of students, whether live or by video for the cost of a few hours’ work.

It remains a very limited teaching tool, but is by far the cheapest option.

Stuart Bunt, WA Division President and National Executive member, is a long time user and producer of computer aided learning materials. He has several grants to investigate the use of VR and AR in teaching.

Lowering the Boom Ian Lowe

Tam U will cram you!

How time flies when you have an exciting government! It only seems last week that I was in Tamworth for my last annual chat with the irrepressible Cal D’Aria, Vice-Chancellor, President and now beloved Supreme Leader of brave little Tam U. Suddenly there I was again. Cal was naturally delighted with the election result in New England: Barnaby Joyce returned as his local member rather than having an independent thinker like Tony Windsor making trouble.

He was equally cheerful about the return of the Coalition Government. ‘Turnbull did what he was drafted in to do, get the Coalition re-elected. Now they’ve got three years they can ditch him and bring back Tony’, he chortled. I must have looked less than enthusiastic, because Cal continued ‘Of course some voters will feel cheated, but they’ll have forgotten by the time the next election rolls around.

‘The Liberals have shown they can get rid of elected leaders, and a lot of those softies who supported Turnbull got the boot. You mark my words, Abbott’s mates Abetz and Andrews have long memories and nothing else to do but drum up the numbers for a leadership spill. Turnbull will be gone before our chat next year’.

Cal was in his stride now and thrilled to see the way the new government intends

to do business. ‘$65,000 donation from one company, suddenly the path to visas for overseas students opens up. That’s just the innovation I wanted. Dastyari had no vision, only getting Chinese companies to pay trivial bills when he could have done some serious business! Mind you, it’s good to see donors being rewarded with cushy government appointments’, he added.

He has also been cheered by the way the older universities are beginning to embrace initiatives that were seen as radical when Tam U first adopted them.

‘People sneered when we got rid of staff offices, all that space wasted on desks and bookshelves. Now I hear a Faculty in one of the sandstones has decided to clear the bookshelves out of staff offices. That’s the way to go – books are so last century! Only people like the Attorney-General need props like shelves of unopened books to hide his diary in.’

Cal is delighted to see that the immigration thimble-and-pea trick is still working a treat. ‘People hear about the way refugees are treated at Manus Island and Nauru, because those do-gooders keep drawing attention to it. So the punters think the Government is tough on migrants, strong on protecting our borders. With all that fuss, nobody notices that they are letting hundreds of thousands come in claiming to be students, then quietly giving them permanent residence and allowing them to bring in their families. The immigration scam has been the foundation of Tam U’s business model for years. It looks secure for another three years’, Cal chuckled.

Cal did become a bit tetchy when I raised the question of vice-chancellors’ salaries.

‘My salary is entirely a matter between me and the university board’, he said. ‘They are all good business men and know you have to pay top dollar to get the best leader. Besides, some of the old universities are paying their managers seven-digit telephone-number salaries, and none of them have shown the sort of initiative that has taken us from a country hairdressing college to a feisty independent university.’

marketing strategy. ‘The older universities have adopted many of our approaches, like advertising on buses, television spots and sponsoring football teams. So we have to break new ground, so to speak’, Dr Saba De Todo said. ‘This year’s initiative is Tam U branded condoms! It’s a great way to reach our target demographic, the young and impressionable. We have a new slogan: Don’t go into the world unprotected: Tam U has you covered!’

‘Well, it might work, but isn’t there a need to give the customers what they are paying for?’ I asked. They looked pityingly at me, detecting that I was still clinging to the naïve notion that students came to universities to get educated. ‘We have done our homework, mate. What they want is a qualification. And we give them that in spades! Every Tam U student gets straight A-grades for every assessment item, so there is no time wasted on marking or correcting. They get through their degree faster than anywhere else: remember the old slogan, Tam U will cram you!

And every graduate has the title Doctor, giving them a great advantage in landing that crucial first job!’

It suddenly seemed a very long time since I responded to that invitation from Griffith University to express interest in voluntary early retirement, as Prof. Ateer reminded me how out of touch I am with the way the university system is going. ‘You probably think that students still want to be lectured and given guidance about the latest thinking. They don’t have time for any of that sort of stuff. Most of them are working forty hours a week. They just want the easiest way to get their piece of paper.’

It may be time I stopped visiting Cal and his mates. It is too depressing.

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

M@AusConservation

We were interrupted by Cal’s trusted advisors, Prof. Ateer and Dr Saba De Todo, arriving to brief him on Tam U’s latest

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 45

The Thesis Whisperer Inger Mewburn

What I enjoy about working in academia My usual Advocate column writing strategy is: 1) Work myself into a froth of rage about something. 2) Release the words.

4. Cold, bitter coffee – the sort that is only found at conferences. I can drink it by the bucket load. It’s honestly better cold – heating it up only makes it worse.

As a consequence, my columns are really thinly disguised rants and I am grateful that the editors continue to publish them (thanks, Jeannie). There was plenty to be angry about this month, but a post on the Research Whisperer ‘It gets worse’ , about the plight of the academic precariat, made me so crazy that I passed over some kind of anger event horizon and ended up feeling … numb. Go and read it, but be warned: I spent most of the day lying on my office floor, feeling like the survivor of a plane crash and wondering what the hell I was doing with my life.

6. Academic door decorations – someone once stuck a post it note on my friend Emily Kothe’s door saying: ‘ask me about my [overdue task]’ so that everyone would nag her about it. Apparently it worked.

Here’s the thing – I get plenty of positive reader responses from angry rants. No one writes to me when I publish a happy piece, either here or on my blog. I started to wonder, if we are so angry, why do we keep going to work? In an effort to explore this topic I took note of all the things I enjoyed about working in academia this week and came up with a starter list for you: 1. Campus Gardens – all week I admired them, yet I did not once see anyone doing any actual gardening. Is there a secret army of university house elves that tirelessly labour at night to make such delightful topiary outside Bldg 144?

2. Lunchrooms – even the one in my building, which is full of passive aggressive notes about cleaning up and demands for money, either for candy or teabags.

3. Colleague’s bookshelves – the best are works of art, diligently compiled over decades. The well-composed academic bookshelf should quietly intimidate, while exuding an air of effortlessly confident intellectual superiority. I keep a serious book on orgies in mine, just to confuse people.

5. What passes for ‘fashion’ in committee meetings – look closely at everyone’s shoes next time you are bored and you’ll see what I mean.

Curious as to what others thought of my list, I posted it on social media. The comments confirmed that I am not the only person to enjoy the oddities of academic life.

My friend Kim Barbour enjoys seeing students reading in weird places: ‘like the broken chair in a stairwell’. She also takes pleasure in ‘Stationary cupboards, including the second hand bits, old cassette tapes, and weird bits of plastic that no one remembers the purpose of’. Lyndon Walker agreed and noted that campuses are the last place you are likely to encounter working VCR players.

But Lyndon saves his love for old buildings ‘with corridors that go nowhere’. Campus buildings really are a constant source of fascination and delight. Susan Mayson noted the power of empty corridors where ‘… you know everyone is working... somewhere’. Joyce Seitzinger pointed out that library spaces are especially great. Lyndon likes old library books and I’ll admit I get a bit of a kick out of the smell of old paper – is it mould? I’m not sure.

The neglected stuff on campus does exert a powerful fascination. On Twitter @katja_Thierne admitted that she enjoyed ‘finding and collecting the nice pens and pencils that others have left behind in class and seminar rooms’. My friend Tseen Khoo even started a Tumblr to celebrate the forgotten and unloved chairs of academia. My PhD student, Jodie-Lee Trembath, reminisced about an office chair

that was ‘so decrepit that I wrapped black plastic around the cushions then covered the plastic in blankets and scarves so I wouldn’t get mites when I sat in it’. Jodie also pointed out ‘The hilarious, hyper intelligent debates people get into via graffiti on the back of toilet doors’. Personally I’ve been enjoying those since about 1989.

Campus wildlife got rave reviews from my academic friends and followers. Rachael Reedman likes ducks and other critters such as cats, turtles, rabbits and water dragons got special mentions. ANU has a fine collection of Kangaroos on our coastal campus. There was a certain ‘Professor Roo’ who used to hang out on the lawn in front of the ANU Law school a couple of years ago. During our induction events the international students were warned to keep their distance because Professor Roo could be a bit, well – grumpy.

My friend Xan Hordern pointed out that some of the human wildlife can be a bit grumpy too, but there are wonderful elderly academics to be found on every campus. We agreed that the best kind wore knitted cardi’s, or sandals with socks.

Student politics are a curiosity too aren’t they? Charlotte Pezaro likes seeing the Socialist Alliance with their clipboards and I love signing their petitions. There’s always an atmosphere of earnest flirtation between all those bright young things sharing their political passions. I’m sure many a marriage starts there.

I could go on and on, but now I’m one hundred words over my limit (sorry, Jeannie). I’m glad I made and shared my list. After spending a couple of hours reflecting and compiling this list of things to love about academia I felt a lot better about life.

I hope you do too.

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

M@thesiswhisperer

Your membership card To access great NTEU discounts, your member card needs to be sent to the correct address.

UPDATE YOUR DETAILS AT nteu.org.au/members

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Letter from Aotearoa/NZ Sandra Grey

Productivity Commission is played by a scheming government This time last year the New Zealand finance minister and the tertiary education minister announced they would order the Productivity Commission to investigate tertiary education. They said tertiary education in New Zealand suffered from inertia.

The commission itself was an idea stolen from Australia by New Zealand’s most right-wing political party, ACT. The governing National Party consented to the commission’s establishment in return for Act’s support to keep it in government.

The commission has served a useful purpose for the National Party. It produces extremely neoliberal reports of which the Government can then reject most but not all. Thus, we continue to move slowly away from the values of social justice and equality for which union people stand.

NZTEU invested a lot of time in the Productivity Commission. If the commission wanted to discuss what makes for an innovative and productive tertiary education system we believed our members had the answers.

Budget cuts, constant restructuring, mindless managerialism and reporting are the things that make life hard for the innovative, productive and creative people who work in tertiary education.

We took the staff of the Productivity Commission around the country introducing them to people who work in tertiary education; we held a two-day symposium; we drafted a dozen research notes and submissions for them as evidence.

So we were not surprised then when the commission’s long-awaited draft report said the Government’s market approach to education does not work.

However, bizarrely, it then proposed student vouchers and more market-driven policies as the solution.

the tertiary education system is fair and equitable, rather than innovative and productive.

The report identified some of the problems tertiary education faces, noting the many instances that competition and government direction is inhibiting rather than supporting people in tertiary education to do their jobs.

The commission’s draft report found that tertiary education currently extends and exacerbates the inequality that emerges in the schooling system, rather than ameliorating it.

Unfortunately, the commission’s proposed solutions for these problems were often more pure competition.

The report contained useful analysis but it missed an opportunity to reject the policies that created problems, choosing instead to exacerbate and adapt them.

For instance, the report noted that most people working in tertiary education find that excessive managerialism ‘reduces their ability to do good and enjoyable work, without any compensating gains in the quality of that work’.

Currently the tertiary education system gives more resources to people who spend more time in education, especially at higher levels. These people also gain the largest private rewards from their education, the report noted.

This finding could have supported bold change for more equitable public funding that allows all students to study debtfree. Instead, the commission proposed a voucher system for students, a privatisation model that has been proven ineffective, especially for those who may already struggle to pay for tertiary education.

It also found that the course and qualification completion rates published by government are not a reliable indicator of a provider’s performance in educating students.

The commission will continue to consult on this draft report and meet with interested people and organisations during October and November. It will present a final report to the Government at the end of February next year.

Moreover, it found that the current tertiary education system is poorly suited for lifelong learning.

But for the commission it is already too late. It has served its purpose.

NZTEU has been raising these issues with the Government consistently for eight years.

The commission’s solution to the problem was wrong. Rather than tinkering with the measurement dials and privatising the system with a student voucher scheme, it should be freeing up the people in public tertiary education, staff and students, to get on with teaching and learning.

The commission made a few bold recommendations, such as calling for an end to performance-linked funding, which it says may be detrimental to innovation.

The draft report also proposed extending the ability of providers to undertake their own self-accreditation of programmes and other activities.

At the start of the year, we said the commission should focus on making sure

Because, unsurprisingly the tertiary education minister has rejected the commission’s draft report and particularly its voucher system.

Simultaneously he has introduced a more moderate Education Amendment Bill that guarantees private companies the same rate of funding for their programs as public universities and polytechnics.

Once again he and his Government get to look moderate as they steer our tertiary education system towards further privatisation.

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

M@nzteu

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My Union National Council 2016: Every member counts NTEU’s annual National Council meeting included many new faces, as following recent elections 35 new Councillors joined 98 re-elected delegates to participate in the three day conference.

The major focus of the meeting was upon building a recruitment culture, which is particularly timely in view of the looming round of university enterprise bargaining, which is already well underway in Western Australia and started at several other sites around the country.

Enterprise bargaining Whilst Councillors were keen to hear from those already bargaining, implementation of the last round was at the top of the program. General Secretary Grahame McCulloch emphasised just how critical implementation is in terms of actually getting what was negotiated, but also in setting up for the next round. He argued that it is hard to escalate a claim if a previous demand was won but not implemented.

To focus Council, the implementation plenary was on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clauses on employment targets, cultural leave and other hard fought demands often not translated

into actuality. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (A&TSI) Policy Committee Chair Terry Mason urged Branches to pursue the clauses. If the university is not seeking to create and advertise jobs, call them on it, he said. National A&TSI Coordinator Adam Frogley also reported upon the results of a just completed survey of A&TSI members which found more than half are concerned about their job security (see report, p. 15).

Council then heard that in the new bargaining round there is a strong common theme of university managements aggressively seeking to diminish entitlements and protections won through previous rounds (see report, p. 6). Their theme of ‘simplification’ and wanting to start again rather than amending existing Agreements, cannot be interpreted any other way. A workshop by WA Division Secretary Gabe Gooding and WA Industrial Officer Alex Cousner entitled, ‘Traps, pitfalls, and tips: what we’ve already learned from this round of bargaining’ was so popular it was run twice.

Casuals and claims In the context of both joining and retaining union members and prosecuting the bargaining round, the need to prioritise the requirements of casual and sessionally employed staff was strongly argued by casually employed Councillors, including motion mover Amelia Sully from the Victorian Casuals Council, but also by Councillors from across other Divisions. For some old hands there may have been a sense of deja vu as debate on the floor covered familiar ground about how to best achieve better employment conditions for casuals as well as conversion to more secure jobs.

Such debates have been a feature of National Council for well over a decade as the casualisation of teaching has proliferated in universities and it has become clear that universities are deliberately casualising the academic profession. Rational argument has not changed university management behaviour and so we are reliant upon negotiating clauses within Agreements and then enforcing these. It cannot be denied that the NTEU has had success in improving casual teaching rates and conditions and in achieving conversion clauses and schemes like the Scholarly Teaching Fellows (STFs) of the last round.

But the crass reality is that casualisation is still increasing and thousands of qualified academics are languishing in casual jobs.

The outcome of the debate was clear direction to National Executive to elevate casuals in the mandatory claim on job security. WA Division Secretary Gabe Gooding noted that this was already the case amongst the WA university Branches’ claims. The three mandatory claims agreed at the 2015 National Council meeting are on pay, superannuation and job security, with the capacity for Branches to add local claims.

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My Union

This page, above: New Councillors receive their induction. Below: Sharlene Leroy-Dyer, Celeste Liddle and Terry Mason.

Opposite page, top: Gheran Steel, CEO of the Boonwurrung Foundation, delivers the Welcome to Land. Below: National Council in action at the Novotel Hotel, St Kilda.

Recruitment and retention However, winning greater job security or other claims is dependent upon the Union’s negotiating success at the bargaining table backed by the capacity to mobilise membership support. National Assistant Secretary Matt McGowan got straight down to business in his report. He emphasised that ‘every member counts’ – the Council theme. He declared that we must increase membership numbers and density as this gives us capacity to have influence in the workplace. He added that, of course, it is membership fees that allow us to employ staff, fund campaigns and run the Union. Matt emphasised that nothing is more important to the future of the Union.

The rude facts are that while our membership levels are been maintained – unlike, for example, the AMWU’s – our sector is growing, not declining, and many more people are being employed. However, they are not joining the Union at a rate to maintain the density levels of the past.

While the sector is highly casualised this is insufficient to explain our decreased density. Matt went onto explain the various strategies and tactics utilised to increase recruitment and retention, and this formed much of the discussion throughout the meeting, both reflecting upon what is working and considering what can we do better.

to both the thinking and practice in the Union over the recent period, but emphasised that there is still not enough focus on delegate development and support in the workplace.

On the final morning the recruitment and retention plenary became a showcase of initiatives demonstrating the recruitment and retention underpinnings of activities such as the current Fair Go campaign for secure work (see p. 18). The provenance of La Trobe’s Z-card membership form with the inspiring line – ‘If every NTEU member signed up one new member, bargaining would be over in weeks, not years…’ was explained as drawing upon survey findings that around one third of members are recruited by colleagues (see p. 41).

National Growth Organiser Rifai Abdul and National Education and Training Officer Helena Spyrou’s workshop on practical

techniques for recruitment conversations was also very popular, and gave a taste of the training sessions available to Branches.

The topics of many other workshops, which were organised on the basis of Councillors and staff volunteering the topic and facilitating, were on understanding and finding more effective ways to organise and deal with issues in the workplace.

These included ‘New modes of teaching, the impact on staff workload and casual incomes – and what we should do about it’ with Cathy Rytmeister; ‘Update on combatting the bullies’ with Sarah Gregson and Tony Lad; ‘Virtual reality and education in 2016’ with Stuart Bunt; ‘Scholarly Teaching Fellows: Experience so far’ with James Goodman; ‘Guarding your moral rights and other kinds of intellectual property’ with Jen Tsen Kwok; ‘Measuring research in acacontinued overpage...

ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver led off a plenary session on building a recruitment culture explaining the ACTU’s current work on revitalising the trade union movement.

Retiring NSW Division Secretary Genevieve Kelly reflected upon the positive changes

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My Union demic workload models – issues from the Award Review case’ with Linda Gale and Ken McAlpine; ‘Meetings that matter’ with Michael McNally; ‘Getting re-classification’ with Rachael Bahl and ‘Beyond carrots & sticks & appraisal forms: What really works in performance management’ with Arthur Poropat.

Gendered violence in the sector Preceding the Women’s Action Committee plenary was a workshop for activists on domestic violence (DV) claims, clauses and campaigns to share their experiences and plan for the current round of bargaining.

Facilitated by National Industrial Officer Susan Kenna, presenters included Alex Heron from the Women and Work Research Group at Sydney University, Victorian Division Organiser Jo Taylor and Michelle Broeckner from Swinburne University.

The plenary on gendered violence also featured Alex Heron, who spoke about predominance of Australians in the international arena making DV a workplace issue. At the same time as we were meeting, her colleague pioneer DV campaigner Ludo McFerran was at the ILO with ACTU President Ged Kearney making the case.

NUS Women’s Officer, Heidi La Paglia drew attention to the ongoing work by students to combat sexual assault and gendered violence on campus. She referred to NUS’s ‘Talk about it’ survey, where 70 per cent of respondents said they had experienced harassment, sexual violence or assault, including 14 per cent reporting rape. NUS is well aware that sexual violence on campus is an old problem, but Heidi emphasised it is not getting better, with universities not responding to reports and not improving student safety.

Catriona Jackson, Deputy CEO of Universities Australia (UA) reported that UA has

heard what the students are saying and this has prompted the current prevalence survey being conducted with the Australian Human Rights Commission involving all public universities (see p. 39). During the discussion Councillors argued that waiting for yet another survey to tell us what we already know is frustrating and instead university managements should be addressing the issues raised by Heidi and others. The NTEU is strongly supporting the survey in the hope that it may break the pattern of flurries of concern followed by little real change.

University governance The confidence of delegates in the capacity of university ‘leaders’ to provide leadership within the university or in broader society was clearly low, confirmed by the tarnishing of vice-chancellors’ collective reputations for their enthusiastic barracking for the Abbott/Pyne funding cuts with fee deregulation, as well as lack of preparedness to fiercely support staff and to defend and advocate for the public interest role of universities as critics and conscience of society. In the past year the opposite was evident.

Council gave a standing ovation to the delegate from University of New England (UNE), Professor Margaret Sims, staff

elected university council member who was accused of having a conflict of interest once she became local NTEU Branch President. Backed by her Union, Margaret refused to resign and after months of legal exchanges and continual pressure on Margaret, just a week earlier the UNE reneged on their claim that being Branch President constituted a standing conflict of interest (see report, p. 22).

University councils seem bent on excluding or silencing staff and student representatives, and conducting their meetings in secret. Margaret moved a motion, carried unanimously, calling upon the universities to open up their meetings, the agendas and papers to scrutiny.

Another newly elected delegate was Roz Ward, who had also stood up to attempts to silence her by threatening her job and reputation. La Trobe stood her down and charged her with serious misconduct for writing a political comment on her private Facebook page, but this backfired as the Union mounted a legal challenge and a public campaign rapidly mobilised. La Trobe reinstated Roz by week’s end.

Higher education and research policy The effect of both these cases is deadening upon preparedness to speak out within and beyond the university. This was the substance of further policy positions passed by Council, along with action motions such as that calling for universities to adopt a code of practice in their dealings with private industry and government on research and engagement.

While the focus at this year’s National Council was very much on what is going on within our universities, there was still plenty of discussion and policy motions pledging the Union to continue public campaigning and political advocacy for a properly publicly funded, accessible, inclusive and high quality higher education and research system.

The tertiary education plenary featured the NZ Tertiary Education Union (TEU) President Sandra Grey and Australian Education Union (AEU) Deputy Federal

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My Union Secretary Pat Forward. The common theme of their presentations was one of government withdrawal from funding tertiary education in favour of facilitating privatisation.

Sandra noted that the NZ Government is intent on changing the purpose of tertiary education from the pursuit of intrinsic good to ‘instrumental credentialism’.

Pat spoke of the moral panic about jobs and skills shortages being whipped up in Australia to frame the tertiary education debate so as to justify industry rather than educators driving policy. While welcoming the announcement that week that the Federal Government was closing down the appallingly rorted VET FEE-HELP scheme, Pat argued that this is not a retreat from just tinkering with ‘market design’, and noted that the ALP policy is also still stuck in the same rut.

New Policy Manual National Council also undertook a big agenda as we moved to a new approach of policy setting. Rather than just passing motions every year and bundling them up in an increasingly unmanageable collection, Council voted to establish a Policy Manual of detailed but succinct policy statements. These statements were considered, amended and adopted by the meeting. They included the NTEU governance policy which reaffirmed that the NTEU will not affiliate with a political party.

Important new statements were also carried on racism, gender equity and discrimination. These are all areas where the NTEU has a proud history of intervention and action, but now we have policy statements to frame and encourage action. In our current toxic political and media environment we will have call to implement these policies.

Next year the format will involve amendments moved to these policy statements.

However, action motions of what to do within these policy positions will continue to be considered at each annual meeting.

The Policy Manual will be available online to all members via the website soon.

New National Executive Elected from the floor of Council to the National Executive were new members Jane Battersby (CSU) who was also elected Vice-President General Staff, Damien Cahill (Sydney), Sarah Kaine (UTS), Andrea Lamont-Mills (USQ), Felix Patrikeeff (Adelaide) and Catherine Rojas (Swinburne).

Re-elected were Andrew Bonnell (UQ), who continues as Vice-President Academic Staff, Stuart Bunt (UWA), Virginia Mansel Lees (La Trobe) and Melissa Slee (RMIT).

Six of the ten members elected are women, reflecting the Union’s membership.

I look forward to working with the new executive to ensure that the decisions of National Council are implemented over the next year.

Jeannie Rea, National President 2016 NTEU Annual Report www.nteu.org.au/annual_report

This page, clockwise from top: Jeannie Rea (centre) with Catriona Jackson (Deputy Chief Executive, UA) and Heidi La Paglia (NUS Women’s Officer); Pat Forward

(AEU); Sandra Grey (TEU); National Councillors show support for the Bring Them Here campaign.

Opposite page, top: Councillors declaring solidarity with CUB workers. Below: NSW Division President Sarah Kaine makes a point during a Council discussion.

(All images: Paul Clifton)

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 51

My Union NSW Div Sec Genevieve Kelly retires In October 2016, Genevieve Kelly stepped down as NSW Division Secretary. Days out from her retirement, she took some time to reflect on her eight years in the job, and discuss her achievements, challenges and experiences.

The road to Division Secretary Having initially been a member of the NSW Lecturers’ Association, which merged into the NTEU in the early 1990s, Genevieve stepped up her involvement in the Union during her time as an academic and lecturer at Western Sydney University.

For more than a decade, she also worked as an elected local government representative – including a term as Mayor – on Sydney’s Sutherland Shire Council, where she was heavily involved in community and environmental campaigns.

‘Then in 2008, when I was no longer in Council, the (NTEU) Secretary in NSW was standing down. I was getting a bit more involved in union activity again, and I was asked by my colleagues to stand, so I did,’ said Genevieve.

‘The NTEU is a union that cares deeply about broader society and, for me, with my history of involvement with community organisations and union action, the job of Division Secretary was a natural fit.’

Early challenges Genevieve recalled several initial challenges when she first took on the job.

‘When I first came in we didn’t even have a quorum at our State Council meetings, and there was a level of dissension among some staff,’ said Genevieve.

‘I think the really good thing now from my point of view is that the Branches are more engaged in the State Council than they used to be, and they are more ready to work collectively across the Branches.

‘We also have a really strong staff team.

We have the organising and the industrial team working very closely together, so I feel really proud of the fact that I have contributed to that.’

of delegates and communicating with, and appealing to, younger and casual members.

‘We have Branch Committee structures that are quite good, but they’re not always reflective of all of our workplace areas, so I think we need a strong delegate structure that is well recognised in the Union, and we need that across all of the workplaces,’ said Genevieve.

Changes In recent years Australian universities have changed significantly. Genevieve said the rise of corporatisation and managerialism, particularly since the 1990s, had presented plenty of difficulties, as well as some opportunities.

‘I do think things have become much harder for people in universities,’ said Genevieve. ‘We (NTEU) have a different vision of the university (than management) and I guess really it does come back to the fact a lot of our members started at university at a time when things were more collegial, where people actually had a role in decision making, they felt like they had more agency over their jobs and their working lives. A lot of that has gone from the workplace, but it is still the Union espousing those more collective values.

‘I’m not sure how much the changing environment has been reflected in the NTEU, and I think maybe in some ways we could be adapting more, but we also don’t want to just be accepting what’s going on.

‘I think it has meant we have had to become a bit more strategic about how we take things on and what we do.

‘There is a pretty relentless push from the bosses trying to whittle away our conditions and trying to get what they call flexibility. I think that’s a real challenge for bargaining, but I think the more technical the bargaining gets, the less some members want to be involved. I think we do need a couple of simple and clear campaign messages, like ‘secure work’, to make sure the members are coming along with us.’

Room for improvement While Genevieve credits the NTEU with carrying out ‘traditional’ activities well, she said she still saw scope for improvement, particularly around the recognition

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‘Most universities now consist of possibly 100 or more workplaces and so just with one organiser we can’t really do the job of organising that many workplaces. All the research shows that if you have active delegates in the workplace, members are more likely to see the Union as more effective and are more likely to get involved and get their colleagues to join.’

Legacy Genevieve cites a more unified Division, and the opportunity to contribute to a progressive, inclusive union as among the highlights of her eight year tenure.

‘I would like to think the main thing (I will leave) is a more cohesive Division, with people working together across Branches, across their various interests,’ said Genevieve.

‘I’m also really proud of our stance on refugees and on climate change. We’ve got good moral positions on things that our members really identify with, not universally of course, but on the whole. It means it’s a fairly progressive organisation.

People can get involved in these things.

If they’re not interested in bargaining, people can engage on other levels.

‘I have loved working with our members, who are at the forefront of fighting for a better university system and better conditions for their colleagues and students.

NTEU staff in NSW work very effectively with members and it has been great to be a part of a team that shows such professionalism and care in their work.’

What next While it might be tough to step away after a lengthy career, Genevieve said she was confident of finding plenty to keep her occupied in retirement.

‘I’m certainly giving myself permission to have a good rest, and I want to do some writing. I’ve got a book chapter that I want to write over the next few months, so I want to write some things that I didn’t get time for.’

Andrew MacDonald, National Media & Communications Officer

My Union Life Membership for NTEU Foundation President, Di Zetlin Di Zetlin was one of the founding figures of the NTEU, and was the foundation President of the Union. Before that, she was a leading figure in the NTEU’s predecessor union the Federation of Australian University Staff Associations (FAUSA) and a pioneer of modern university staff unionism.

In addition to being a leading figure in unions in the higher education sector, Di had a long and remarkable involvement with the Left and the labour movement more widely from the late 1960s on, including the peace movement (working for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation) and civil rights movement (from contacts with the Black Panther movement in the US to the Black Movement in Queensland under the Bjelke-Petersen regime).

Di was also very active in the women’s movement, in particular the campaign to end discrimination against married women in the public sector in the late 1970s. Di was instrumental in the success of the Working Women’s Charter in the

Life Members Nominated by their Branches and Divisions, the following members were honoured with NTEU Life Membership at the 2016 National Council dinner.

Derek Corrigan ANU Even before joining the NTEU, Derek was giving meritorious service to university unionists as leader of the AMWU delegates at ANU. He played a very important role in that capacity representing the technical staff of the University, and also of the University of Canberra as they had a joint committee. Derek was a loyal member of the AMWU but eventually came to realise

late 1970s in ending legal discrimination against working women on the basis of marital status in Queensland.

Di Zetlin joined the staff of the University of Queensland in 1979, and soon became a driving force in FAUSA. After serving on both the Branch Executive and the National Executive of FAUSA (elected 1987), Di was elected General Secretary in 1989. This was a historic achievement, as it marked the first election of a woman to the leadership of a union in a traditionally male-dominated sector in Australia.

Following the merger of FAUSA with other higher education unions to form the NTEU, Di was President of the NTEU for a short term.Returning to UQ in 1994, Di continued to be active in the Branch, serving as President and Vice-President and taking a leading role in the first round of enterprise bargaining. She also served as a staff-elected member of the UQ Senate (until 2004).

Di has contributed to public policy, serving on a variety of government advisory bodies, particularly in relation to universities, and has been involved in consultancy projects for Commonwealth and State governments.

that his members’ interests would be best served in an industry union, and was instrumental in convincing a fairly rusted-on group of AMWU delegates and members that this was the way forward. He became an important part of a network, along with people like Gabe Gooding, Michael Thomson and Barry Howarth, that led general staff out of unions based in other industries into the NTEU in the late 1990s.

Within the NTEU, Derek had the exemplary quality of being fiercely committed to the particular interests of general staff but never with even the slightest hint of hostility to academic staff interests. He protected general staff interests as against the management, not the academics. His view was that the work academics do is extremely important and needs to be supported. This was an important example to a lot of union activists.

ANU remains a Branch in which the proportion of professional staff members is high, at 46 per cent of membership, and

Di has also made major contributions as a scholar, writing and teaching on issues relating to women and politics, conflict resolution, and industrial resolution. She retired from UQ at the end of July, but will remain active in academia, researching women and political philosophy.

It is a source of some pride for the UQ Branch that we are able to nominate our founding President and life-long activist Di Zetlin for NTEU life membership.

Above: Di Zetlin at her Life Membership presentation at the 2016 National Council Dinner.

Derek is certainly to be thanked for making a major contribution to that.

Derek served the NTEU at every level from local delegate to National Executive. He always treated being a delegate as an important role. He could be counted on keep members in his area informed, to talk to all new staff about joining the NTEU, and to arrive at a meeting or rally in company with a number of members from his area.

Derek provided invaluable service as a lead negotiator for several Enterprise Agreements for ANU. The good conditions and pay outcomes he contributed to achieving served the membership both in this university and those others which could refer to it as a comparator.

Derek was adept at maintaining good relations with senior management. He and Industrial Officer Peter Davidson worked respectfully with Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb and other senior managers, but was never in any doubt about whose continued overpage...

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My Union interests he was there to serve. He would tell university managements where to get off and would oppose things that needed to be opposed, and at the same time maintain workable relations with them.

Derek’s contribution to improving professional staff conditions continued, both at ANU and more broadly, when he served as a National and ACT Divisional Councillor and Division Vice-President representing General Staff. He was part of the national General Staff Working Party which surveyed general staff in 2013 about their experiences and goals, formulated a set of claims for round 6 bargaining, and promoted those claims back to members to build campaign support for them.

He has also led and served the entire membership of the Union as a National Executive member, elected from the floor at National Council. Derek’s indefatigable work for the NTEU included meticulous reading of mountains of documents for National Executive long into the night.

He has a steel trap mind for financial data and has diligently ensured that national NTEU budgets and accounts were never rubber-stamped but interrogated carefully – an important service to the governance of this Union on behalf of members.

Derek is a repository of NTEU history, with a richly detailed memory of events over many years. He has passed this on to newer elected officers and staff; and also helped them understand the importance of the work of technical staff at ANU with tours of his workplace and explanations of his work, designing and building innovative experimental equipment at ANU’s Research School of Earth Sciences.

Derek’s activism went beyond the NTEU to the union movement as a whole. He publicly, and famously, supported the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) in its bitter waterfront dispute with Patrick Stevedores – his brother Chris Corrigan’s company. He took a starring role in huge rallies of unionists supporting their MUA comrades, including a Melbourne rally of 50,000 people. The clash between the two brothers was immortalised as part of the ABC television series Bastard Boys.

We could not finish better than with Derek’s words, when interviewed by the ABC about the effect on his family of the waterfront dispute: ‘I believe whatever the cost, the issue was important enough – that this was Australia under siege, Australian conditions and the Australian way of life under siege and I still don’t believe that’s changed... it made it quite awkward [in the family] but I think that’s probably the history of people taking a stand... and if people don’t take a stand then we can’t complain about the result.’

Carolyn Cope QUT Carolyn Cope, who retired in June 2016, has been outstanding in her contribution to the NTEU at the Branch, Division and national level. She has been Branch Secretary since 2008, a member of the Branch Executive since 2006, and a member of Enterprise Bargaining teams on behalf of the NTEU over a very long period at QUT. Carolyn was always ready to assist members, freely giving of her time which greatly enhanced the reputation of the NTEU. Carolyn has also served in positions at Division and National level over that period. At the time of her retirement she was Queensland Division President, a member of the National Executive and the Women’s Action Committee (WAC).

Carolyn’s contributions in two particular areas are significant. In respect of promotion of women, she has made a notable contribution, representing Queensland on WAC from 2006. Through this Committee and more generally within her union work, Carolyn never failed to promote the cause of women. Carolyn also reached out to a number of community groups as regards women’s rights and this enhanced the position of the NTEU more broadly. She identified the enormous contribution made to the NTEU by its women members and rarely let an opportunity go past to ensure that this was acknowledged.

Carolyn organised events to celebrate the achievements of women in higher education over a number of years such that they are now an accepted part of the calendar within the NTEU. A second area of significant contribution has been in respect of ensuring that the voices of professional staff members are not lost within the NTEU. At a Branch level, Carolyn had the most extensive contact list of members (and indeed non-members!) in the professional staff area.

Accordingly when it came to identifying issues or people who should be consulted, she was invaluable.

She was also able to deal with management proposals in this area from a position of strength. Carolyn was also able to provide leadership to newer members of the Branch executive and bargaining teams, particularly professional staff members.

With all of the leadership roles that Carolyn played within the NTEU it might be easy to overlook her fine personal qualities which made such a contribution to the underlying ethos that is fundamental to what our union stands for. Carolyn had

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strength of character that would shine through when difficult situations arose.

She would call out wrongful behaviour no matter where she found it. However, it was never done in a showy or arrogant manner, but with resolve and confirmation. Over her long period of involvement, Carolyn contributed her intelligence, strength and commitment. We shall all miss her contribution, but hope that this nomination reflects in a small way the gratitude we have for her distinguished service to the NTEU.

Steve Mackey Deakin Steve Mackey joined the NTEU in 1995 and has served the Union in a number of capacities at the Branch and Division levels, as well as on National Council.

As a Senior Lecturer and researcher in Public Relations at Deakin University, Steve has been a dedicated activist and workplace delegate for over 20 years.

Based at the Warrnambool campus, Steve has in particular been advocate on issues pertaining to rural/regional universities, as well as contributing to the broader debate and discussion at Division and National Council for 14 years.

As Deakin University Branch President he steered Round 6 Enterprise Agreement bargaining to its conclusion making a significant contribution to the Academic Workloads clauses.

Life Membership of the NTEU is a fitting tribute and acknowledgement of Steve Mackey’s dedication and hard work on behalf of our members over two decades.

Rhonda Small La Trobe Rhonda Small joined La Trobe as a research-only staff member in the Centre for the Study of Mothers’ and Children’s Health. She has worked at the Centre for 26 years, 19 of them on short term contracts with no job security.

In 2009 Rhonda was a member of the Enterprise Bargaining Team and worked on the development of a clause to improve job security for research-only staff. She tackled the issue of bridging funding for researchers while they wait for the next grant and developed criteria for staff in these positions to be converted to research continuing status after 4 years of service.

Rhonda worked with Sean Slavin to

My Union collect case studies about research staff disadvantaged for many years by short term contracts. A discussion paper was presented at a research forum for the Vice-Chancellor and senior managers and Rhonda and Sean also made a video to increase the understanding of research staff issues among members and all staff. This campaign resulted in a strong ‘Research Continuing’ clause in our Agreement. For this work Rhonda and Sean gained external recognition when they received an ACTU Delegate Award that year. Rhonda was finally made permanent in 2010 when she was appointed director of the Centre.

The La Trobe Branch commends Rhonda for Life Membership as she has demonstrated over a long period of time not only her commitment to the NTEU, but her dedication to fellow workers to ensure they have better working conditions.

Rosalie Bunn Newcastle Rosalie’s membership of the NTEU commenced in 1996 with her work on behalf of other members, commencing firstly as a casual delegate informally co-opted onto the NTEU Newcastle Branch Committee in late 1998/99 and then continuously on the committee until her retirement.

Throughout almost seventeen years of local delegate work, Rosalie has been a quiet and self-effacing member who has made a large contribution to our local Union in her NTEU Executive roles, engagement with the wider Newcastle union movement through Newcastle Trades Hall Council and in her daily work as a passionate and dedicated lecturer and NTEU member at the Ourimbah campus.

She has been a diligent secretary to the Branch producing accurate and informative minutes similar to the comprehensive written reports she always produced after attending the Women’s Action Committee, State Executive or National Council meetings. Rosalie has ensured she was always available for meetings, functions, rallies, pickets, representative roles, or simply making time to meet with NTEU members who needed to talk to someone from their Union. As a long standing delegate at the Ourimbah campus she has worked with various Branch Presidents and NTEU Industrial Officers over the years to help assist members at the grass roots level.

She is highly-respected among peers, students and the wider University community generally, with an unaffected attitude to genuinely help colleagues and communicate common sense.

Dan Wollmering Monash Dan began his academic career and membership of the NTEU and its forerunners at the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education in the 1980s – becoming a Monash university staff member when the GIAE became part of Monash in 1990.

In 1997, Dan moved to Monash’s Faculty of Art and Design at Caulfield. Dan was a long-time delegate and played a key role in supporting members at Monash. Dan also headed up the OHS portfolio for the Branch committee for a period of time.

In 2008 Dan was elected to the Monash Branch Committee, a position that he would hold until his redundancy in 2014.

Dan played an important role in the Union’s industrial campaigns in support of EA with both his large painted signs and his truck being fixtures at picket lines at both the Caulfield and Clayton Campuses.

Dan was targeted for redundancy several times. Despite this he was a fearless advocate for the Union and supporter for his colleagues. Unfortunately, in 2014 Dan, along with four other colleagues, was made redundant. In addition to his commitment to the NTEU and his colleagues, Dan has had a strong commitment to the broader union movement – a commitment which was reflected through is work as an artist. Dan’s work Waterfront, which commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Patrick’s dispute won the 2008 Contemporary Sculpture Award.

Elizabeth Eddy USC Elizabeth Eddy was a foundation member of the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) Branch, and was on the Branch Committee until her retirement in July 2015.

She played an invaluable role as Branch Secretary for three terms. Elizabeth was on the USC enterprise bargaining team on several occasions. Her organising abilities, hard work and enthusiasm ensured that our small Branch was able to run efficiently and expanded into a successful and active part of the Union.

Elizabeth served as Branch President from 2004 to 2010 and as a member of the Queensland Division Council for those years. In a small Branch like USC, with no resident on-campus support, the Branch President often becomes the first port of call for industrial matters and in the

pre-Howard industrial legislation era a lot of individual industrial issues were resolved on campus requiring a substantial effort by the Branch Committee and office bearers.

Elizabeth’s activism, consultative style and engagement with members was important in the Branch to become an active and influential actor at USC. Elizabeth was prepared to stand up firmly to senior management while still managing to maintain a reasonable working relationship, which was of benefit to the Branch.

Tom Bramble UQ Tom Bramble was a tireless union activist at the University of Queensland for over twenty years, and an active member of the NTEU and its forerunner unions for thirty years in total. After first joining up when tutoring at UNSW as a casual in 1985, he worked and was active at Monash, UNSW and La Trobe before landing at UQ in 1993.

Tom lectured in industrial relations at UQ’s School of Business and was an active delegate despite working in a school with a notoriously anti-union management culture.

He was a Branch Committee member for four terms, as well as a National Councillor.

In 2001/02, he was one of a group of activists who engineered a change in Branch leadership and strategy in response to a pattern of hostile management behaviour, including a failed non-union ballot in 1999, as a regime of top-down managerialism was installed at UQ. Tom was instrumental in the Branch adopting a more assertive industrial strategy in response to management intransigence. (No more sherry with the DVC!).

On the Branch Committee, Tom was constantly pushing from the left to promote greater Branch activism. To his great credit, when he lost a vote on a decision (as sometimes happened), his will to do the Branch’s work never slackened. Especially during industrial action, no picket line was too early in the morning for Tom, and he was indefatigable at postering, speaking, and agitating, and organising others to do so. His was a consistent voice warning against too much compromise with management.

Tom took early retirement (still vigorous!) in late 2015, but his activism on the Left will no doubt continue unabated.

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My Union Recruitment Toolkit for Delegates and Members The NTEU is run by members so membership growth is vital for resourcing the Union to build greater power in the workplace. This is why recruitment is a major focus for the NTEU, and why we have developed a detailed toolkit for how to recruit fellow staff to the Union.

The toolkit provides practical strategies for recruiting colleagues: as an NTEU delegate/member, you are one of the best recruiters for the Union.

Surveys show that a third of new members joined because you recommended your union to a colleague.

You are the person in your work area that people identify with as the NTEU contact person. This means you can approach new staff to welcome them and talk to them about joining the Union. You are also aware of the issues that are affecting staff in your workplace.

When colleagues complain about their working conditions, talk to them about how joining the NTEU could help improve conditions with a fair and decent pay rise. When new staff begin work in your department or school, tell them about the Union and ask them to join.

Download the Toolkit and other recruitment resources: recruitment.nteu.org.au

The Union’s approach to gender equity While it has been said that unions reflect their industries, a quick glance shows the gender breakdown as reported by the NTEU to the Workplace Gender Equity Agency (WGEA) is significantly better than the sector. With low numbers of staff as fixed term or casual (less than 7 per cent of all staff), and women well represented across the different levels of the Union staff, the NTEU is better placed than not only universities, but many other trade unions.

Where we do see commonality with other unions in particular is the need to improve the gender distribution in our elected representation. With the results of the recent NTEU elections, our gender distribution has improved – while National Executive remains unchanged with 10 women compared to 12 men, in most other areas there have been improvements.

For example, last year 44 per cent of National Councillors were women, this year this has grown to just under half. On Division Councils, we have gone from 43 per cent women to 47 per cent, and in the Branches women are now almost half of elected representatives (an improvement on 45 per cent previously) and 37 per cent of Branch Presidents are women (up from 33 per cent).

support for campaigns around violence against women on campuses. These effectively encourage women activists, and while we have seen positive results, more can be done.

Next year the NTEU will undertake a pilot mentoring program, aimed specifically at promoting women’s activists and leaders within the Union. If successful, the pilot will be expanded nationally. This program will also dovetail with the Union’s new and comprehensive gender equity policy framework, in which the business of the Union will be applied through a gender lens. The purpose of these initiatives is to improve gender equity within the NTEU through cultural change, so we are not just counting the numbers of women and men as been done previously, but through the implementation of positive action.

The NTEU understands that there is a difference between equality and equity.

While the numbers will tell us something of how we are tracking in achieving gender equity, they do not achieve it – although they can be used to highlight where the challenges are, be it in union activism or in insecure employment in our universities.

Like the NTEU, the approach of the universities must address the underlying culture of gender inequity and recognise that gender equity must be dealt with in a holistic manner, not sectioned off or in stand alone programs.

Terri MacDonald, Policy & Research Officer

However, even with these improvements, for the most part women are still under represented in elected roles within the Union – despite being the majority of the membership (at around 57 per cent of members). This has been a concern for the NTEU and has been the catalyst for a more concerted focus on promoting women’s activism in recent years, through the Women’s Action Committee at a national level and in supporting women’s networks at Branch and Division level. Examples of Union activism include events such as Bluestocking Week and

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My Union Obituary: Helen Kelly Committed, inspired, passionate and creative are among words which could be used to describe New Zealand trade union leader and campaigner Helen Kelly who died in Wellington on 13 October. At just 52 years of age Helen succumbed after a 20 month battle against the ravages of lung cancer, an ironic fate for a non-smoker.

Helen will be well-known to many NTEU members; firstly as an organiser at the Victoria University of Wellington and later as the general secretary of the then Association of University Staff from which she led an amalgamation with the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education to form the Tertiary Education Union.

Characteristically, she took an audacious approach to bargaining – in an unprecedented move, to address the low comparative rate of academic salaries, the Union served notice on vice-chancellors for a Collective Agreement to cover all New Zealand universities. It was a ploy aimed at inducing the Government of the day to address under-funding and it worked a treat; while there was no national Agreement, the Deputy Prime Minister coughed up tens of millions of dollars specifically targeted at salaries. It was typical of her approach.

Helen was always destined for a wider stage; as Secretary of the New Zealand

Council of Trade Unions she unceasingly and fearlessly championed workers’ rights in what was a hostile political environment. She campaigned for the families of forestry workers who had been killed in workplace accidents, bringing private prosecutions when government officials failed to act, she highlighted the exploitation and unsafe working conditions of farm workers, sometimes naming and shaming miscreant employers, and worked tirelessly with the families of the 29 miners killed at Pike River long after the public spotlight went off the tragedy. She challenged a ‘rich-list’ family over its attempts to de-unionise its meat processing plants and supported workers standing for local body elections as another way of taking on the company.

Even as she lay hospice-bound, Helen was tweeting and Facebooking, campaigning for others, including for the right to medicinal cannabis to which she had been (legally) denied.

In a rare rancorous moment, Helen described filmmaker Peter Jackson as a spoiled brat in a television dust-up during a bitter film industry dispute over the Hobbit movies, in which the New Zealand Government enthusiastically

Vic Gala Ball Organised by NTEU Monash Branch Delegate Nic Kimberley, another successful NTEU Victorian Division Gala Ball and Awards ceremony was held on Friday 21 October.

Delegates Awards were presented by NTEU President Jeannie Rea, followed by some of the best dance moves the NTEU has seen in years to the music of an amazing 8-peice ska band. Thanks to all those who turned up to make it a very special evening!

All images credit: Jo Taylor page 58 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

weakened employment laws to pander to Hollywood moguls.

The list goes on. Helen was a good friend of the Australian trade union movement and an accomplished performer at the ILO, and while she held her own in high-level union and political circles, she never lost her touch and easy rapport with rank and file workers, her family and colleagues.

More than all of that Helen was fun to be around and to work with, twinkle-eyed, irrepressible, quick witted and irreverent, and, most enjoyably, partial to good food and wine on a raucous evening of which we had many, but never enough.

It is fitting then that Helen will be given a civic memorial service. Just as her family shared her with the public in life, so too will they in death.

As is usual with obituaries, this one ends by acknowledging Helen’s immediate family; her partner and husband Steve Hurring, son Dylan, brother Max and mother Cath.

Marty Braithwaite, State Organiser, WA Division

My Union NTEU staff news Noel Gardiner Admin Officer Vic Division Noel comes to the NTEU as a former delegate from the RMIT University Student Union, where he was a Student Liaison Officer.

She has been working as a sessional academic since 2002, and currently teaches linguistics, sociolinguistics and intercultural communication at VU and RMIT. Jo became involved with activism on casual academic issues in mid-2014 and was elected to the VU Branch Committee that year.

Since January 2015 she has been involved in organising and action at VU as part of the SuperCasuals campaign for paid induction and on-time contracts.

Noel has worked for several unions over the last decade, including organising with the CFMEU, industrial assistant at the United Firefighters Union and tele-organising with the ACTU. Having worked (and been a member) across various unions and industries he understands the importance of strong union representation in the workplace.

Noel is currently studying a Master in Industrial Relations. He enjoys cooking, politics, economics, world politics and writing for his collaborative philosophy ‘undergraduate’ journal.

Jo Taylor Member Organiser Vic Division Jo has been employed since mid-June as a part-time, fixed-term Member Organiser specialising in casual employee rights.

Lachlan Clohesy Member Organiser Vic Division Lachlan has joined the NTEU as a Member Organiser working on the SuperCasuals campaign within the Victorian Division.

For the last seven years Lachlan has worked as a casually employed academic at VU and Swinburne, having completed a PhD in political history (on anti-communism in Australia) in 2010.

Lachlan has been a key activist in casuals campaigns (particularly at VU), and also participated in the Swinburne campaign to stop university management cutting wages after their non-union Enterprise Agreement was overturned in 2015.

He is also a keen (if mediocre) footballer and baseballer.

Kieran McCarron Branch Organiser Adelaide Kieran comes to the Adelaide Branch as an Organiser after a long period as an active member of the NTEU, working both as a casual academic and professional staff member. Prior to this he was an elected representative of postgraduate students and later worked for the local student union. He briefly worked for the Branch in 2013, and has previously worked as an organiser for United Voice.

In his spare time Kieran is a photographer and traveller, and is working towards the completion of a PhD in political science.

Other appointments & moves Good luck to Bec Muratore who has left her position as Branch Organiser in Victoria to take on the challenges of an organising position at the ACTU. Ken Norling retired from the Vic Division after a long career. We wish him well!

Leo Campbell has been appointed to the casual Qld Growth Recruiter position from August to December 2016.

Peter Quinn has been appointed to a contract WA Industrial Officer position from June to December 2016.

Branch Organisers Erin Chew (UWS) and Kate Gale (Adelaide) have left NTEU.

How to update your NTEU membership details Have your workplace address details (office, building, campus) changed?

Have you moved house?

Required if your home address is your nominated contact address.

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Update online:

www.nteu.org.au/members Has your name changed?

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Transfer of membership between institutions is not automatic.

Please notify us to ensure you are paying the correct fees.

Deductions will continue until the National Office is notified.

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Melinda Valsorda, Membership Officer (03) 9254 1910 mvalsorda@nteu.org.au

Tamara Labadze, Finance Officer (03) 9254 1910 tlabadze@nteu.org.au

Please urgently contact: Your institution’s Payroll Department

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 59

NATIONAL TERTIARY EDUCATION UNION

MEMBERSHIP FORM

 I want to join NTEU  I am currently a member and wish to update my details The information on this form is needed for aspects of NTEU’s work and will be treated as confidential.

YOUR PERSONAL DETAILS

|SURNAME

TITLE

|GIVEN NAMES

HOME ADDRESS CITY/SUBURB PHONE |WORK INCL AREA CODE

HOME PHONE INCL AREA CODE

|DATE OF BIRTH

EMAIL HAVE YOU PREVIOUSLY BEEN AN NTEU MEMBER?

 YES: AT WHICH INSTITUTION?

YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYMENT DETAILS

|DEPT/SCHOOL |CLASSIFICATION LEVEL LECTB, HEW4

POSITION

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OTHER:

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 SESSIONAL ACADEMIC  GENERAL/PROFESSIONAL STAFF CASUAL

You may resign by written notice to the Division or Branch Secretary. Where you cease to be eligible to become a member, resignation shall take effect on the date the notice is received or on the day specified in your notice, whichever is later. In any other case, you must give at least two weeks notice. Members are required to pay dues and levies as set by the Union from time to time in accordance with NTEU rules. Further information on financial obligations, including a copy Office use only: Membership no. of the rules, is available from your Branch.

IF YOU ARE CASUAL/SESSIONAL, COMPLETE PAYMENT OPTION 4 ONLY

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Membership fees = 1% of gross annual salary

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IF KNOWN

OF YOUR ADDRESS HEREBY AUTHORISE INSTITUTION

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OPTION 2: CREDIT CARD

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EXPIRY

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|DATE

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|ACCOUNT NO.

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I hereby authorise the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) APCA User ID No.062604 to arrange for funds to be debited from my/our account at the financial institution identified and in accordance with the terms described in the Direct Debit Request (DDR) Service Agreement

I INSERT YOUR NAME

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REGULARITY OF PAYMENT:

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 MONTHLY  QUARTERLY  HALF-YEARLY  ANNUALLY

ACCOUNT NAME

5% DISCOUNT FOR ANNUAL DIRECT DEBIT

SIGNATURE

1.

2.

3.

4.

NAME ON CARD

I hereby authorise the Merchant to debit my Card account with the amount and at intervals specified above and in the event of any change in the charges for these goods/ services to alter the amount from the appropriate date in accordance with such change.

This authority shall stand, in respect of the above specified Card and in respect of any Card issued to me in renewal or replacement thereof, until I notify the Merchant in writing of its cancellation. Standing Authority for Recurrent Periodic Payment by Credit Card.

|  MASTERCARD  VISA |PAYMENT:  MONTHLY

SIGNATURE

BSB

I hereby authorise the Institution or its duly authorised servants and agents to deduct from my salary by regular instalments, dues and levies (as determined from time to time by the Union), to NTEU or its authorised agents. All payments on my behalf and in accordance with this authority shall be deemed to be payments by me personally. This authority shall remain in force until revoked by me in writing. I also consent to my employer supplying NTEU with updated information relating to my employment status.

OPTION 4: CASUAL/SESSIONAL

Processed on the 16th of the month or following working day

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|MAIL/ BLDG CODE MONTH NEXT | INCREMENT DUE

|DATE

page 60 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 23 no. 3 • November 2016 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

DATE

Description of goods/services: NTEU Membership Dues. To: NTEU, PO Box 1323, Sth Melbourne VIC 3205

‡Associated bodies: NTEU (NSW); Union of Australian College Academics (WA Branch) Industrial Union of Workers at Edith Cowan University & Curtin University; Curtin University Staff Association (Inc.) at Curtin University; Staff Association of Edith Cowan University (Inc.) at ECU

MAIL TO: NTEU National Office PO Box 1323, South Melbourne VIC 3205 T (03) 9254 1910 F (03) 9254 1915 E national@nteu.org.au

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