Advocate 26 03 by NTEU

Advocate vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au • ISSN 1329-7295

# I St a n d W

ith

GERD

Powering Up. Organising to Win! ɓɓMurdoch sues whistleblower ɓɓMillions rewarded in wage theft case ɓɓEnsuring Integrity Bill ɓɓNTEU fights CDU job cuts ɓɓSchool Strike 4 Climate ɓɓNational Council 2019

ɓɓClimate & extinction emergency ɓɓClimate plea from the Torres Strait ɓɓThe secret life of universities ɓɓAdam Goodes’ Final Quarter ɓɓSurveillance technology in elections ɓɓStudent unrest in Hong Kong

ɓɓSupport for the HKCTU ɓɓZimbabwe after Mugabe ɓɓHui-ā-Motu 2019 ɓɓDelegate profiles ɓɓLife Members ɓɓ...and much more.

Contents 2 Cover image: Part of the banner for NTEU National Council 2019. (Paul Clifton/ra2studio)

Building a better vision for the future for our sector and our union

Advocate ISSN 1321-8476 Published by National Tertiary Education Union ABN 38 579 396 344 Publisher Matthew McGowan Editor Alison Barnes Production Manager Paul Clifton Editorial Assistance Anastasia Kotaidis All text and images © NTEU 2019 unless otherwise stated.

NTEU National Office, PO Box 1323, South Melbourne VIC 3205 Australia ph +61 (03) 9254 1910 email national@nteu.org.au Division Offices www.nteu.org.au/divisions Branch Offices www.nteu.org.au/branches Feedback, advertising and other enquiries: advocate@nteu.org.au

p. 13

p. 14

Editorial, National President

Bargaining tackles insecure work From the General Secretary

Workplace democracy under threat

From the National Assistant Secretary

UPDATE 6

Wage Theft investigation leads to $2,000,000 in back pay

Union uncovers pay discrepencies for casual staff

The secret life of universities

9 NTEU fights CDU job cuts

State of the Uni survey complete

10 Bargaining almost done 11 May Day poster reveals union history

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

https://theeducationshop.com.au

A STUDY GUIDE BY 26 Why not publish in YOUR journal? KATY MARRINER

NTEU is publisher of the Australian Universities’ Review (AUR), now into its sixty-first year as a higher education journal.

A&TSI NEWS

INTERNATIONAL

12 Collective strength and Indigenous solidarity

27 NTEU support for Hong Kong unionists

Dr Sharlene Leroy-Dyer and Frank Gafa attended Hui-ā-Motu, the annual national conference of NZ’s Tertiary Education Union Maori members. Advocate is available online as a PDF at nteu.org.au/advocate and an e-book at www.issuu.com/nteu

http://www.metromagazine.com.au

13 The Final Quarter The Final Quarter focuses on the last couple of years of AFL great Adam Goodes’ playing career, honing in on the ‘booing fiasco’ and exploring how racism is constructed and propagated in Australia.

FEATURES 14 #IStandWithGerd: Unionists rally to support whistleblower Murdoch University is suing one of its academics, Associate Professor Gerd Schröder-Turk, in response to his appearance on Four Corners. But university staff are supporting Gerd in their thousands.

16 Murdoch overreach Australian universities are seemingly thumbing their noses at the notion that university workers are, by right, free to consider and develop controversial ideas in the search for truth.

19 Ensuring Integrity Bill ensures inequity The Federal Government’s Ensuring Integrity Bill has been widely condemned as a blatant attack on the union movement that goes far beyond the infamous WorkChoices regime.

Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions General Secretary, Lee Cheuk-yan, gave a stirring and emotional speech via video link to NTEU National Council.

28 Why the Hong Kong protests matter to unionists The Hong Kong protests are an unparalleled democratic explosion – touching young and old, worker and student. There are many lessons for Australian unionists.

30 Zimbabwe after Mugabe Robert Mugabe’s death provides us with a teachable moment as unions that operate in the further and higher education sector where our major goal is to advance the provision of affordable quality public education

34 Does good academic citizenship really matter? Thesis Whisperer, Inger Mewburn

35 Tam U is reaching for the gods Lowering the Boom, Ian Lowe

36 New Tertiary Education Strategy a vast improvement but still falls short Letter from NZ, Michael Gilchrist, TEU

DELEGATES 37 Gregory Smith, SCU

Benjamin Dougall, Macquarie

YOUR UNION 38 NTEU National Council 2019: Organising to Win! ‘Organising to Win!’ was the main theme of this year’s lively National Council, held in Melbourne in October.

42 Reflection of first time at National Council

COLUMNS

32 Surveillance technology vs democracy

43 Vale Maree Gruppetta

News from the Net, Pat Wright

33 Universities failing on the wicked problems Immediate Past President, Jeannie Rea

p. 24

Scholarship winners

44 Life Members 47 New NTEU staff

Updating your member details

48 Membership form

p. 28

21 Torres Strait Islands under threat right now Phil Mairu, NTEU A&TSI Officer for Qld & NT, addressed National Council on the climate emergency facing the Torres Strait Islands.

22 Extinction Rebellion is vital disobedience Social change movements offer a history of courage and action on which to draw.

24 SchoolStrike4Climate

Environment ISO 14001

NTEU members across Australia came out in force to stand with students in September’s School Strike 4 Climate.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 1

Editorial Alison Barnes, National President

Building a better vision for the future for our sector and our union Welcome to the latest edition of the Advocate, which draws together a series of articles exploring developments across our sector, our union and society more broadly. In October this year the NTEU held our annual National Council. National Council provides an opportunity to discuss the challenges that we currently face, and to plan for future challenges. The tertiary education sector is an industry like no other. It is the ultimate knowledge industry. It trades in knowledge … it grows knowledge … it creates knowledge. It is the intellectual engine that drives growth and advancement in all other sectors. It defines the future, just as it holds the records to our past. In many ways, we are honoured and privileged to work in the tertiary sector. It is not just a job, it’s more than a vocation – it is a way of life, and we are all passionate about it. But that passion doesn’t mean that we should allow ourselves to be exploited. That we should sacrifice our job security, with people spending 10, 15 years in the revolving door of casual contracts. That we should accept unsustainable teaching loads, or that we should sit idly by as our wages and conditions are steadily whittled away. And it doesn’t mean that we should accept the continuing ideological attacks on our tertiary institutions from politicians and chancelleries that see education through

the one-dimensional lens of profit and loss.

Facing our challenges The challenges facing our sector, and our union, are profound. Currently we face a hostile Federal Government that continues to starve the sector of funds, while simultaneously seeking to undermine our ability as a union to defend and protect our members and our conditions. Emboldened chancelleries are increasingly keen to enforce an employment relationship characterised by crippling workloads, precarious employment and ‘change management’. Managerialism is running rampant and workloads are growing.

...we face a hostile Federal Government that continues to starve the sector of funds, while simultaneously seeking to undermine our ability as a union to defend and protect our members and our conditions.

Our work is constantly being devalued. The average Vice-Chancellor’s wages and benefits package stands at $1 million – which is 12 and a half times that of someone employed at a HEW Level 6. These challenges didn’t just appear overnight. They have been building for years, if not decades.

NATIONAL EXECUTIVE

NATIONAL OFFICE STAFF

National President Vice-President (Academic) Vice-President (General Staff) General Secretary National Assistant Secretary

Director (Industrial & Legal) Wayne Cupido Senior Legal Officer Kelly Thomas Natl Industrial Officer (Research & Projects) Ken McAlpine National Industrial Officer Campbell Smith Industrial Support Officer Renee Veal

Alison Barnes Andrew Bonnell Cathy Rojas Matthew McGowan Gabe Gooding

A&TSI Policy Committee Chair Shane Motlap National Executive: Steve Adams, Nikola Balnave, Damien Cahill, Vince Caughley, Cathy Day, Jonathan Hallett, Andrea LamontMills, Virginia Mansel Lees, Michael McNally, Kelvin Michael, Catherine Moore, Melissa Slee, Ron Slee, Michael Thomson, Nick Warner

The conservative side of politics has been successful in steadily undermining the pillars of Australian egalitarianism, and building a case for an aggressive individualism. It has also, sadly, fostered a warped version of the traditional Australian scepticism of the so-called tall poppy syndrome, mixed in with a dose of anti-intellectualism, and the open derision of science. In this environment, attacks on unions, attacks on social justice advocates, and attacks on universities have become the rhetorical weapons of choice for political populists. They have weaponised the fear of other fear of refugees, fear of unions, fear of our most vulnerable and marginalised. Concepts that were once close to the heart of Australian liberal democracy have been redefined as threats. Concepts like freedom of association and the idea that unionism is a fundamental human right, are now seen as radical. And as a result, our values and our institutions are under siege. Our current trajectory is not fit for a healthy society. If we don’t challenge it, we know how our sector will look. Universities will increasingly shift from civic institutions focused on the public good to behave like profit-making corporations focused on retail and property speculation. At the expense of teaching, research and community service. And the increasing cost of higher education will restrict accessibility, limiting it to those with financial means. Which is exactly why our jobs – as higher education workers, as trade unionists - have never been so important. continued next page...

National Membership Officer Executive Manager ICT Network Engineer Database Programmer/Data Analyst Payroll Administrator/HR Assistant

Melinda Valsorda Peter Summers Tam Vuong Uffan Saeed Jo Riley

Manager, Office of Gen Sec & President Anastasia Kotaidis Director (Policy & Research) Paul Kniest Executive Officer (Meeting & Events) Tracey Coster Policy & Research Officer Terri MacDonald Admin Officer (Membership & Campaigns) Julie Ann Veal Leanne Foote National A&TSI Director Adam Frogley Receptionist & Administrative Support National A&TSI Organiser Celeste Liddle Finance Manager Glenn Osmand Gracia Ho National Organiser (Media & Engagement) Michael Evans Senior Finance Officer Alex Ghvaladze, Tamara Labadze, National Organiser (Publications) Paul Clifton Finance Officers Lee Powell, Daphne Zhang Education & Training Officer Helena Spyrou

page 2 • NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate

Editorial ...continued from previous page The time for action is now! Our first task, of course, must be the defence of institutions, and the defence of our rights.

A better vision for the future We should never content ourselves with merely protecting the status quo. That would be setting our sights too low. We must strive for a better future, and develop our own vision for what tertiary education could - and should - be in this country. A vision of a sector where staff don’t face chronic insecurity or crippling workloads. Where academics have the freedom to conduct research, to speak their mind and to confront uncomfortable truths – an academic freedom that can only come with security of employment. Where universities are valued as vital to the functioning of a civil society, rather than dismissed as an unnecessary expense. Where academic researchers are seen as the explorers of the 21st century, and appreciated as pioneers who expand our intellectual horizons. This vision will not be bequeathed to us by management or conservative politicians. Only we can champion it, and only we can make it into a reality.

How can we get from here to there? How can we overcome the challenges of today, and set sail for a better tomorrow? And is it even possible? Well, without wishing to resort to clichés, I’m reminded of the old witticism: how do you eat an elephant? The answer of course, is one mouthful at a time. Likewise, we can achieve our objectives by growing our union, one member at a time. Because our biggest challenge stems, not

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

from governments of any persuasion, or university managements, but rather from the need to grow our workplace density. When you density, you have unity. And when you have unity, you have powerful, strong unions

So we can make all the arguments for secure work, for quality teaching, for academic freedom, for free education … but decision makers in our sector are deaf to our arguments no matter how well we make them.

When you have density, you have unity. And when you have unity, you have powerful, strong unions. Powerful unions have the ability to effect change, to create the future.

As a union we need our focus more than ever to be on organising, to build the power that we need to need to make the change we want at our campuses and to our sector.

When you have density, you have unity. And when you have unity, you have powerful, strong unions.

Building workplace strength That’s why everything starts in the workplace, in conversations that build up our workplace strength. As a union we need our focus more than ever to be on organising to build that power. As we know the two biggest things that determine the level of union membership in a workplace are simply: • Whether or not there is a delegate in that workplace. • Whether or not staff have ever been asked to join the Union.

It is our role to protect the wages, conditions and jobs of our tertiary education professionals. But our mission is much bigger than that. We are the protectors of a philosophical tradition. We are the defenders of truth, and conduits of knowledge, and the catalyst for inquiry. We uphold academic values; values that managers and politicians don’t understand. Without us, there is no tertiary education. And without tertiary education our society would be undeniably poorer. There is no nobler vocation than passing on and expanding humanity’s bank of knowledge. And there is no nobler cause than advocating for education, and for a better education system. We have everything in front of us, but I hope you are excited about the possibilities as I am. Alison Barnes, National President abarnes@nteu.org.au

Every new member who signs up makes us stronger. Every member who engages with us and become more active makes us stronger. Every activist who steps up to become a delegate, and organises their workplace, makes us stronger again. And when we have built an army of committed, active and determined members, we will be a truly powerful force.

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. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 3

From the General Secretary Matthew McGowan, General Secretary

Bargaining tackles insecure work NTEU has all but concluded bargaining across the sector in Round 7 bargaining, with only one Agreement outstanding at the University of New England. In what has been a difficult bargaining round, there have been significant gains: annual pay rises between 1.8% and 2.4%, casual conversion clauses, improved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment and leave provisions, and improved superannuation provisions for fixed term staff across the sector. Implementation dates for the new superannuation clauses vary, but by the time we sit down to bargaining in the next round, nearly every fixed term staff member will be provided with the same superannuation entitlements that their continuing colleagues receive. For research intensive or research only staff, this is a significant improvement given that some 75% of research staff are on fixed term contracts and many have only been provided with the statutory 9.5% superannuation in the past. This is an important gain but insecure employment is a continuing problem across the sector. With teaching work increasingly casualised, and research often on rolling fixed term contracts, the sector is failing many staff who keep our universities functioning. One Australian Vice-Chancellor is reported in the Times Higher Education as saying that ‘outstanding early career researchers were too often forced to leave academia by “intolerable” demands on their career and personal life, rather than the fact they lacked the ability to do the job.’ NTEU agrees. The aforementioned Vice-Chancellor is one of the better performers in this area, although there is clearly room for improvement. We know that over half of the teaching effort of the sector is being done by casual staff. Government statistics suggest that only about 10% of research staff have continuing employment. We also know that in many cases this is unnecessary.

Casual academic staff are frequently employed over many years, with 46% reporting working casually in the sector for over five years. Amongst casual professional staff, nearly 60% report that they are doing ‘regular ongoing work which will be needed on an indefinite basis.’ Of those on fixed term contracts, 30% have been employed on five or more contracts with 46% being employed on contracts of one year’s duration or less. These people are often the staff who do work which universities go on to later claim as the most ground-breaking research in its field.

There is widespread community concern about wage theft and it is only a matter of time before universities are faced with claims for underpayment of casuals...

Universities are able to take steps to reduce this without damaging the institution, but seem unable or unwilling to act. Requiring departments to pay their casual staff properly for the work they do or to employ them properly is seen as too interfering or interventionist. Developing a pooled labour mechanism to shift technical staff between research projects as needed would ensure that skills are retained and available at short notice while providing job security for the skilled people involved. But anything that might annoy a principal researcher is avoided because that researcher might take their funds elsewhere. These are issues management is responsible for, well... managing. But across the sector, there seems to be an unwillingness to connect the principles and policy issues to the practical realities on the ground. Just look at the divide between Universities Australia and the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association. One won’t talk about industrial issues, the other won’t touch policy. At the last federal election, the Australian Labor Party promised to legislate a definition of casual labour, and to limit the use of fixed term contracts. Unfortunately, they lost that election. But university employers have considered how they would respond. In informal discussion, some

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have acknowledged that they had hoped to have someone else change the rules for them so they could avoid having the difficult internal debates. That option is not available at the moment, but pressure is going to continue. NTEU will make sure of that. There is widespread community concern about wage theft and it is only a matter of time before universities are faced with claims for underpayment of casuals through piece rates for marking, or simply not paying for elements of the work they do. NTEU is organising casual staff to take these issues on at the workplace level. In this round of bargaining we have made some important improvements for fixed term staff, and in the next round, it is reasonable to expect that this area will form a major part of the debates about our bargaining claims for Round 8. NTEU has sought solutions through a number of bargaining rounds, but none have been embraced by the institutions. The tools are there. Early Career Development Fellowships, which became the Scholarly Teaching Fellows, have not been taken up significantly by managements. Agreements now have provisions for contingent continuing positions to respond to concerns about research funding. Nothing happens. Increasing the casual loading, separate pay for marking, and other cost measures have helped individuals, but they have not shifted behaviour in the institutions. The Higher Education Contract of Employment Award (HECE), which was a response to a similar problem in the 80s, has been gamed and avoided where possible. Bargaining alone cannot fix this problem. It takes will on the part of Vice-Chancellors for a solution. Too often, bargaining is treated as a transactional process of give and take, rather than as an exercise in establishing the principles of good employment practice and its implementation. A solution imposed from outside will be delayed for a few years at least. Isn’t it time the sector faced up to its responsibilities to shape its own future? Do universities have to be forced to do what they know is right? Matthew McGowan, General Secretary mmcgowan@nteu.org.au

From the National Asst Secretary Gabe Gooding, National Assistant Secretary

Workplace democracy under threat Union democracy and workplace democracy generally have never been more important, nor under so much threat. I recently had the interesting experience of appearing before the Senate Education and Employment Committee to present NTEU’s position on the Ensuring Integrity Bill. Interesting because new experiences are always interesting, but also because it demonstrated to me the depth of penetration of the narrative that all unions are lawless. This is best exemplified by the Senator who asked me to research how many times NTEU officials had been convicted of industrial offences in the years before and after the establishment of the Registered Organisations Commission (ROC). The answer of course required no research and was “None. Ever.” However, the casual assumption inherent in the question, that union officials are routinely racking up convictions, was breathtaking. For those who don’t know much about the Ensuring Integrity Bill – which is a blatant attempt by the Federal Government to disempower the union movement – you can read about it on p. 19 in this edition of the Advocate. Given that the Government dresses up this attempt to reduce the effectiveness of unions under the guise of protecting union democracy, I had cause, in preparing my remarks, to reflect on the highly democratic nature of NTEU and the anti-democratic aspects of the Bill. The Bill of course, is in fact, anti-democratic in several ways. Two important ones are that, firstly, the complexity of ensuring more rigorous accountability standards across so many Branches provides a strong regulatory incentive to unions such as ours to reduce democratic control of the Union in order to reduce risk.

Secondly, the introduction of the capacity for interested persons (which may include employers or hostile anti-union managers) to apply for disqualification of a union officer or for deregistration of the Union is fundamentally undemocratic in that it removes from members the power of decision making about who represents them.

keeps us close to the workplace and the workers who work there. It ensures that our decision-making processes are truly driven by those who work in our sector and reflect the genuine needs and wishes of the members. It is the embodiment of the well-worn phrase that ‘the Union is its members’.

The Court can also order the break-up of Unions, splitting them into less effective parts, again undoing the democratically made decisions of union members.

Our recent National Council meeting is the ultimate demonstration of democracy at work in NTEU. Representatives from every Branch came together and debated the important issues facing us at work and beyond.

One of the great strengths of our union is our commitment to a highly democratic representative structure, and any legislation that places pressure on us to resile from that position is highly alarming.

With 801 elected positions established in the NTEU rules, across 44 Branches, there is no doubt that we are highly democratic. Of these elected officials, only eleven are paid a salary. All others are volunteers who give their time to work with colleagues and friends on issues of importance in their workplace. This latter point is important because the punitive provisions of the Ensuring Integrity Bill would apply to anyone holding one of those 801 positions.

Out of that meeting came a unanimous commitment to our key priorities in the coming year. The most important of which goes back to the issue of democracy “Re-orient the work of the Union to build a culture that supports and prioritises organising to build power and member engagement.” This is the biggest and most important task that faces us as the National Officers of the Union as it speaks directly to further strengthening the role of members in determining the trajectory of work of the Union. When whistleblowers and academic freedom are under attack in multiple high profile cases and in many other less visible and insidious ways, when participatory governance in our workplaces at all levels is routinely under-cut by rampant managerialism, it is more important than ever that we commit to preserving and strengthening the democratic nature of our union. Gabe Gooding, National Assistant Secretary ggooding@nteu.org.au Ensuring Integrity Bill ensures inequity, p. 19

On a more fundamental level the level of volunteer office holders in NTEU (98.7%) is an important part of who we are. It is what

All NTEU members are automatically covered for journey injury insurance. You could be paying hundreds of dollars to get this valuable cover, but as a financial member of NTEU, it’s absolutely free!

Travel Work insurance Travel Toto Work Insurance

More info at nteu.org.au/traveltowork

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 5

Update Wage Theft investigation leads to $2,000,000 in back pay Action taken by casual academics has allowed NTEU to secure $2 million in underpayments for 83 current and former staff at the Academy

of Information Technology (AIT). This is a fantastic demonstration of what can be achieved when workers work together, and with their Union, to challenge unfair and unjust employment conditions. The story starts with a few members who contacted the Union about their pay. They provided payslips and contracts which allowed us to confirm that they were being underpaid. This is a workplace which does not have an Enterprise Agreement and which had previously had little contact with unions. In that situation personal contact is essential to building up trust in the NTEU. continued next page...

ARE YOU A VICTIM OF WAGE THEFT? If you answer Yes to two or more of these questions, then you may be a victim of wage theft!

File-Signature No Collective Agreement?

Donate

Hand-Holding-Usd

UMBRELLA

Flat rate of pay (rounded to whole dollar)?

Don’t receive payrises each July?

Don’t receive superannuation?

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! NTEU has resolved to launch a Wage Theft campaign in the non-university higher education provider sector under the leadership of National Assistant Secretary, Gabe Gooding. The Union is already investigating a number of other non-university employers who we believe are underpaying their workforce. If you want to work with us to stamp out Wage Theft in your workplace, visit nteu.org.au/wagetheft

user-graduateComment-Dots

WHAT ARE THE EMPLOYMENT RULES FOR CASUAL LECTURERS?

File-Invoice-Dollar

coins

The Award

Rates of pay

Rolled Up Rate

Allocation of hours

The minimum rates of pay for most non-university higher education providers are set out in the Educational Services (Post-Secondary Education) Award 2010.

For each hour of face-to-face teaching delivery, you must be paid a ‘rolled up’ rate of pay that covers 3 hours’ work.

The ‘rolled-up rate’ means that the rate that you are paid for a lecture includes the time that you spend on associated tasks such as preparation. These elements cannot be separated – your employer can’t tell you to do the 1 hour lecture and not the other parts.

Permanent staff should only be allocated 38 hours of work per week.

Casual lecturers are classified as ‘Academic Teachers’.

The current rates of pay: Lecture = $134.08 Tutorial = $104.62

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SCROLL

Hourglass-Half The hours for permanent Academic Teachers assume three hours’ of time worked for each hour of face-to-face teaching delivery.

Update ...continued from previous page So, NTEU staff and members themselves spoke with as many trusted employees as possible to join them up to the NTEU and the campaign. The messages were simple: 1. You are being underpaid. 2. Employers cannot legally pay less than the Award. 3. And, most importantly, there is power and safety in being a part of a collective.

Safety in numbers The more we talked to potentially affected employees the more stories emerged of members being brushed off and ignored when they tried to raise the issue of their rate of pay alone. In one case a member was told that if they didn’t like what they were being paid they could work somewhere else! Once a significant number of members joined we exercised the Union’s legal right to inspect wages and records and to speak with staff. As each new group of members joined we repeated the inspection exercise. Building support and momentum in a workplace where the employment is insecure and there is a fair degree of fear involves constant engagement with members. At AIT, members were asked for assistance, and provided with surveys and regular updates. Meetings were held after work in Sydney and Melbourne to keep up confidence and involvement. Everyone involved in this campaign is pleased to say that not only are most academic staff now members, they are strong, united and willing to stand up for their rights. With the evidence so clear, NTEU chose to negotiate a settlement rather than engage in costly litigation. Ultimately we negotiated for complete back-payment of wages, superannuation and interest. In addition there is greater job security on the horizon. The 25% who were so-called ‘independent contractors’ will also be back-paid on similar terms to the other casual staff, including superannuation, and will be made proper offers of employment. Congratulations to the NTEU members at AIT, they have demonstrated what can happen when workers stick together and have faith in their union. Serena O’Meley, Industrial Officer General staff are also covered by the Award and the Union recently recovered $39,000 in unpaid overtime for a member in a similar workplace (see Advocate, vol. 26 no. 1, p.4.)

Union uncovers pay discrepencies for casual staff At the University of Melbourne, NTEU has uncovered widespread issues related to how casual academic staff are (and are not) being paid for marking as part of a wider campaign on the conditions for casual tutors. Illegal practices The Enterprise Agreement allows for a ‘rolled-up’ rate to cover preparation and delivery of tutorials and related work, in addition to ‘Derived Sessional Teaching Rates’. Marking rates are specified separately in the Agreement, and staff should receive pay broken down into these categories. NTEU Melbourne’s Casuals Network has been examining discrepancies in how casual staff are being paid across different schools and found evidence across the board, with some Schools paying illegal ‘piece-rates’ (for example, a figure based on number of essays marked) and others attempting to pay tutors based on pre-determined amounts without regard to the actual hours worked. The University has already conceded that staff have been paid incorrectly in Computing and Information Sciences, with the Head of Human Resources in the School writing to staff to inform them of the discrepancy and to suggest contacting NTEU to make a claim. This has followed a long and persistent campaign to even get the issue recognised.

Threats and intimidation While potential underpayment has since been more widely acknowledged, some Schools have intimidated staff against making claims with the threat of audits, and future work being taken away from those not adhering to ‘suggested’ rates. Relaxed attitudes about correctly paying casual academic staff is not just an issue at the University of Melbourne, but a reflection of the sector more broadly: the NTEU Branch at Macquarie University won an important victory at the Fair Work Commission (FWC) regarding ‘Small Group Teaching Activities’ within the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

The FWC determined that these activities were tutorials under another name and ordered the University to agree back pay to affected staff.

Be vigilant! NTEU Melbourne Branch will continue to collect information as the next round of marking takes place, as well as working to uncover the use of piece-rates in other areas. Members can help by being vigilant and contacting the Branch with evidence. Casual academic staff deserve fair pay and secure work! Simon Linskill, Victorian Division Organiser

nteu.org.au/wagetheft

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 7

Update

The secret life of universities Increasingly, universities are relying upon confidentiality directions to ensure that information is kept out of the public domain. It is then the university’s exclusive task to ‘craft the message’. This is particularly so when it comes to disciplinary proceedings. Everyone will be familiar with the Peter Ridd and James Cook University (JCU) case currently on appeal in the Federal Court of Australia. In that case, Dr Ridd was accused of, and ultimately had his employment terminated because he exercised his rights to intellectual freedom. JCU argue on the other hand that his employment was terminated because of breaches of the Code of Conduct. What might be less familiar to readers is the findings of the court in relation to Dr Ridd’s alleged breaches of confidentiality obligations. It seems that JCU, like most other universities have a penchant for keeping the strictest of confidence on any event that might even lightly tarnish the University’s reputation. At the time of issuing serious misconduct allegations against Dr Ridd, JCU also issued a direction regarding confidentiality. The letter said to him “as per clause 54.1.5 the confidentiality for all parties in the management of this process is highly important, and I trust that you will consider your obligations professionally.” A few days after this, Dr Ridd pointed out to HR that he couldn’t even talk about the serious misconduct allegations with his wife. Remarkably, HR told him that he “should not

discuss any aspect of the serious misconduct process whilst it is ongoing-except with an appropriate representative”. The judge found that direction prohibited Dr Ridd from talking to his own wife about the allegations. Members who have been in the unfortunate situation of facing allegations will know of the isolating and fearful state that you are placed in. Those who haven’t had allegations made against them, consider the most stressful experiences of your working life, and then consider how you would handle it if you couldn’t speak to your partner about it. JCU is not alone in its draconian application of confidentiality obligations. Another university suggests the most extraordinary obligations: I direct you to refrain from disclosing to anyone, or engaging in any communication with anyone about: (a) the fact that allegations have been made; (b) the subject matter of the allegations, any relevant documents and the parties involved; and (c) any other matter or information relating to the allegations and the assessment of the allegations; other than an immediate family member, a support person* or professional adviser on the basis they provide you with an undertaking that they will comply with the above confidentiality direction, or unless you are required to do so by law or with the prior written consent of the University. They must not be disclosed in person, online, via email or social media, by someone else on your behalf, or by any other means. You may of course speak with University staff who are involved in the process such as myself or [HR]. *A support person means a friend, colleague or union official (but not any person involved or connected in any

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way with the allegations) who you may choose to provide you with support. You can be assured that any other individuals who may participate in the process relating to the Allegations will be advised of their confidentiality obligations. The University takes the need for confidentiality very seriously and reserves the right to take disciplinary action if the confidentiality direction is not adhered to. In theory, staff members of this university are required to seek an undertaking from their partner in order to tell them about their troubles at work. Put simply, this is not okay. It is not okay for an employer to demand secrecy from staff facing a potentially traumatic experience in their life. It is not okay for a university to deny a person the right to speak openly and freely about their work circumstances. But, is it lawful for a university to make such a direction? Potentially so. Each confidentiality direction must be assessed by reference to the circumstances in which it was made. It is essential for members to seek advice from NTEU about any such direction, in case a member inadvertently breaches the obligations, or wishes to challenge the confidentiality directions. For instance, what impact does these secrecy obligations have on procedural fairness? To what extent does suppressing this information benefit the university, or sometimes, the employee as well? Dr Ridd, as we know, asserted that his publication of various serious misconduct allegations, was an exercise of intellectual freedom. The Federal Circuit Court agreed with that assertion, but that decision is now under appeal. NTEU policy specifies that intellectual freedom includes the right to express opinions about the operation of the university. Ask your local delegate for a copy of our policy on intellectual and academic freedom. Kelly Thomas, Senior Legal Officer

Update NTEU fights CDU job cuts In recent weeks the precarious financial and academic state of Charles Darwin University (CDU) has made local and national news. NTEU ran a petition demanding independent assessments of the current change proposals. The petition also called on the Territory Government to address the negative impact that reduced funding levels and the introduction of contestable funding for vocational education and training has had on CDU, and the Commonwealth Government to reassess the adequacy of the regional loading for government supported students in the NT, which were last examined in 2011. Both the NT News and the Australian have reported on the financial deficit the university has incurred, the significant decline in domestic and international student numbers, the record of poor financial and strategic management and a ‘vision’ of an enrolment turnaround of 10,000 international students that the Australian reported as “arguably delusional”. This sorry state of affairs did not occur overnight. Indicators that all was not well at CDU first occurred six months after the current Vice-Chancellor took office. However, CDU has recently received a blitz of negative media coverage. Attempts to wrest the University from the brink of a financial disaster and reverse the downward spiral of its reputation have, in the main been futile. In July 2019, the NT News headlines of a $21 million deficit prompted multiple radio interviews and speculation about future viability of the University. The speculation was further fuelled by a very public campaign by former CDU Professor of Governance, Don Fuller, who questioned the capacity of a proposed $400 million Darwin city campus to turn around the fortunes of the floundering university. According to Dr Fuller, “… CDU should focus on managing and overcoming the major financial difficulties …by the development of appropriate financial management strategies – before embarking on such an expensive, high-risk, new infrastructure project.”

fantasy”. He also highlighted the fact that despite falling numbers CDU has not deployed a marketing campaign to reverse student numbers. The vision of a reinvigorated CDU in the city centre is even more nebulous given the current state of the Northern Territory economy. The May 2019 Budget revealed that the NT debt would grow to $6.2 billion by 2020 or $33,000 for every person in the NT. According to the NT Treasury there is no immediate end in sight to the economic pain the Territory is currently experiencing. In July, the announcement by Vice-Chancellor Simon Maddock that 100 staff would be made redundant by the end of the year confirmed the rumours that had been fuelling staff anxiety. According to Dr Pfitzner, staff were certainly not oblivious to the fact that the VET sector had realised a $22 million deficit, international student numbers declined by 12 per cent over the past five years and federal government assistance for the VET sector declined from $16.6 million in 2013 to $4.4 million in 2018. As a result of CDU’s inability to negotiate additional federal funding and attract substantial student numbers, it was perhaps inevitable that staff would bear the brunt of the CDU’s deteriorating fortunes.

As the NT Division President pointed out, 100 job cuts will only contribute to depress the local economy even further. CDU has been a major contributor of the NT economy and a major employer. The loss of 100 plus positions, is a significant percentage of CDU workforce. It will have flow on effect that will have ramifications beyond the immediate CDU community. For many, the lack of alternative employment in the Territory will result in them relocating interstate. The cost of the loss of the human capital from the NT is incalculable. CDU and the Territory may well find this situation is going to be hard to recover from.

Above: Members and students supporting the NTEU petition in September.

State of the Uni Survey complete If you are a keen Advocate reader, you probably recently completed the Union’s nationwide survey of university staff – the State of the Uni survey –which is now closed. This year the Union ran the third such survey, with previous surveys run in 2015 and 2017. With around 21,000 responses, this year’s Survey has been the largest ever. Over the next few months, we will be undertaking detailed analysis of the data, to determine trends in the concerns, opinions and experiences of NTEU members and of different groups of university staff – academics, general/professional staff, casual staff, and contract research staff. Watch out in future editions of the Advocate for detailed analysis. NTEU is also happy to hear from researchers interested in analysing the data. Ken McAlpine, National Industrial Officer (Research & Projects) nteu.org.au/stateoftheuni

NTEU Division President Dr Darius Pfitzner, echoed the sentiment of members by describing the concept of a city campus and ambitious student target as “a bit of a NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 9

Update Bargaining almost done Only two Agreements to go before Round 7 of enterprise bargaining concludes, and preparations for our next round of bargaining commence. Since the last update, members at the University of Wollongong, Flinders University, University of the Sunshine Coast, Victoria University, Monash University and University of New England (Professional Staff ) have campaigned for and negotiated strong Agreements. All Branches have maintained and protected a range of important current terms and conditions of employment as well as the following common improvements: • 17% superannuation for fixed term staff. • Pay rises equivalent to those achieved elsewhere in the sector. • Retention or improvement to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment targets.

• Fixed term contract renewal rights and/ or improved conversion rights to more secure forms of employment for fixed term staff. • Conversion options to more secure employment for casual academic staff. • Job security provisions. Victoria University members deserve a special mention for defeating two management non-union ballots and negotiating an Agreement in line with others in the sector.

The only remaining active bargaining site in the sector is the University of New England (Academic Staff ) where the major issue yet to be resolved is academic workloads. The Branch will have the full support of the Union to get a strong Agreement that protects our academic members from unreasonable and unachievable workloads. Wayne Cupido, Director (Industrial & Legal)

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Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA is campaigning to make sure that no Australian international development funds are financing asbestos overseas.

You can help prevent asbestos from contaminating humanitarian aid and development by signing the petition “No Australian Money in Asbestos: Not Here. Not Anywhere.”

Australians understand the toxic legacy of asbestos, and now we have the chance take a leading role in standing up for sustainable and healthy development that is free from asbestos.

Sign the petition, and join Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA in fighting for an asbestos-free future!

Right now, Australian aid money is at risk of financing the asbestos industry through the Asian Development Bank, which does not ban the use of asbestos cement sheeting on aid and development projects, meaning that communities can be handed an asbestos time-bomb.

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Update May Day poster reveals union history NTEU ACT Division has recently undergone significant change, welcoming a new Division Secretary, a new Organiser, and developing a long-term Division plan for the first time. Amidst all of this change, a remnant of history has emerged in the form of a poster commemorating May Day, the international day of the celebration of organised labour. As we discovered, the poster is also the key to understanding an important episode in the early days of the ACT Division. NTEU was formed in 1993 from a number of predecessor organisations. In the ACT, these included the Australian National University Staff Association (as a member of the Federated Australian University Staff Association (FAUSA)) and the ANU Administrative and Allied Officers’ Association (ANUAAOA). The latter body represented general staff of level 6 and above, and was regarded by many as a ‘bosses’ union’. Most general staff in the ACT were instead represented by the Health Services Union (HSUA, known today as the HSU), which had coverage of university staff at ANU and UC at the time. The HSUA had two ACT branches – the No. 1 Branch covered hospitals and the No. 2 Branch covered universities. The HSUA Organiser responsible for the ACT at the time was a young Craig Thomson, though in reality the Branch was largely autonomous, carrying out its own industrial work and serviced by a paid Secretary and Office Administrator. There was a view that the HSUA, as a health industry focused union, was not primarily concerned with universities. This seeming lack of alignment led the No. 2 Branch – without alerting the national leadership – to conduct a poll of all mem-

bers to ask whether they should instead join the newly formed NTEU. Many saw the NTEU as the more appropriate union for university staff. Barry Howarth – who at one time found himself in the position of Assistant ACT Secretary for both HSUA and the NTEU as a dual-member – recalls that the survey had a more than 50 per cent response rate, with 96 per cent support for joining the NTEU. In the meantime, the HSUA National Secretary found out (Barry thinks the AMWU gave them the tip-off ) and showed up on the local Branch’s doorstep. The main issue for most HSUA members in switching across was that the NTEU did not have coverage of general staff. Only those, like Barry, who were level 6 or above and therefore covered by ANUAAOA were able to join initially. The process of joining NTEU took about a year and was opposed by other unions. Ultimately the HSUA and NTEU were able to agree on a deal which saw NTEU cover all university general staff.

The Redback Graphix May Day poster was purchased by the HSUA, and presented to the local Branch by the late feminist and political activist Edna Ryan in 1991. The HSUA No. 2 Branch decided that the fantastic May Day poster in question belonged to their members and passed a resolution ‘gifting’ the poster to the NTEU ACT Division. Barry Howarth recalls HSUA members carrying the poster across the ANU campus to the NTEU office, near the former site of the Arts Centre. In early 1995 around 430 members similarly swapped hands, as they left the HSUA and joined the NTEU. Ewan Maidment, who was a former HSUA National Executive member and ACT Branch Secretary, before becoming an NTEU Branch Committee member, recalls that this was about 80 per cent of the ACT’s university based HSUA members at the time. Barry Howarth later became the NTEU ACT Division’s third Division Secretary, following John O’Brien and Pauline Hore before him. After more than five years wrapped up, and after several office changes, the May Day poster now has pride of place in the NTEU ACT Division office once again. Thanks to Barry Howarth and Ewan Maidment for sharing this story, which was supplemented with information from John O’Brien’s National Tertiary Education Union: A most unlikely union (2015). Lachlan Clohesy, ACT Division Organiser

Top: Marjorie MacGregor, Secretary of HSUA No. 2 Branch, presenting the poster in 1991. Left: Ewan Maidment, Cathy Day and Barry Howarth. NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 11

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander News Collective strength and Indigenous solidarity Hui-ā-Motu is the annual national conference of Maori NZ Tertiary Education Union (TEU) members. This year the NTEU Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee continued our long standing exchange of knowledge with the TEU by having Dr Sharlene Leroy-Dyer (Deputy Chair A&TSI Policy Committee) and Frank Gafa (Branch Organiser, Monash University) attend Huiā-Motu which was held in the Marae at Victoria University in Wellington. This year’s Hui theme was ‘Tātou, tātou e; Collective Strength Shared Sense of Purpose’, focusing heavily on how Maori members can work together with the wider TEU to further their Tiriti policy. These discussions where led from the outset by a TEU kaumātua (Elder), Matua Hōne, who grounded the conversation to focus on how TEU Tiriti policy intertwines with all work that the TEU does. These conversations directly link with the NTEU’s 10 Point Post Treaty Plan and align to the NTEU goal of making A&TSI business core Union business. As part of the Australian delegation, we were joined by Michelle Purdy, AEU Federal TAFE President, both presenting on how our unions are also working towards collective strength and a shared sense of purpose. Michelle outlined the great work happening within the AEU to ensure that A&TSI business is core business, and that TAFE focus is built within the AEU Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Engagement Plan (2019–2023).

employment across the Union through the implementation of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment strategy, and the increased representation of A&TSI people across all levels of leadership within the NTEU. At the end of the forum the three key takeaways from the way business was conducted at Hui-ā-Motu were: • The embedded nature of elder (kaumātua) representation not only in attendance but in the running of the forum. This added an element that ensured TEU business discussed was Maori business. • The conference close was especially important and enlightening, called Whakawātea. This way of facilitating closing remarks from any participants ensured that everyone spoke to what they were passionate about, and that they did not leave the Hui-ā-Motu with unsaid business.

NTEU presented on our continued success with membership and the gains we have made throughout the last round of bargaining, with all Agreements now containing an A&TSI employment clause along with 80% of all Agreements approved containing Cultural and Ceremonial Leave entitlements. NTEU continues to work towards a shared responsibility and sense of purpose, aiming to increase

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• Learning of the implementation of elected Rainbow (LGBTIQ) representatives on TEU Branch Committees was also of note, showing the continued move towards ensuring all groups are represented within the TEU. This is something that is important so that all voices are heard in the TEU. All three of these concepts supported and furthered the theme of the conference, Collective Strength Shared Sense of Purpose within the TEU. It was a privilege to attend and the A&TSI Policy Committee looks forward to continuing our relationship with the TEU into the future. Dr Sharlene Leroy-Dyer, Deputy Chair, A&TSI Policy Committee Frank Gafa, Branch Organiser, Monash University

Above: Hui delegates in the Victoria University Marae. Below: Frank Gafa and Sharlene Leroy-Dyer presenting at Hui 2019.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander News The Final Quarter In mid-2019, a film was released which started to change some of the conversations in society with regards to racism, how it manifests and what its impacts can be. That film, The Final Quarter focused on the last couple of years of former AFL great Adam Goodes’ playing career, honing in on the ‘booing fiasco’ and piecing together footage of the time to tell the story without interviews. The film is precisely an exploration of how racism is constructed and propagated in Australia. It’s fair to state that most Australians have a very rudimentary understanding of what racism is and how it impacts the lives of those who bear its brunt. This understanding tends to begin and end with blatant racism. Rarely is there understanding and acknowledgement of how social structures are set up to exclude those who are different whilst also punishing racially marginalised people who put a foot out of place should they be ‘lucky’ enough to succeed within those social structures. The Final Quarter highlighted this dynamic robustly. Talking heads throughout the film assisted in fuelling a hostile environment for Goodes whilst concurrently stating that they were not racist and were in fact champions for equality. Yet their actions frequently contradicted their statements as they repeatedly fanned fear and punished an Aboriginal man for becoming too ‘uppity’. During the 75 minutes of footage, we are shown the truths and how media figures twisted these to spread lies. We see them fuel the lie that Goodes demonised a 13 year old girl despite him clearly calling for her to be supported and stating that he did not blame her for the racial slur she had directed his way. We see them mine the words of his Australian of the Year acceptance speech to try and prove he was not a worthy candidate. We hear them propagate the myth that in his later playing years he staged free kicks even though the player statistics showed a very different story. This last lie, unsurprisingly, coincided with the increasing intensity of crowd booing, as a way of deflecting what was really behind it.

http://www.metromagazine.com.au What is particularly poignant throughout the film though is just how hard Goodes https://theeducationshop.com.au tries to be accepted, to be open and to be that©Aboriginal role model all the detracATOM 2019 ISBN: 978-1-76061-277-1 tors reckoned they wanted him to be. He was, for example, the face of the Recognise campaign – a government-funded campaign based on their own policy to have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people recognised in some way in the Australian Constitution. At a time when other Indigenous figures were criticising the Government’s plans due to reasons such as lack of detail and community consultation, Goodes was promoting it. When Goodes accepted his Australian of the Year award, he did so with pride – acknowledging that there was still work to do towards reconciliation but also stating that he had a lot of hope. He also expressed faith in the AFL’s ability to stamp out racism and be an inclusive environment. Goodes captained the Swans, won the AFL’s best and fairest award, the Brownlow Medal, twice, and played in two Premiership winning teams. Goodes said and did everything right, yet at the end of the day it was not enough.

The Final Quarter though is about more than Adam Goodes and racism in Australian RulesAfootball. It’s GUIDE about workplace STUDY BY health andKATY safety and the impacts that MARRINER being in an unsafe environment can have on a worker when their employers fail to act. It’s about unions and actions we can and should take as collectives of workers. Was there more the AFL Players Association could have done and by extension, other unions and unionists to stop the vilification? As the NTEU’s I’m Still Not a Racist, But… report showed, racism is very much a part of the everyday working lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers in the higher education sector. As a union, we must remain vigilant in our fight against it. NTEU has secured the rights to screen The Final Quarter and all Divisions and Branches are currently in the process of organising local screenings. For more information about these screenings or to organise a local screening yourself, please contact your Branch or Division office. Celeste Liddle, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Organiser thefinalquarterfilm.com.au

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 13

h t i W d #IStan

D R GE

Unionists rally to support whistleblower In early October, news broke that Murdoch University had sued one of its academics, Associate Professor Gerd Schröder-Turk. The University took the action in response to Gerd appearing on the ABC’s premier investigative program, Four Corners. Gerd and his colleagues, not just from Murdoch, revealed certain practices spread throughout many Australian universities relating to the recruitment of international students. We know this issue speaks to many of our members who care deeply about giving all students a proper opportunity to a quality education. The exploitation of international students is not something any of our members would condone. Whatever the higher education issue, university workers, particularly academics, have the right to express views, even if they are critical of their university. That is why NTEU has asked everyone in the tertiary education community to say #IStandWithGerd.

What brought us here? So what has happened at Murdoch to get to this point? In our view, Murdoch has form on silencing critical commentary, and on this issue in particular. In mid-2018, Gerd raised a complaint to the University about the recruitment and performance of international students. The investigation of that complaint, or Preliminary Review as Murdoch insisted on calling it, led to some reporting in the West Australian newspapers and Campus

Morning Mail. An article also appeared in the Advocate.

proactive stands in stark contrast to Murdoch’s actions.

Murdoch unsuccessfully sued NTEU for the little-known tort of injurious falsehood (basically defamation for businesses) and misleading and deceptive conduct, having sought a court order ceasing publication of the Advocate. Murdoch boldly claimed that the Advocate would be the cause of a reduction in international student enrolments.

Support for whistleblowers

The Chief Justice of the WA Supreme Court found prima facie Murdoch’s claim to be weak, and that ceasing publication of the Advocate could stifle freedom of expression or expression of opinion. Back to Gerd. In May 2019, the day the Four Corners program aired, The University of Tasmania (UTAS) announced it was conducting a review into its own practices in relation to international students. By front-footing the issue, UTAS could own the issue and try to fix it. There are criticisms of the review, but doing something

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Two days after the program aired, the Chancellor during a University Senate meeting, of which Gerd is a member, announced that a motion would be put to remove him from Senate following his appearance on Four Corners. This action stands in stark contrast to the level of support Gerd and his colleagues received in response to the program: Western Australian Members of Parliament speaking in Parliament, over four hundred NTEU members responding to an email from our President, and over 300 hundred Murdoch employees attending a meeting and passing a motion in support. National President Dr Alison Barnes and WA Division Secretary Dr Jonathan Hallett wrote about these issues in The Australian Higher Education Supplement, at the same time as the National Executive endorsed a

statement reaffirming the Union’s position on inappropriate student enrolments and profiteering by Australian universities. But, not Murdoch. Murdoch’s Chancellor appeared on ABC Radio Drive defending Murdoch’s position. The Vice-Chancellor labelled the program ‘racist’. Both deflected the question that everyone was asking: what would happen to the staff who appeared on Four Corners? Sally Neighbour, Executive Producer of Four Corners tweeted on the night of the program, “Bravo to the Murdoch University academics speaking out tonight on #4Corners We’ll be watching closely how Murdoch responds”. This insight was prescient. NTEU also wrote to the Vice-Chancellor seeking confirmation that the whistleblowers would not be touched. By this stage, however, the Chancellor’s motion to remove Gerd was well underway.

Legal action commenced By the end of May, Gerd had launched legal action in relation to Murdoch’s actions. He claims that Murdoch breached his right to academic freedom and that it took action in retaliation to his complaints. As is apparent from a judgment from the Federal Court of Australia, Gerd has also claimed a contravention of the Public Interest Disclosure Act. The PID Act appears to have a grossly troubling and perverse impact on public debate of public interest disclosures by ensuring silence in relation to the disclosure. The court did not release Gerd from speaking publicly about the PID case, and as a result of the operation of the PID Act he

would be unable to speak about the case at large. We are only allowed to mention this because Murdoch specifically consented to the public release of the judgment.

workers, communities and politicians which demonstrates the depth of this issue, but also the breadth of support for the right of academics to speak out.

This result seemed absurd, so NTEU wrote to the WA Attorney-General to seek to have the laws changed. As the recent campaign launched by an Australian media coalition demonstrates, the public has the right to know about these kinds of issues.

Over 1,000 letters have been sent to the Murdoch Chancellor and Murdoch Visitor (Governor Kim Beazley) calling for the legal action to be dropped. Over 400 people have sent messages of support directly to Gerd. At the time of writing, over 30,000 people have signed the online petition.

Universities themselves are supposed to be the bastion of free speech, not experts in legal tactics to diminish discussion about higher education issues. What has happened to our universities? Murdoch, it seems, is doubling down. Not only did it fail to publicly protect whistleblowers’ but it has now taken the extraordinary step of commencing legal action against Gerd. Murdoch claims that Gerd’s appearance on Four Corners was the cause of its risk rating increasing (a rating determined independently by the Department of Home Affairs), and that it would lose millions of dollars in international student revenue. There is no doubt whistleblowers are often treated with contempt, but no university has ever sued an academic for engaging in public debate on higher education issues. Murdoch stands alone.

Thousands stand with Gerd But Gerd does not. Following the release of the ABC news story about Murdoch’s legal action, there has been unprecedented support for Gerd. NTEU’s #IStandWithGerd campaign unleashed a wave of activism from university

The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations says it is horrified at Murdoch’s legal action. Gerd’s colleagues from the Australian Institute of Physics declared they are proud to have Gerd as a member. Academics from across the world have indicated their support. Australia’s most pre-eminent academics have written to Murdoch University asking them to drop the claim against Gerd. WA Greens MLC Alison Xamon wants Murdoch to stop harming the reputation of her university. Murdoch students organised a protest to take a stand against their University’s actions. Even one of Murdoch’s own visiting professors has resigned from his position in support of Gerd. This level of support must comfort Gerd, but also must surely indicate to Murdoch that they’ve got this wrong. At the end of the day, Gerd is representative of all university staff who are committed to ensuring the best education outcomes for all students. How can you sue someone for that?

Above: Staff from UWA standing with Gerd. nteu.org.au/istandwithgerd

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#IStandWithGerd

Murdoch overreach In 1997, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) published its Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel which included the following statement:

But more and more frequently, Australian universities are seemingly thumbing their noses at the notion that university workers are, by right, free to consider and develop controversial ideas in the search for truth.

“ … all higher-education teaching personnel should enjoy freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression, assembly and association as well as the right to liberty and security of the person and liberty of movement. They should not be hindered or impeded in exercising their civil rights as citizens, including the right to contribute to social change through freely expressing their opinion of state policies and of policies affecting higher education. They should not suffer any penalties simply because of the exercise of such rights.”

Dr Schröder-Turk suggested Murdoch’s policies were placing both the health and education of vulnerable students at risk.

Recently, media outlets drew attention to another example of a university cavalierly disregarding its obligation to protect freedom of thought and expression. Murdoch University has sued one of its own academics, Associate Professor Gerd Schröder-Turk, for his appearance on the ABC’s Four Corners program, when he, along with colleagues, revealed Murdoch’s practices in relation to the admission of international students.

In response, Murdoch University claims that its enrolments will fall as fewer international students apply for admission and that, as a consequence, the impact on its budget will be “in the order of millions of dollars”. In what would appear to be a breathtaking attempt to intimidate the Dr SchröderTurk, Murdoch management also claims that his ABC appearance has caused its risk rating (a measure determined by the federal government’s Department of Home Affairs) to rise, further endangering the university’s viability. This would be a remarkable feat for one individual, given that institutional risk ratings are set out by government and based on a series of complex processes that take into consideration a range of factors, such as the numbers of international students transferring to other education providers. While on the face of it, that such factors would appear to be beyond the control of Associate Professor Gerd Schröder-Turk, Murdoch University seems intent on pursuing him. Murdoch University is not alone in its contempt for the right of university workers to speak freely. Many universities have misused codes of conduct to seize opportunities to examine whether an outspoken employee can be charged with allegations of misconduct. Once such allegations are made, the university imposes on the employee draconian obligations of complete confidentiality, effectively silencing all opposition.

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A case in point is that of Peter Ridd, of James Cook University, who was told that, even though his job was in jeopardy, he could not even speak to his wife about what was happening to him. In another instance, Roz Ward of La Trobe University was silenced as the university sought to shut down criticism for fear of a ‘bad’ news cycle. Indeed, Murdoch University has resorted to legal tactics to attempt to silence NTEU speaking to its own members. Silencing critics has two aims. First, it seeks to create a ‘chilling’ environment where staff members fear to appear ‘disloyal’ and are deterred from speaking out. Second, it attempts to ensure that, in the eyes of future students, the university’s ‘brand’ remains untainted. The grand tradition of a university being free to progress ideas and society is now under threat. In an environment where funding is insecure, universities are forced to cast around for alternative sources of income, such as the Ramsay Centre, potentially at the expense of intellectual independence. Regardless of cuts to funding, university managements must not be allowed to sacrifice academic and intellectual freedom on the altar of ‘balanced’ budgets. Ironically, the intimidatory tactics increasingly adopted by university managements are not only inherently antagonistic to academic freedom of thought and discussion, they are also ham-fisted and likely to encourage, rather than silence, disaffection and anonymous complaints within universities. The NTEU will unhesitatingly support all genuine whistleblowers. Murdoch University has, of course, overreached. The wave of support for Dr Schröder-Turk will undoubtedly have a negative impact on its reputation. The university would be better served by reviewing the practices that Dr SchröderTurk complained of and immediately withdrawing its legal action against him. Alison Barnes, National President This article was printed in The Australian on 23 October 2019.

#IStandWithGerd

Clockwise from above: Dept of Applied Mathematics, ANU: “We are proud that Gerd is an Alumni of our Department” (Vince Craig); Sanna Peden, UWA Branch President; Edith Cowan University mathematicians; The Council of UnionsWA; Robert Cribb, Visiting Fellow at Murdoch who resigned over the Gerd case; Ramesh Presser, Apsara Sabaratnam & Stephen Manteit, La Trobe College; Michele O’Neil, ACTU President and Sally McManus, ACTU Secretary.

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#IStandWithGerd

Top: NTEU University of Sydney members. 2nd row (L–R): Martin Ratcliff, Murdoch; Suzanne Brown; Greens NSW Senator Mehreen Furuqi. 3rd row: Michael Hewson, CQU; Staff at Murdoch. 4th row: Cathy Rytmeister, Macquarie; Teachers Union of Ireland members. Bottom: University College Union (UK), Education Committee.

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Federal Government

‘Ensuring Integrity’ Bill ensures inequity By the time that you receive this edition of the Advocate, we may be in a position to know whether the key cross-bench Senators have supported the Federal Government’s Ensuring Integrity (EI) Bill. The Bill has been widely condemned as a blatant attack on the union movement that goes far beyond the infamous WorkChoices regime. Cloaked in rhetoric about the Bill’s purpose being the protection of union democracy, it does anything but. Freedom to associate sits at the heart of democracy and enables workers to unite and work together to promote and protect their economic and social interests. The importance of this freedom to democratic society is reflected in its status as an internationally recognised human right protected in such conventions as United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); International Labour Organisation Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention 1948 (No.87); International Labour Organisation Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention 1949 (No. 98). Even the Government-dominated Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights found that the EI Bill is incompatible with Australia’s human rights obligations, a view that is shared by The International Centre for Trade Union Rights which undertook a comparative review of

ered minor infractions, such as failing to return an expired right of entry permit or failing to lodge election reports with the Australian Electoral Commission on time. Further, a union officer can be disqualified for breaches over which they had little practical control.

the regulation of industrial organisations in countries with commensurate levels of economic and industrial development. They found that there is ‘no precedent for the degree of state interference in the functioning and establishment of trade unions in comparable industrialised liberal democracies’ and also noted that similar ‘draconian measures’ are found is some authoritarian regimes where independent trade unions are suppressed or entirely prohibited.

What does the Bill do? Amongst other things, the EI Bill expands the provisions for automatic disqualification for union officers. There are already provisions in the Registered Organisations Act that set out when an officer of a union is automatically disqualified from holding office including convictions for fraud or dishonesty and the intentional use of violence or damage or destruction of property. In addition, the Federal Court may order disqualification of a union officer who contravenes certain serious provisions of the Act. The EI Bill expands the automatic disqualification to include any offences that are punishable by a period of imprisonment of five years or more, irrespective of whether a custodial sentence was imposed and irrespective of whether it relates to their union duties. Doesn’t sound so bad, but some of the offences in this category include traffic offences, entering into a commercial surrogacy arrangement and self-administering cannabis. Court ordered disqualification is expanded to include findings against an officer related to what can only rightly be consid-

Most concerningly the existing regime allows for an application for disqualification to be made by the Registered Organisations Commissioner or the General Manager of the Fair Work Commission. In the new expanded regime, the application can be brought by any interested party including the Minister, employers and employer organisations or a business in a supply chain. Those same interested parties can apply to have a union deregistered, again on considerably expanded grounds. It is clear that the Bill gives an incentive to employers to seek out and prosecute minor technical breaches of the Fair Work Act and other relevant instruments in order to establish a pathway to disqualify effective union leaders or deregister a union, and to use that threat to enhance their bargaining power. We already have experience in NTEU of employers using court action against union leaders to put pressure on the Union and enhance their own bargaining position, we can expect that to continue and increase if this Bill is passed. And of course this is exactly what the Bill is designed for, to force unions to spend more and more money on legal defences, to tie union resources up in ever decreasing compliance circles, and ultimately to remove the effective leaders of unions that their members have elected, and to outlaw unions through deregistration. NTEU members should not feel complacent. While clearly targeted at one particular union the breadth of scope of this Bill can impact on NTEU, and when it touches one it will touch all. Gabe Gooding, National Assistant Secretary nteu.org.au/ensuring_integrity

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5 reasons Why 1.5°C is trade union business Climate change impacts all workers. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C will make a tangible difference. Here are five reasons why 1.5°C is trade union business!

Climate change impacts all workers

The impact on workers is not even

All workers are affected by climate change. This is due to extreme weather – days of extreme heat, increased frequency of deadly storms, and bushfires – as well as increases in the cost of food and essential services, the spread of disease, increased political instability, conflict, war and forced migration. The IPCC Report of October 2018 shows we have no time to lose – it is situation critical! Read the IPCC Report.

Low paid, vulnerable, informal and women workers across the AsiaPacific region are impacted the most. Climate change makes their livelihoods more precarious, erodes human rights and causes inequality to skyrocket. Research has shown that women bear the brunt of extreme weather events where housing might be destroyed – families lose their income and children suffer complex diseases. Another example is informal labourers who lose available work hours due to consecutive days of extreme heat. These low paid, casualised outdoor workers end up taking home even less of their already meagre earnings. *Climate Change and Labour: Impacts of Heat in the Workplace, ILO April 2016

3 Limiting global warming to 1.5°C will make a tangible difference for workers Scientists have made it very clear that holding global warming to 1.5°C is… ...still possible through rapidly eliminating carbon emissions from the global economy to zero before 2050 (we are currently sitting at 1°C of humancaused warming!). … the best outcome for the planet. Compared to 2°C, limiting warming to 1.5°C will greatly reduce the devastating impacts on workers’ livelihoods, biodiversity, public health and out-of-control weather events. … critical! If we push warming towards 2°C we are in dangerous territory. Feedback cycles such as the melting of the permafrost in the artic will release huge amounts of potent methane gas into the atmosphere. This will fuel warming even further to the point whereby humans can no longer make decisions to control global warming, and where warming spirals out of control with catastrophic implications to all life and eco-systems.

Neoliberalism has fuelled the climate crisis

Unions can combat dangerous global warming and build a safe, just and fair climate for all workers

Lack of action on global warming over the last 30 years has a strong correlation to the rise and imposition of neoliberalism. Instead of strong regulation and public good approaches to eliminating carbon pollution and moving towards clean economies, action by governments around the world has been eroded through the ideological imposition of privatisation of energy systems, corporate influence on governments for profit, and solutions which promote further the market. The ongoing growth in global emissions and the state of the current climate crisis is testimony to the great failure of this approach.

Unions are key leaders in the movement beyond the cruelty of neoliberalism. The climate crisis is a potent organising tool if we work effectively. Vibrant examples are emerging across the Asia-Pacific region, of unions building power through climate organising. This can be seen in India, Nepal, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. Unions are harnessing the collective power of workers to change the rules and find fair and just solutions and systems. This addresses the urgent need for decarbonisation, along with demands for a just transition, decent work, union rights, connected communities and healthy environments. Workers have a safe climate to win and unions are the vehicle for this transformation!

Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA is the global justice organisation of the Australian union movement. APHEDA works with unions and allies across the Asia-Pacificregion for climate justice, energy democracy and a just transition. You can support workers on the front-line of climate change by becoming a member of Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA: www.apheda.org.au/join

Climate Emergency

Islands under threat right now Phil Mairu, the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Officer for the NTEU in Qld and NT addressed the 2019 NTEU National Council on the climate emergency facing the islands of the Torres Strait.

Kapu Boethaynga Mura Buay (Good Morning everybody), I stand before you as a Torres Strait Island man, representing the Khoedal clan, the people of the Crocodile clan of Saibai Island, a low lying island a close distance from the shores of Papua New Guinea. Some stories about Saibai, being so close to PNG my father’s generation talks about the days when the tide was so low that you could walk across and reach the shores of PNG. Now that is not possible. My grandfather was involved with the transport of a number of families in 1943 from Saibai to the mainland on the tip of Cape York in Queensland, an agreement

made with the Mapoon people, establishing the new community today known as Seisia. Seventy-six years later, a story steeped in folklore for our people hides an even more practical and urgent message that the water was rising even back then and we couldn’t build homes on Saibai anymore, having to find shelter on the mainland of Australia. I also represent the Thupmul, Stingray clan of Badu Island in the Western Islands of the Torres Strait, my mother’s people. When I was born in the mid-seventies, the beaches and shoreline of Badu were untouched. When I left Badu in 1982 there were already large stones placed on the shoreline to indicate the high water mark. When I returned in 1988, there was a low stone wall the height of two cinder blocks that still overflowed during the king tide in summer. By 1998 the levy was replaced with a solid concrete and stone wall close to a metre high. This story is the same for other islands and some mainland coastal communities affected by rising sea levels where the sea water has been known to flow through houses at high and especially king tides. In Brisbane in more recent times, our Torres Strait elders and representatives have been working with universities and gov-

ernment departments in raising awareness of the issue. At the University of Queensland, discussions have been led by Aunty McRose Elu and the late Uncle Thomas Sebasio, who had undertaken several visits back to the Torres Strait Islands to speak with the Torres Strait Regional Authority, using rising sea levels as an issue as part of the fight for self-determination and self-governance by and of the Torres Strait Island people. There is a growing fear fuelled by inaction of successive Federal and State governments to address this very real emergency, which may result in the destruction and loss of homes, ecosystems, sacred burial and cultural heritage of our people. I ask this Council and the NTEU today to continue to support and fight for the future of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island people and communities, and use all available resources to bring awareness and create change in battling this clear threat to our islands and coastlines, as well as the island nations of our brothers and sisters in the Pacific. I bring this message to you in support of the amendment to the substantive Climate Emergency motion, and once again thank Council for giving your time to listen today. Koey Esso (Thank you very much).

Above: Phil Mairu at National Council (Paul Clifton). Left: Seawall built on Saibai Island to mitigate the effects of tidal inundation (Jane Waterhouse).

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Extinction Rebellion

Photo: Extinction Rebellion action outside Energy Australia Headquarters in Bourke Street, Melbourne, 7 October 2019 (John Englart/flickr)

Vital disobedience As a trade unionist and feminist, I see social change movements as offering a history of courage and action on which to draw. As a white Australian born on Arrernte land, living and working on Kaurna land, I understand that colonisation and dispossession have devastated the landscape and ecology of this continent as well as its people, culture and law. Indigenous activism enlarges my understanding of what courage can really mean in the face of white supremacy as a global force. Indigenous wisdom offers ways forward from the damaging traditions in which I was raised.

We need to remember our courage, and the courage of others, because we now face a climate and ecological crisis. And we face it knowing that the fights to overcome white supremacy, to achieve gender equality, to achieve the aspirations of the union movement to fair and egalitarian societies are not over. Toward the end of my 25 years as an academic, my passionate commitment to teaching was meeting a relentless, grinding wall of neoliberalisation. My workplace was facing wave after wave of industrial restructuring and redundancy. There was yelling in the tea room; ranting in the car park, and weeping in the toilets. The upheaval as global capital reorganises higher education is frightening. But I began to sit through meeting after strategic planning session after values forum after educational policy conference fearing that human societies will not last long enough for us to find out whether there will be jobs in the digital future, or what will be left of the university twenty years from now.

Mary Heath Extinction Rebellion SA

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Because this is not just the age of the third industrial revolution. It is the age of the sixth mass extinction. We are facing not just climate change but climate crisis. Not just too much plastic but ecological collapse.

I read the report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the consensus of the world’s scientists on how to keep global warming to 1.5C, and the consequences of allowing it to reach 2C. How many people will starve, counted in the millions. How many will lose their homes to rising sea levels and desertification. How much poverty and inequality will grow, with the world’s poorest and most vulnerable bearing the brunt. The IPCC report is apocalyptic and terrifying despite its technical language. Yet, it is conservative, drawing on what can confidently be known while change is occurring faster than expected. More terrifying still, the report sets out what we need to do to save millions of lives – and do it while addressing global inequality, gender equality and human rights – and none of this is happening. The longer we wait, the harder it will be and the higher the cost. We need a mobilisation economically equivalent to that required to wage war, and yet our government and many others respond as though this is unthinkable in the service of life itself. And then, late last year, Extinction Rebellion locked down central London, blockading every bridge across the Thames (yet allowing ambulances through). I saw that they had figured out how to apply civil disobedience to the problem of government inaction on climate change – and I signed up to join the Rebellion. As industrial reorganisation at my university reached for my job, the IPCC said we had 12 years of emergency level mobilisation to keep global warming to 1.5C and avert the even more unthinkable. When that report came out, I was 53. In 12 years’ time I’d be 65, the age at which I expected to retire. I felt very clear about how I wanted to spend that 12 years, and chose voluntary redundancy. In December last year three of us began to meet. Then four. Then six. Our first major organising meeting attracted 40 people. Eight months later, in Adelaide, we have over 1000 people signed up online, hundreds of people trained in non-violent civil disobedience, and have just emerged from Spring Rebellion with a vastly increased level of discussion of the climate crisis in our state and in our country – and yes, plenty still to learn. Extinction Rebellion began in the UK and is globalising quickly. We have three demands: • Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.

• Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025. [This is what is necessary to restrain global warming to 1.5C] • Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice. There are scientists (Jem Bendell is the best known) who predict that civilisation as we have known it will last less than 10 years under business as usual. Under conditions of runaway climate change, water shortages, food shortages, energy systems failing, mass migrations of climate refugees … the social systems, the jobs and the economic arrangements we have now will not be able to survive. Governments have not listened to advocacy and lobbying, science and reason for decades. Extinction Rebellion proposes that it is time to add non-violent civil disobedience into the tools being used to persuade governments into action on climate. Drawing on social movement research (Chenoweth; Engler and Engler) we aim to mobilise 3.5 per cent of the population. As I write, Extinction Rebellion protests have caused so much disruption in London they have been banned and Amnesty International is defending the right to protest. There can be no secure jobs, no safe workplaces, unless we can address climate crisis. As anti-racists, feminists and unionists, we know that the most vulnerable and the poorest of the world will suffer most brutally under climate and ecological collapse. If we, the people, do not force governments to act, by default we will be leaving the future of every species on earth, our own included, in the hands of corporations. Capital has no heart. It sacrifices lives, rights and livelihoods without a backward glance. And the fossil fuel industry has bought many of our elected representatives. Will we succeed? I don’t know. But don’t stand by waiting to see, or join the chorus of critics who say we’re not doing the right thing in the right way. Join the rebellion and improve the chances of success. Help us sharpen up our act. Or join another organisation whose approach is a better fit with your own views and hope that a wave of non-violent civil disobedience will help finally get traction for science based policy at every level. The record of massive, persistent non-violent civil disobedience is positive, but mobilising 3.5 per cent of the population is a big job. We need scientists, researchers, educators, accountants, people who can make phone calls and enter data and do social media. Who can hand out

leaflets and build props and smile warmly. We need people who are prepared to be counted; to be arrested; to contribute skills and insight and time. Every human now alive has the opportunity to make a difference to the future in a way that has never been possible before. As unionists and participants in the huge, diverse teams necessary to build the profound social good that is education, we know that responding to climate and ecological crisis is not a project for individuals. We’ve done all that recycling and make-do-and-mend. We use our keep cups and we worry about air travel and we compost. We’ve done the petitions and written to our MPs. Only collective action can move this situation forward at the necessary pace. Extinction Rebellion is drawing on the history of successful social change movements that have changed government policy (suffrage, civil rights), ended dictatorships; ended colonisation (India). Here in Australia, movements that placed Indigenous connection to land, and centuries of Indigenous resistance at their heart have succeeded: the Franklin; Jabiluka; the Bentley Blockade; the Irati Wanti campaign against nuclear waste dumping near Coober Pedy. But as unionists we know civil disobedience is also the ground of the union movement: strikes, pickets, work to rule and other tactics of the union movement are part of this same tradition. So when we are fishing around trying to find our courage in the face of climate crisis, we need to build on our forebears and fellow activists. Indigenous peoples all over the world resisting colonisation and defending earth, water, sovereignty and wildlife. All those resisting slavery, dictatorship and white supremacy globally. Women who would not accept being shut out of parliament or the vote, higher education, the trades or the professions. Workers taking action for the right to unionise, fair pay, limited working hours and safe conditions. The Extinction Rebellion Declaration of Rebellion states: We act in peace, with ferocious love of these lands in our hearts. We act on behalf of life. Do not hesitate to join the Rebellion. We need people just like you. People committed to making the future a better place. People who realise we are in this together. Passionate people. Organisers. Activists. Join us. Mary Heath is a member of Extinction Rebellion SA and a retired NTEU member. xrsa.com.au

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Climate Emergency

SchoolStrike4Climate NTEU, alongside the Australian Education Union (AEU) and Independent Education Union (IEU) declared our support for the School Strike 4 Climate in September.

The AEU, IEU and NTEU support for the School Strike 4 Climate and Australian school students in their fight for environmental justice and action on the climate emergency. Together we represent more than 200,000 members working in the education sector. As teachers and educators we bear witness to the will, determination and passion alive in our students in their fight for action on climate change on a daily basis. Education is all about paying attention to the facts. Australia’s school children along with students across the globe are calling on the Australian government to do the same.

It’s time for Australian state and federal governments to take action to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions and create the policy frameworks for a just transition away from fossil fuels for workers in carbon-intensive industries and their communities. That is why our unions are supporting the Student Strike 4 Climate marches and the students involved in all their endeavours

The evidence is overwhelming and unequivocal on the science of human-induced climate change. Australia should be leading by example and taking action to prevent the climate catastrophe instead of ignoring this existential threat in the hope it will go away. Our leaders must accept climate change is already impacting upon Australia, our Pacific region and the global community. Ignoring this problem will guarantee more severe and frequent weather events, including bushfires, storms and rising sea levels and temperatures. Our governments must also accept the climate catastrophe will also have disproportionate effects on working people and disadvantaged communities. The coming climate catastrophe will create a very grim reality for our children and future generations unless we act now and take steps to limit its impact by reducing carbon emissions to net-zero.

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on Friday 20 September, where it is safe and appropriate to do so. It’s time to listen to the wisdom of our children and to stand with them in this fight. It’s time for action.

Above: NTEU members and students from ANU marching in Canberra (Lachlan Clohesy); Chloe Gaul at the Melbourne SS4C march (Toby Cotton).

Climate Emergency

Images, clockwise from top: National President Alison Barnes (left) and NSW Asst Secretary Damien Cahill (right) with kids at the Sydney march (N Clark); Burning in Brisbane (Mike Oliver); Members at the Melbourne march (Toby Cotton); Morrison’s Climate Shame, Brisbane (Mike Oliver); Thinking of the Muggles in Wollongong (Martin Cubby). NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 25

Australian Universities’ Review

Why not publish in YOUR journal? Publishing a scholarly journal is something that many learned societies and other organisations do. NTEU is the publisher of the Australian Universities’ Review (AUR), now into its sixty-first year as a higher education journal. Benefits of choosing AUR When selecting a scholarly journal to publish in, authors are conscious of a range of factors that make one journal preferable to another. One of these factors is journal reach. NTEU can also be proud of the reach of its journal: the hard copy version is provided gratis to NTEU members (on an opt-in basis), and we circulate about 4,000 per issue in hard copy and over 10,000 via e-delivery. For non-members there is a small subscription fee, but AUR is available for free download from the AUR website. This is an advantage AUR has over many other journals. You may be aware that around half of journals are published by the ‘big five’ of commercial journal publishers: Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis-Routledge, and Sage. In fact, commercial publishers started acquiring journal titles from not-for-profit academic societies last century, so many journals progressively became quite expensive to purchase. Not AUR – it is independent in all ways, and part of the NTEU service.

papers that are ‘different’. Although we mainly publish scholarly papers that have been blind-peer-reviewed, we also publish shorter opinion pieces. This is because we acknowledge that not every set of learned thoughts needs to go through the full-blown blind peer review process. We also value book reviews and writing one of these can be a way for novices and experts alike to provide their thoughts to their colleagues.

What’s in the current issue This is probably a good juncture at which to comment on vol. 61, no. 2, our current issue, which comprises six scholarly refereed papers, four opinion pieces, and seven reviews of recently-published books. All in all, this issue provides an excellent example of the variety provided by your journal. Understandably, people seeking asylum in Australia face considerable barriers in accessing higher education. Scholars Lisa K. Hartley, Sally Baker, Caroline Fleay and Rachel Burke found six major themes from an examination of the ‘lived experience’. This paper could provide good advice to the right-wing fundamentalists that run our current government. Want to know about honours degrees at Australian universities? Louise Horstmanshof & Bill Boyd of Southern Cross University help to fill in the gaps with their explanation of what’s what.

Another variable in selecting a journal to publish in is whether it is listed in databases such as Scopus. If you’d asked six months ago, I would have had to tell you that AUR was not listed by Scopus, but we are now, after a long process.

Academic performance and academic workloads are foremost in the minds of many university staff. John Kenny and Andrew Fluck report on an examination of management of academic performance and workload. Let us hope that one day university managements work out something that allows all students to receive the research-based teaching that they pay for! Meanwhile, Kerry Dally and her colleagues from the University of Newcastle tell us about responding to examiner feedback by doctoral students. It’s not as easy as you might think!

Yet another variable might be: what type of material does the journal publish? AUR publishes widely across further and higher education, and we are happy to consider

The adage that even old dogs can learn new tricks was shown to be more than a truism was proved to me by Kim Osman and Stuart Cunningham. They introduced

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me to ‘amplifier platforms’. I have been reading The Conversation daily for several years without realising that it was such a platform. Watch this space for more on this topic. Much university teaching is ‘service teaching’: teaching to students by departments other than those offering the program being undertaken by students. They comment on a little-explored area of the perceptions of service teachers. In the Opinion section of this issue is a paper about the benefits of the Ramsay Centre to Australian higher education, and a rejoinder that points out that such deals are not all beer and skittles. There is an Aotearoa/New Zealand perspective on an earlier piece published on neoliberalism and universities, and finally, a piece about the ‘quiet scuttling’ of the Australian Government’s well-regarded Endeavour Leadership Program in April 2019. This issue finishes with several book reviews on recently-published works. Book reviews by Natasha Abrahams, Thomas Klikauer, Neil Mudford, Andrys Onsman, and Kate White will help you see what you should be reading. Please consider preparing a book review for AUR yourself. AUR is YOUR journal. It is not an ‘only-for-academics’ journal. Staff who do not hold academic positions also publish in AUR. Please support it! Ian R Dobson is Editor of Australian Universities’ Review, and an Adjunct member of the Professional Staff at Monash University, Australia. www.aur.org.au

Hong Kong

NTEU support for Hong Kong unionists In October, Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) General Secretary, Lee Cheukyan, gave a stirring and emotional speech via video link to NTEU National Council. Council was greatly moved by his words, giving him an extended standing ovation and passing the following motion unanimously. “National Council condemns the ongoing violations of basic human rights during the protests occurring in Hong Kong. NTEU stands in solidarity with our comrades of the HKCTU and supports their demands for the Hong Kong Government to uphold freedom of assembly and free speech, for the release of arrested protesters, and an independent inquiry into human rights abuses by police. NTEU condemns violence and intimidation and stands with those seeking to protect freedom of expression and freedom of assembly whether that be in Hong Kong or on campuses. Critical debate on campuses and in the broader community is a vital component of civil society. NTEU is concerned at the influence that is being exerted on Australian campuses by external funders including government, non-government, and commercial entities, whether foreign or domestic. As a vital component of a free and open society Universities must jealously guard their institutional independence and not compromise the core principles of institutional autonomy and academic and intellectual freedom.”

Top: Council applauds Lee Cheuk-yan. Middle: Anti-extradition rally in Hong Kong, June 2019 (Etan Liam/flickr) Below: An emotional Mr Lee, via video link, thanking NTEU National Council for its support. NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 27

Why the Hong Kong protests matter to unionists (Hint, it’s not only because we care about solidarity)

Photo: Anti-extradition rally in Hong Kong, 16 June 2019 (Etan Liam/flickr)

The Hong Kong protests are an unparalleled democratic explosion – touching young and old, worker and student. The stakes are high. Since 18 August 2019 almost every protest has been banned. Now with a partial state of emergency in place – face masks are banned, the MTR train system rarely runs outside of business hours imposing a kind of curfew – we are watching our neighbour slide into a place of crisis. There are a bunch of lessons for Australian unionists, I’ve identified five.

Amanda Tattersall University of Sydney

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Democracy is union business Hong Kong’s unions are at the centre of this battle. Only a few weeks ago Lee Chuek-yan, the General Secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) spoke at the NTEU National Council (see report, p. 23). A few weeks before, on 1 October, he led a banned rally on the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. This is not new. For decades there has been an intimate relationship between the democracy movement and the union movement in Hong Kong. I interviewed Lee Chuek-yan in Hong Kong in July and he explained that he joined the struggle for democracy in the early 1980s as a consequence of his battles for wage rises and recognition of garment workers. He said: As a Labour organiser we of course are also into the democracy movement in Hong Kong. Workers of course need representation and need to have democratic rights to change and improve our conditions and to fight for social justice. So very naturally we are also part of the democracy movement in Hong Kong.

Unions need a sword of justice The Hong Kong Protesters remind us that unions carry a sword of justice into the political battles of our time. Hong Kong is staging a modern version of an ancient battle for representation by the people. In our day to day bargaining fights, we sometimes forget this big picture – our smaller battles are only possible because of big rights. It’s a lesson appropriate for now. Australia is facing a slide into a weak populism. We might not have the extremism of Trump or the confusion of Brexit, nor the protoauthoritarian tendencies of Brazil, the Philippines or Russia – but like the rest of the world our democracy is in trouble. In moments like this narrowcasting the union role to technocratic issues doesn’t cut it. Hong Kong’s unions are casting a big shadow onto the politics of their place. It is an invitation to us all. We don’t just need to Change the Rules but recast the vision for where we need to be as a nation. How do we confront climate change? How do we transition our economy? How do we stand with the most vulnerable – whether they are low wage workers or refugees abandoned on Pacific Islands? And how can we do all of this as a big target.

Big targets work The Hong Kong unions have always been at the centre of the toughest of battles, taking mighty political risks to make change. In 1989, Lee Chuek-yan ran to the centre of the Tiananmen Square battle before the crisis. He was chosen to go to Beijing, and was there with the students when tanks arrived and students were shot. When leaving with other students he was dragged off a plane and detained by the Peoples’ Liberation Army. He was eventually released (for the whole story listen to ChangeMakers Podcast, ep. 22). At no point was he exercising measure, messaging testing his ideas. Like Sally McManus when she said that it’s okay to break bad laws – Lee Chuek-yan displayed his values – and he has been rewarded as a trusted leader in the city.

Imaginative protest Protest works when it’s full of change and imagination. Hong Kongers have

done big protests – like ours – for many decades. Since Tiananmen there have repeatedly been 500,000 and 1 million demonstrations. In Umbrella they occupied three sites for 79 days, using mass civil disobedience for the first time. But with increasing levels of Beijing interference in Hong Kong, the 2019 protests needed to take on a new flavour. Protests launched with two wings – the traditional big protest marches (two, million person marches) and then another more militant wing – the braves – who wore helmets, goggles, black clothes and held umbrellas to defend their right to the street. It was the braves that got the first reaction from Chief Executive Carrie Lam after they shut down the Legislative Council on 12 June, not the peacefuls. Without question the movement needed these two wings to be powerful (for more: theconversation.com/the-hong-kong-protesters-have-turned-militant-and-more-strategic-and-this-unnerves-beijing-121106). Then the braves developed the ‘be water’ approach. It was a reaction to the fixed assemblies of 2014. Be water was about moving – flowing across the city into districts and also forming protests then fading away – to avoid police action and arrest. They flowed to the airport to get more international attention, moved across the city in protests that popped up in different locations on the same night. In a place where excessive police force was a major concern they were able to out gun them – the police were unable to keep up with them.

How movements working together The 2014 Umbrella movement was a big fight. There was a single coordinating coalition involving students, older pan-Democrats, convened by Lee Chuek-yan. In his words: It was frustrating. You know it’s very difficult to come up with a consensus on what to do next except to let the thing drag. It’s not really very easy. And then everyone is doing their own thing and

without them. Really it’s very difficult to talk about the overall strategy. In the 2019 movement, groups made a decision to not ‘direct’ others. The peacefuls would not tell the ‘braves’ what to do and visa versa. It hasn’t been easy and there are some frustrations. But leaders made a decision to respect each others places. The thinking was that if a strategy was bad, it wouldn’t attract energy – it didn’t need someone to publicly condemn it. Despite massive efforts by the pro-Beijing media and politicians, leaders didn’t budge from this stance. While in the past public condemnation of other protesters led to movements splitting, that has not happened here. This is a lesson for Australia. There is much free advice given by civil society leaders to each other, often through the press. Look at the recent discussions about Extinction Rebellion in The Guardian where some older environmental leaders criticised the work of the new Extinction Rebellion project (while others were supportive). Unions frequently receive negative criticism too from others in civil society. The Hong Kong approach is fresh. The application of it isn’t necessarily to never have an opinion about other’s action – but to be much more mindful about what is said and where it is said. Hong Kong needs our support to expand democracy as the city slides into the abandonment of basic freedoms. It also needs our attention, because how they have protested has many subtle lessons that can teach us a lot about how to advance our own movement. Amanda Tattersall is an NTEU member at the University of Sydney. She researches social change in cities like Hong Kong and hosts the ChangeMakers podcast that has covered several stories on Hong Kong (ep. 12, 22 & 23): changemakerspodcast.org

Below: Anti-mask ban rally in Hong Kong, 6 Oct 2019 (Etan Liam/flickr)

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Photo: Mugabe attending a student graduation ceremony at Zimbabwe Open University in November 2017, days after his house arrest.

Zimbabwe after Mugabe David Dzatsunga, President of the College Lecturers Association of Zimbabwe (COLAZ), was scheduled to appear at the 2019 NTEU National Council in Melbourne in October. However, visa complications at the last minute resulted in his inability to attend. This article is the speech he was planning to give to Council.

Colleague delegates to the NTEU National Council, I sent you fraternal greetings from the College Lecturers Association of Zimbabwe (COLAZ). COLAZ is an all-weather friend of the NTEU to whom we are thankful for having assisted our young union with solidarity support including legal assistance with the writing of our Constitution. As NTEU, you have embraced COLAZ and have supported our struggles for trade union rights in Zimbabwe, indeed together with other unions of academics in our Education International (EI) family. Your financial, technical and moral help, has enabled us to withstand the insurmountable challenges we face organising our members in Zimbabwe. I wish colleague delegates for you to know that Zimbabwe ranks amongst the top ten most dangerous countries to work as a unionist. It is for that reason that I wish to share with you our experiences of organising under the late Robert Mugabe regime.

Death of Mugabe David Dzatsunga President, COLAZ

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This Council comes on the heels of the death of Robert Mugabe, the founding President of the Republic of Zimbabwe

internationally recognised as a once left learning democrat who gradually morphed into a tin-pot dictator, presiding over a ferocious system of oppression characterised by cronyism, patronage, impunity, corruption, homophobia and a personality cult. While he was famous for his blustering leftist rhetoric at international fora such as the United Nations, domestically, he was trembling over the rights of his own people upon whom he unleashed all available repressive instruments to the extent that Zimbabweans joked that there was a spook in every pot. His picture hung in every public building and it was known that freedom of speech did not always lead to freedom after speech. Robert Mugabe’s death provides us with a teachable moment as unions that operate in the further and higher education sector where our major goal is to advance the provision of affordable quality public education. To his credit, Robert Mugabe in the early years of his presidency is remembered for having invested into a massive expansion of public education for the majority black population who had hitherto been largely denied the same under colonial rule.

Public education in Zimbabwe Today, Zimbabwe has one of the highest literacy and numeracy rate on the continent. At Independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had only one university but now has fourteen state universities. This has led many to crown him a champion of public education, except that there were many failings in the democratisation of the governance of these public institutions, impacting negatively on academic freedom and other associated rights. All state universities in Zimbabwe were headed by Vice-Chancellors appointed by the President who was thus the Chancellor of all the institutions. Predictably, these heads of institutions had to meet a certain level of political correctness to be appointed by him. In short, they had to be unashamed supporters of the ruling party amenable to taking instructions from politicians.

Role of COLAZ University lecturers in Zimbabwe do not have a national union to this day. Instead they have university-based committees and do not engage in collective bargaining with the Government. All they do is consultation and although they sometimes engage in collective job action, they do not have the cohesion required to face a sophisticated state machinery. COLAZ organises in teachers’ colleges, polytechnics, industrial and vocational training centres. Lecturers in these institutions, a third of whom are members of COLAZ do not enjoy trade union rights as enshrined in ILO Conventions 87 and 98. Instead our union partakes in a bipartite consultative process in which both sides must declare a deadlock to go for arbitration. Invariably, the Government never declares a deadlock and since workers do not enjoy the right to strike, this has had an effect on wages which are decidedly well below international averages.

Zimbabwean universities thus became celebrated high schools with little to no meaningful innovation and research taking place. Student activism was systematically repressed with student leaders being arrested on a whim.

Let me hasten to say, in spite of the above, COLAZ did engage in collective job action way back in 2011 mainly to press for better wages. The job action solicited a disproportionate response from the authorities, characterised by suspensions, wholesale transfers of union leadership, including the Union President, hefty fines against the general membership for participating in the job action. It was akin to killing a fly with a sledge hammer.

Attempts to seek remedy through the labour court were futile because all the judgements in our favour were simply defied. The Government took advantage of the fact that the labour court does not to have the power to enforce its own verdicts.

International solidarity To push back on the union bashing, COLAZ leveraged international solidarity through Education International (EI). This Council is an opportunity for us to thank you for coming to our aid during a time we were facing the worst excesses of the Robert Mugabe regime. NTEU, together with other EI member unions, put together a fund to build COLAZ’s capacity to fight back. Through that support, we have been able to enjoy some victories, chief among them the removal of some public officials who were responsible for our victimisation, principally the then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education. We have witnessed a sharp decline in the victimisation of our members as well as a greater democratisation of our sector. Although we do not enjoy collective bargaining rights yet, we are now at an advanced stage of talks with Government towards the realisation of those rights. As we congratulate you for holding this Council, we urge you to make resolutions that will strengthen our international solidarity. It is the best weapon we have against the growing wave of right-wing populism we are witnessing throughout the world today. We need to create a bastion against global neoliberalism through cooperation for justice, for peace, for decent work, for decent pay and for the love of our common humanity. Diversity is our strength and we should fight against the building of walls to separate us from ourselves. Our unions should take the lead in calling out racism, bigotry, sexism, misogyny and defend the right to quality public education. Solidarity for ever. Thank you.

In one infamous instance, one of the Vice-Chancellors is alleged to have personally conferred a PhD on Mugabe’s wife without her having actually done any research. Such was the culture of fear in institutions of higher learning that professors and most academics chose an “I don’t care as long as I get paid” attitude. Zimbabwean universities thus became celebrated high schools with little to no meaningful innovation and research taking place. Student activism was systematically repressed with student leaders being arrested on a whim. Many fled the country into what has become a very large Zimbabwe diaspora.

Right: COLAZ Congress Delegates, 2016 (COLAZ/Facebook) NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 31

News from the Net Pat Wright

Surveillance technology vs democracy The part played by surveillance technology in the Coalition’s surprisingly successful 2019 Federal Election campaign has yet to be revealed, and it might never be, such is the potential of this closelyguarded secret. Earlier State election campaigns by the Liberals have used surveillance technology to some extent, and the lessons learnt might well have been applied in their 2019 campaign. The most comprehensive survey of the history and uses of surveillance technology is a March 2018 post by Melanie McCartney on her Political Omniscience blog (later published as a Mel Mac article on the Australian Independent Media Network, theaimn.com). The article traces the evolution of surveillance companies who collect and sell details of our personal lives, originally to military intelligence agencies, then to consumer product advertisers, and on to police forces for the prediction and profiling of crimes, and ultimately to political campaigners, and national governments, such as that of China, for surveillance of dissidents. Along that evolutionary path, the capacity and scope of the personal details analysed by these companies has grown exponentially, and they are now known as social media companies – the greatest Orwellian whitewash of nomenclature since the War Department became the Department of Defence, according to Edward Snowden. And the people who provide the personal details for these vast treasure-troves of data do so inadvertently – and for free! The first of these digital surveillance technology companies was Palantir, named after the ‘far-seeing’ stone in the Lord of the Rings, co-founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, who provided the seed money for Facebook in 2004 and joined Facebook’s board. In 2005, the CIA’s venture arm, In-Q-Tel, became an investor in Palantir to test their data-mining software predicting the likelihood of terror attacks. By 2012, Palantir was secretly using the population of New Orleans to test its predictive crime technology and offered its services for free to the New Orleans Police Department.

Although there is no clear evidence of Palantir’s technology reducing crime in New Orleans, Palantir succeeded in winning contracts with several other government agencies, including in Australia. In 2017, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and its partner agencies, such as AFP, ATO, Dept of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP), and Dept of Human Services (DHR), signed a $7.5m contract with Palantir to use their Fusion software through to June 2021. Of course, DIBP has since been subsumed into the new Dept of Home Affairs (DHA) under Minister Dutton, and now includes intelligence agencies, such as ASIO. DHA is now a huge data collection hub akin to Palantir itself and its capabilities are being expanded with facial recognition technology, China-style, legitimated by the Identity-matching Services Bill and the Australian Passports Amendment Bill, both introduced in February 2018. The Fusion software allows continuing exponential growth of the information hub with anything that can be digitised – print, talk, image, movie, etc. – and identity-matched to provide a comprehensive profile. Every future call, contact or interaction with a DHA agency could be added to your profile. Whence privacy? On the other hand, such surveillance technology might well have played a part in the apparently highly successful police raids and arrests of terrorism suspects in multiple locations around Australia in recent years. Meanwhile, the use of surveillance technology for electoral purposes made a quantum leap in 2009, with Michael Palmer’s creation of i360 and in 2011 when the billionaire Republican Koch brothers merged it with their Freedom Partners non-profit so that it would not be subject to reporting donations. i360 began as a database to help Republican campaigning in response to Obama’s successful use of data-mining during his 2008 campaign, but Koch funding allowed it to develop an associated suite of analytical and predictive tools to work in parallel with Google Ads and Facebook, and a mobile app version to work on smartphones while campaigning in the field. During this development period, an employee of Palantir gave Cambridge Analytica the idea of using an app to data-mine Facebook and categorise the unwitting providers into one of the five personality types developed at Cambridge University. This

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helped campaign teams to write five scripts to frame, construct and express opinions on a political issue which would be most persuasive to each of the personality types. The campaign’s advertisements, push-polling phone calls, and door-knocking spiels could thus be targeted to best effect. The Koch brothers have a global reach in their fossil fuels empire, and thus an interest in supporting like-minded political parties around the world, including in Australia. In 2016, the SA Libs started paying $25,000 per month for i360 software and worked with the vendors to customise it for Australia’s compulsory and preferential voting. In 2017, they began feeding it local data and training locals in its use in the lead up to the March 2018 State election. Some credit i360 with the Libs’ win, though the State electoral boundaries probably had at least as much influence. The Vic Libs are said to have used i360, but their defeat later in 2018 may or may not have anything to do with the software, or the skills and effort with which it was used. It is not yet known whether the Fed Libs used it in the 2019 election, but they would certainly have used their Feedback database, which is comparable to, and compatible with, i360, and has the great advantage of being a product of Parakeelia Pty Ltd, which is owned by the Liberal Party. The Labor Party has a similar arrangement with the Magenta Linas company for their Campaign Central database, but Labor does not own the company. Parakeelia has also made major transfers of money to its owners, the Liberal Party: $12,100 in 2010, rising to $915,000 in 2016. So, the cost/ benefit case for i360 probably doesn’t stack up for the Federal Libs, particularly if they don’t have the skilled campaigners and doorknockers to make full use of the data made available for the face-to-face, wordof-mouth contact. It is noteworthy that the votes cast on polling day favoured Labor, but they were overwhelmed by the pre-poll voters, many of whom just wanted out of the whole thing. Data collated and analysed by i360 and/ or the Feedback or Command Central databases is presented on the NationBuilder platform used by both major parties, and some Greens, all greatly assisted by political parties and their volunteers being exempt from Australian privacy laws. NationBuilder was used by the Trump campaign and both sides of the Brexit referendum. Pat Wright is an NTEU Life Member. patrite@me.com

From the Immediate Past President Jeannie Rea

Universities failing on the wicked problems I have the privilege of teaching young adults many of whom have come to Australia for postgraduate studies because they want to contribute to making real change in their communities for equality, and economic and environmental sustainability. They come from many countries and circumstances, but have similar concerns. They identify the same range of wicked problems cited by other young people in scholarly research and popular surveys around the world – lack of action on climate change; the growing inequality gap; insecurity, conflict and displacement; and intolerance towards difference and diversity specifically in the face of the rising popularity of religious, fanatical, despotic leaders and movements. They are both anxious, and determined to make change. The question I keep asking myself is whether we, in our universities, are much help. Are we challenging and open to being challenged, or are we too invested in the status quo of ‘being university’? And more particularly, how well positioned are public universities in responding to the pressures of massification in fulfilling our missions of acting for the public good? We have, in Australia, the critical advantages of a system of public universities established under state government legislation, largely funded by the national government (and the students) and regulated on a national basis. So we can make systemic change. But a core impediment to authentic transformative change is that successive governments will not fund public universities adequately whilst still expecting us to teach, research and engage with our communities more and more. Instead, they want the students to pay more. Our public universities are secular. We do not have students channelled into religious institutions, and they have always been co-educational (if not always welcoming to women). The most

successful method of exclusion has been on class and opportunity to complete secondary schooling and qualify for entrance to post-secondary education. So, for example, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander children were effectively excluded from university because they were not even welcome at school. This was why the Whitlam Government’s package of reforms in the 1970s were critical: the abolition of fees, living allowance scheme, many more places, second chance programs and TAFE. And why all these years later it is so tragic that we have lost that momentum. Fortunately we have prevented our public universities being undermined by subsidised private providers – as happened to our world leading TAFE system. In other countries, from Chile to The Philippines, we are seeing the destruction of public university systems as private profiteers eat into all levels of education. The outcome has been highly regarded public universities taken over the rich and privileged leaving the rest to fumble around trying to get a decent education in a commercialised and deregulated tertiary education; or public universities failing into disrepair while the rich and privileged invest in their children’s education overseas. Supporting and strengthening public tertiary education should be priority of international assistance. However, both government and NGOs are aligning themselves with, and propping up private education and training providers. Whilst it is sometimes easier to work with an NGO provider than to deal with a government, to do so maybe at the cost of strengthening public education. But, in our public institutions, we are seeing the undermining of democracy in education at all levels. Educators and professional staff have less and less control over their work, and trade unions are under continual attack. Students effectively have no say. Universities engage in obsequious pandering to the government of the day, even for little return. Across the world, the situations is even more serious, for example in Turkey where, over recent years, university administrations and governing bodies have been complicit with government demands to suspend and sack mildly critical staff, whilst encouraging students to spy on and denounce staff, and have acquiesced to direct government interference in research grant allocation.

Students around the world are rising up to protest their universities complicity in investing in research with climate vandals and conflict profiteers. Some students are making direct connections between what they are being taught and the world outside. In Chile, a precursor to the massive recent mobilisations, just a few years ago bare breasted women students rallied against the culture of machismo and male violence – in the context of the protesting their conservative education that reinforced the sexist, racist and religious status quo. People, though, want access to university education for the individual and collective benefits. However, students, staff and communities are largely passive in accepting what then the university dishes up. While we are much focused upon ‘customer satisfaction’, I am yet to see the survey and rankings on the question: “How do you think your university education has prepared you to manage and challenge the wicked problems of today?” There is no lack of challenging teaching and research and engagement going on in universities around the world. But are we too focussed upon preserving and conserving what we know has worked, for a good many in many places and times? We are not preparing students to deal with the wicked problems. Sure we have terrific education and training in specialised areas, but have we dwelt in disciplinary and even interdisciplinary spaces for too long? Have we relied upon our ways of ‘peer review’, of hierarchies of knowledge and esteem, of scholarly publication and other markers of the academy for too long? Only a few students will go on to become scholars, so why do we still largely organise for this few? The methods of the modern university are now a couple of centuries old – and the university as a site of learning and depositing of knowledge in manuscripts is medieval. Opening the doors to more diverse populations has brought the universities more invested supporters and advocates. But what and for whom are we advocating and supporting? Universities are expected to find the answers to the wicked problems. Our public universities have a duty to do so – for the public good. Can we? Jeannie Rea was NTEU National President from 2010 to 2018.

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The Thesis Whisperer Inger Mewburn

Does good academic citizenship really matter? This week, Dr Emily Fine tweeted: ‘I wish it was acceptable in CVs or cover letters to mention all the things that would make me a good colleague. Things like “always replaces printer paper” & “regularly refills electric stapler.” “Sticks to time on conference panels” etc, etc. I’m very responsible. Hire me.’

I’ve written elsewhere about how the university is like a bad boyfriend, and the truth of that statement came home with brutal certainty this week. People with a history of good citizenship did not survive the cut. Loving your colleagues and loving the work is no guarantee that the university will love you back.

Dr Fine’s tweet made me laugh - and think about my ideas about good university citizenship. Replacing printer paper is high on my list, along with regularly putting money in the teabag fund and not heating up left over fish pie in the microwave during the summer. I also appreciate a colleague who turns up to a meeting on time, edits the paper within a given timeframe and responds to an email within a couple of weeks (I’m not too fussy on the email thing though – I get it, we’re all busy).

Coincidently, to hammer home the misery, my son is reading Orwell’s Nineteen EightyFour for a school assignment. In the car on the weekend, he reminded me of the concept of ‘doublethink’. Doublethink is the art of holding two contradictory ideas in mind while not feeling any cognitive dissonance (a feeling of discomfort or anxiety).

But I do wonder sometimes: does good academic citizenship really matter? This question is particularly poignant this week, as the latest academic restructure rolled through our building. People started to leave for new opportunities – or be made redundant and be forced to start anew. I’ve been to more than the usual number of tearful farewells, which were a reminder of the human cost of re-ordering boxes on an org chart.

It’s really hard, at times like this, not to slide into dejected cynicism and decide there is no point in being a good citizen at all.

Loving your colleagues and loving the work is no guarantee that the university will love you back.

In Orwell’s novel, doublethink was a powerful form of self- discipline; enabling people to do unspeakable acts in the service of the totalitarian regime while justifying their actions through a belief in their own propaganda. Crucial to the idea of doublethink was the ability to forget: “what was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again”. The conversation with my son made me realise I fall into doublethink about the university system all the time. I can believe that academic citizenship matters and that the university system is a bad boyfriend,

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at the same time, without thinking about how these beliefs might be conflict... Until a restructure forces me to confront the truth. During a restructuring process, it becomes clear – again – that I work within a system which is fundamentally heartless and does not reward good citizenship. To be clear: this is not a criticism of my university or individual managers, who are often just doing their best with a shitty situation. Years of government policy have made our universities into corporate entities exposed to the cruel winds of financial misfortune, not collegial communities who pull together to defend each other. Even our unions are largely toothless in these circumstances; successive governments have eroded the basis of solidarity by severely limiting the right to strike. Avoiding doublethink involves pain: dwelling in the cognitive dissonance rather than embracing the comfort of forgetfulness is hard, but important. While I question the value of academic citizenship to position and progress in academia, I hold fast to it in terms of my sense of ethics – the way I want to live and be in the world. In my mind, Dr Fine is correct that every day, mundane actions of consideration are important. I know these things will not help me avoid becoming redundant, or further my career, but they will help me sleep better at night. Filling the photocopier with paper means other people are not inconvenienced; sticking to time on a conference panel means you give other people the space to speak and share their knowledge. And please: don’t heat up fish pie in the microwave in summer! Dr Inger Mewburn does research on research and blogs about it. www.thesiswhisperer.com

M@thesiswhisperer

Lowering the Boom Ian Lowe

Tam U is reaching for the gods Yes, it is that time of the year again, but given the new mood of limiting needless carbon emissions, with Extinction Rebellion blocking the streets and demanding action, I used Skype for my annual chat with the irrepressible Cal D’Aria. As regular readers will know, Cal has only taken a decade to transform the former Tamworth Hairdressing College into the dynamic and internationally regarded Tam U. He has risen without trace from being the director of the college to the exalted position of Vice-chancellor, President and Supreme Beloved Leader of his feisty little university. Many of its innovations have been enthusiastically adopted by older universities: four-week modules instead of year-long or semester-long courses, most of the teaching done by casuals with no facilities or support, a mission statement dripping with management jargon, branches in town-centre shopping malls, cinema advertisements, sponsoring of local football teams and replacement of the elected council with a small group of reliable supporters. Cal was disappointed that I had caved in to the scientists who are warning about climate change and urged me to trust my instincts rather than listen to experts. “You can’t trust experts, Ian”, he warned. “They said heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible and that nuclear power was so cheap we wouldn’t need electricity meters!” Cal had gathered together his trusted advisors for the Skype call: Dr Sabe de Todo, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Dr Ongo, PVC (Administration) and the Head of Marketing, Prof. Ateer. He told me they had been brainstorming his latest idea while waiting for the unreliable Telstra network to connect us. “We’ve

been struggling with needless red tape by calling ourselves a university”, he said. “We started the move away by adopting a new web site, tamu.com”, he said. “That old edu.au approach was turning off the sort of students we want to attract.” His new idea is much more radical. “I got the insight watching the Morrison Government’s Attorney-General selling his new law to allow religious organisations to discriminate”, Cal said. “What a great idea! We’ve got into all sorts of trouble, wanting to get rid of lecturers who believe in old-fashioned ideas like academic freedom and that small group of difficult students who believe they should be allowed to think critically instead of just parroting what our staff have told them. If we call ourselves a religion, all those problems will be solved. We’ll be able to do what we like!”, he exalted.

“What a great idea! We’ve got into all sorts of trouble, wanting to get rid of lecturers who believe in old-fashioned ideas like academic freedom ... If we call ourselves a religion, all those problems will be solved. We’ll be able to do what we like!”

But surely you can’t call yourselves a church, I countered? That won’t pass the pub test! Where are your sacred texts or ancient rituals? “No need for that sort of nineteenth century hangover”, Cal replied. “The happy clappies don’t worry about that, and in any case Porter’s law is so wide it can be applied to mosques, synagogues or ten blokes meeting in a disused shearing shed. We are going to call ourselves Tamsong!” I was breathless with admiration at Cal’s latest shaft of insight. He told me he thought it was a stroke of genius to have the idea sold by “Christian” Porter. “He never would have got away with it if he didn’t have that stage name”, Cal claimed. I tried to explain to him that Christian was the Attorney-General’s real name, but Cal was on a roll.

entitled to just get rid of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to whatever I say is a tenant of our religion! And like those happy clappies, I will be able to make it up as I go along. Every weekend, a new bunch of principles, carefully phrased to get rid of any trouble-makers. If Murdoch Uni followed our lead, they wouldn’t have all that trouble with whistleblowers!” I did my best to dampen Cal’s enthusiasm, pointing out that the proposed new law was still being considered by the parliament, but he told me he had been briefed by his local member and was confident it will be law before the end of the year. “It’s all stitched up, Ian”, Cal said. “They’ll give Senator Lambie a few projects in Tassie that she can claim to have delivered and they‘ve figured out the way to lock in Pauline Hanson’s support. Just let her have the limelight to whine about the way the Family Court discriminates against men, keep the inquiry running until the laws they want are safely through the Senate, then they’ll ignore the report like they do with all the other backbench inquiries. Just standard parliamentary procedure”, he laughed. “But don’t they also need the support of Xenophon’s mob, now the Centre Alliance?”, I asked. “It doesn’t matter what they call themselves”, Cal replied. “They are basically closet Liberals, so when the crunch comes, they will know how to vote”. As the line dropped out for the fourth time, the leadership group was busy putting the finishing touches to the new approach. Dr ‘Sabby’ de Todo was polishing the new academic program. Prof. Ateer was already working on the new strategy, designed to appeal to the market in India and China. “If you come to Tamsong, you know what you will be singing” is the tag line. “No discord, no wrong notes, just perfect harmony”. Dr Ongo was busy on the regulations that will allow Cal to get rid of any trouble-makers. Cal was beaming with pride. Ian Lowe is Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Griffith University. M@AusConservation

“The new law is fantastic”, he burbled. “Once we are Tamsong, we’ll be legally

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Letter from Aotearoa/NZ Michael Gilchrist

TES a vast improvement but still falls short The momentum and need for a change in direction in tertiary education is felt every day in our community providers, polytechnics, universities, and wānanga. We feel it when we struggle to find a counsellor to help a suicidal student. We feel it when we see massive numbers of irreplaceable courses being cut at MIT, Whitireia, and WelTec. We feel it when general and professional staff at the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington are pushed to do more and more work, but not provided with fair and transparent pay scales. We feel it when those running laboratories, workshops, lectures, tutorials, library services, and so much more, say their voices are ignored and marginalised, even though they are the specialists in tertiary education provision. So we are breathing a sigh of relief (though only a little one) when we see the Government’s draft Tertiary Education Strategy (TES). TEU members have spent decades arguing for accessible, inclusive, and culturally appropriate tertiary education. And their lobbying, conversations with MPs and public servants, and actions on the streets have paid off. The TES promises just this for students, whanau, iwi, and communities. This TES is a vast improvement over the previous strategy, developed in 2014 under then Minister Steven Joyce. That document focussed on the potential for economic growth centred in our tertiary institutions, enhancing labour market flexibility and the financial benefits of tertiary education for individual learners. In short, jobs and the economy were the focus. Years of sustained campaigning have paid off – and the broader value of a systematic campaigning approach has again been demonstrated.

Overall there are five systems-wide changes proposed in the TES: • T he whole system will need to make learning spaces safe for all students as we put learners at the centre.

What’s missing is a clear statement that tertiary education is a public good. Why is this important, because it totally destroys the idea that all we do is serve the economy.

• T ogether as a country we’ll have to work out ways to make sure all financial and physical barriers to education are removed. • More is needed from the system to let staff learn, grow, share best practice, and keep connected to our disciplines, professions, trades, and vocations. (This recognition is long overdue!)

ister, Chris Hipkins, has been listening to learners, communities, and staff and his team has certainly delivered a TES that is a vast improvement on the strategy that has ruled the last five years. What’s missing is a clear statement that tertiary education is a public good. Why is this important, because it totally destroys the idea that all we do is serve the economy. Adequate recognition that staff wellbeing has been severely affected by the market model in force over the last ten years, particularly in the polytechnic sector, is also absent – as is sufficient recognition of the ever growing importance of academic freedom and the critic and conscience role of institutions. It also fails to reflect that staff conditions of work are students’ conditions of learning; and that if we continue to be underfunded as a sector – currently by about $6bn – then the new TES will just be a book of aspirations which will collect dust.

• Learning approaches must ensure New Zealanders can face the challenges of an ever changing world of work.

The hard part is that we need to contribute more energy, ideas and passion to ensure that the system does deliver for all. But we will continue our campaigning, encouraged by the benefits that are already flowing from our efforts so far.

• The system must recognise Māori learners and communities, and makes sure that we can respond to the needs of all learners.

Michael Gilchrist is National President/ Te Tumu Whakarae, New Zealand Tertiary Education Union/Te Hautū Kahurangi o Aotearoa

These changes reflect what we’ve been asking for. It shows that Education Min-

www.teu.ac.nz

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Image: TEU/Facebook

Delegates Gregory Smith

Benjamin Dougall

Southern Cross University

Macquarie University

Why did you become a delegate?

The NTEU delegates at Southern Cross University have a strong record when it comes to organising for standing up for workers’ rights.

I decided to join NTEU’s Macquarie University Branch and become a delegate because I appreciate the critical importance of Unions in protecting the rights of workers. I see my role as a passionate advocate for the work of our Professional Staff, who are intrinsic partners across all of the University’s endeavours, and to promote our collective interests.

As a matter of priority, the very first things on my agenda once I commenced employment in the university sector was to become a member of the NTEU. After seeing the sometimes challenging but always conscientious effort NTEU colleagues and delegates on our campuses put into advocating for so many and on important issues such as Enterprise Bargaining, bullying, unfair treatment and redundancies, I thought it would be good to give a little back. One of the primary reasons I became a NTEU delegate, however, was because I have a clear and troubled understanding of how imbalanced and fragile the employee employer relationship can be. In larger institutional settings, the less an employee understands about their workplace rights, the more vulnerable they can become.

What do you enjoy most about being a delegate? NTEU delegates do not have all the answers. However, they do have access to people who can provide good professional advice if or when needed. As a delegate it is important to me that I can be available if someone needs information about our union. Importantly, there is comfort in knowing I am available if needed and that we are not alone if workplace issues do arise.

What are the challenges you face as a delegate? I guess I am a glass half full type of character and do enjoy a challenge. As a delegate the biggest challenge is making sure I have access to the most up to date information and my networks are accessible. This is important if I am called upon to respond to an issue. Unfortunately, there is always work for delegates.

What would you say to others who might want to become delegates? There are lots of benefits to being an NTEU delegate. The opportunity to meet others and network is a good reason to become a delegate. Being a delegate reminds me that I am not on my own because we have regular branch meetings where we get to spend time with other likeminded people. In my experience, NTEU delegates are well informed, community orientated and generally friendly people. Being a union delegate is more than just representing individuals when they need it. Being a good delegate is also understanding and caring about the social issues and concerns within the sector and our community.

What do you enjoy most about being a delegate? Highlights for me to date have been participating in our 2018 Enterprise Agreement negotiations with management, which used an ‘interests based’ approach to bargaining facilitated by the Fair Work Commission. It was an insightful process hearing management’s interests in relation to key issues. It also provided us with the opportunity to share a number of Professional Staff concerns in relation to job security and managing change, particularly in the context of frequent University restructuring. I am now enjoying participating in a Professional Staff Implementation Committee established under this Agreement which will continue consultation on a range of employment-related matters. I also very much enjoy engaging with colleagues across the University as part of my work within the Union.

What are the challenges you face as a delegate? A major challenge is seeing colleagues lose their jobs due to restructuring, the merits of which are often questionable. Managing change is an area that we are committed to improving, particularly in the context of repeated change processes within pockets of the University – i.e. some colleagues experiencing four or five organisational changes within a similar period of years. While change may be the only constant, we want to see a process that is more reflective on why management feels change is needed, and properly maps its impact across the University.

What would you say to others who might want to become delegates? Give it a go! There is a great deal of satisfaction from being involved in your University’s Union movement and advocating for colleagues. You get to meet wonderful people from across all areas of the University, both Academic and Professional Staff, and form strong relationships. You very much get a sense of the broader operations of the University and the issues arising across the sector for which NTEU is advocating. Find out how you can become an NTEU Delegate: delegates.nteu.org.au

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 37

My Union National Council 2019: Organising to Win ‘Organising to Win!’ was the main theme of this year’s lively National Council, held in Melbourne in October. The Council is comprised of some 160 delegates representing all Branches, and is the Union’s main decision-making body, that sets our policies and priorities for the coming year. This year’s Council was the first following the national leadership change 12 months ago. It took place against a backdrop of an increasingly bleak industrial and political landscape for the higher education sector and unions generally, following the surprise re-election of the Coalition Government in May. Here’s a brief summary of some of the Council’s highlights.

2019/2020 Priorities The National Council adopted the following set of priorities for 2019/2020: 1. Re-orient the work of NTEU to ensure that we build a culture that supports and prioritises organising in order to build our Union’s power and member engagement. 2. Build capacity and foster activism by investing in delegate, staff, and officer development through resourcing, education, training and support.

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Above: The National Officers: Catherine Rojas, Vice-President (General); Matthew McGowan, General Secretary; Alison Barnes, National President; Gabe Gooding, National Assistant Secretary; Andrew Bonnell, Vice-President (Academic). Below: Alison Barnes addressing Council. (Paul Clifton) 3. Develop strategies and materials for campaigning on: • Insecure work and enforcement of casual entitlements. • Healthy workplaces and the elimination of psychosocial hazards.

My Union

• The abuse of student satisfaction surveys.

and builds capacity to campaign on issues of concern to members.

4. Conduct a thorough review and analysis of bargaining outcomes and strategies to inform development of our future approach to bargaining.

The priorities reflect the proposed shift to building union power in our workplaces by having a stronger focus on organising and campaigning at all levels of the Union.

5. Engage in public advocacy and action to change government policy and political discourse surrounding the funding and future of tertiary education and research, including the future of academic and intellectual freedom, freedom of speech and institutional autonomy.

Progress on the securing of Enterprise Agreements during the latest round of bargaining was difficult. Given the increasingly hostile environment we need to analyse what we have achieved (in this and previous rounds of bargaining) and evaluate our bargaining strategies and tactics to ensure that we are well prepared for future rounds of bargaining.

Improving Union density The Council noted that the Union is strongest when there is high membership density and high levels of member engagement and activism. This requires the development of a strong internal culture that supports the work of active members

Union density remains a key concern, despite membership growth and retention being a persistent theme over several years. The Growth Working Party established at last year’s National Council is examining

Above: National Councillors voting on the resolution of support of the Hong Kong Council of Trade Unions. (Paul Clifton) reasons for growth and how declining density across our sector might be arrested.

Challenging political situation The re-election of the Coalition Government highlights some of the challenges facing the union movement over the next few years. The political climate remains hostile to unions, with attempts to further curtail union activities through the Ensuring Integrity Bill, the most draconian piece of anti-union legislation in the world. For the higher education sector, the re-election of the Coalition Government means a continued funding freeze, while continued overpage...

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 39

My Union ...continued from previous page there is an ongoing focus on academic freedom, institutional autonomy and external interference.

Effects on our sector The sector continues to be chronically underfunded. Not only having to cope with increasing levels of insecure employment, tertiary education staff will face pressure to increase student numbers and struggle with oppressive workloads and more work intensification. Many tertiary education workers are being exposed to psychosocial hazards on a regular basis by employers, often leading to toxic work environments. Tertiary education workers have a right to a safe and healthy workplace that protects them from psychological injury resulting from continuous poorly managed change, excess work, harassment and abuse. Public advocacy remains a key strength of the Union. In particular we will continue our work protecting and strengthening academic freedom. The issues of institutional autonomy, academic and intellectual freedom have been important issues in public debate and will remain so. Union negotiated Enterprise Agreements are the only enforceable protections for academic and intellectual freedom. We will continue to be the principal and principled defender of those rights as critical for the long-term integrity of universities as important institutional foundations of a democratic society. continued overpage...

Above: Scenes from National Council. Below: WA delegates with the National Officers. (Paul Clifton)

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My Union ...continued from previous page In a difficult political climate, building union infrastructure and strength via our increased focus on organising and building grass roots power will enhance our capacity to campaign and help address our key challenges. We will use the time between bargaining rounds to build our authority in the workplace and our unions infrastructure by placing a greater focus on identifying workplace leaders, and supporting and developing our delegates.

Solidarity with Hong Kong prodemocracy movement The Council heard a very moving report via Skype from Lee Cheuk-yan, Secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, about the history of pro-democracy movements and protests in Hong Kong against firstly the British colonialists, and now the Chinese Government. His report came on the same day that the Hong Kong Government activated its emergency powers. Council delegates then unanimously passed a resolution of solidarity with the Hong Kong protesters.

Limited tenure for Officers The National Council adopted rule changes that will limit to three the number of consecutive (four year) terms that full-time elected officers can serve, to encourage a stronger emphasis on renewal and leadership change. Michael Evans, National Organiser (Media & Engagement) More from Council in this issue: Torres Strait Islands under threat now see p. 21 NTEU support for Hong Kong unionists see p. 27

Top: Queensland Councillors’ table. Middle: Jonathan Hallett (WA Div Secretary), Mel Slee (Victorian Div Secretary) & Damien Cahill (NSW Div Asst Secretary) at the plenary session ‘Confronting the union density crisis’. (Paul Clifton)

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 41

My Union Reflections of first time National Councillor Gwen Amankwah-Toa from QUT reflected on her first time as a Councillor at National Council. It’s been an honour and privilege to participate at the 2019 National Council, the supreme decision-making body of the NTEU. It’s not a position I take lightly and I’m grateful to the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) members for giving me, through their votes, the opportunity to be part of a Council that meets to set the national policy direction of our Union. At my first Council, I was able to contribute in a small way by seconding a motion on the climate emergency moved by Michael Thomson, NSW Division Secretary. We know that climate change is a hot topic at this time and so I was grateful for the opportunity, especially given my

Scholarship winners Sharon James and Beth Muldoon have been announced as the recipients of the 2019 Joan Hardy and Carolyn Allport scholarships, respectively. Joan Hardy Scholarship Sharon James has been awarded the 2019 Joan Hardy Scholarship for postgraduate nursing research, for her work examining the general practice nurse (GPN)-to-patient communications processes about lifestyle risks and chronic disease management. Her research is part of her work towards a PhD through the University of Wollongong. Sharon’s interest in exploring these relationships between patients and healthcare providers arose out of her experiences working as a registered nurse in primary health care and then in

background. I originally arrived in Australia from Vanuatu, and we know our Pacific Island neighbours, as well as Torres Strait Islanders and our Aboriginal communities are facing the ‘heat’ of global warming with the erosion of land and increasing severe weather conditions. Our message to Scott Morrison and his government on this issue must be insistent and it must be consistent. The experience of National Council has simply been incredible. One really gets to see and appreciate democracy in action. In addition to that, you acquire an understanding of what it means to ‘caucus’, general practice, mainly in rural areas. Current literature indicates that the chronic disease burden has necessitated a shift towards effective approaches to lifestyle risk reduction and chronic disease management. The chronic disease burden, especially as the population ages, requires effective approaches to lifestyle risk reduction. Sharon hopes that her research will contribute towards developing better communication processes between nurses and patients, as well as informing the education of general practice nurses in the future.

Carolyn Allport Scholarship Beth Muldoon is this year’s recipient of the Carolyn Allport Scholarship, for postgraduate work in feminist studies. Beth is a historian and teacher in her second year of a part-time PhD candidature at La Trobe University. Her research explores the political activism of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women within the Black Movement in Redfern, Sydney, from 1968 to 1973. The first phase of this research involved consultation with several women whose

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to network and build relationships with like-minded members of your Union. It is exciting, it is rewarding, insightful and you feel you are part of something that means more than just being a member of your Union. You come out feeling a sense of achievement and fulfilment of having served your community, your university, your fellow unionists and non-members for the greater public good.

Above: Gwen at National Council with Phil Mairu, NTEU A&TSI Officer (Qld/NT).

history is the focus of this research, including Dulcie Flower, Alanna Doolan, Cilla Pryor, Ann Weldon, Linda Coe, Aileen Corpus and Bronwyn Penrith. Over four group meetings in Sydney and numerous phone conversations and visits, Beth worked with the women to collectively design a methodology for recording, interpreting and publishing their oral histories, along with those of up to twelve other women they recommended be invited to contribute. Each of the women currently involved has made an extraordinary contribution to the advancement of social justice in Australia through their activism. In addition to helping set up the first Aboriginal community-controlled services, which included the first shopfront legal aid service in Australia, they coordinated a wide range of political campaigns and programs for Aboriginal empowerment through land rights, civil rights, health, education, childcare, arts, culture and sports. Helena Spyrou, Education & Training Officer nteu.org.au/myunion/scholarships

My Union Vale Maree Gruppetta NTEU member and activist Dr Maree Gruppetta passed away in August at 55 years old. Her nomination for a 2019 NTEU Merit Award is reprinted here. Maree served the Union well in a number positions over the last decade, including WSU Branch Committee, NSW Division Council, National Council, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (A&TSI) Policy Committee. During her time in the sector she has also been a member of the A&TSI Policy Committee and attended/contributed to Division and National Forum. Maree has also strongly advocated on union and Aboriginal matters on various academic and research committees. Her record though should reflect that she has not only advocated on general union matters but strongly in the A&TSI sphere where NTEU research has demonstrated that the workplace and the Union have been places of difficulty for A&TSI staff due to racism and lateral violence. Maree did not resile from taking up matters despite the opprobrium this brought upon her at times from both university management, some areas of the Union and colleagues. Her sense of defence of policy, process, protocol, human and social rights and importantly cultural matters have been her guiding principles. Maree also contributed to establishing foundations for others through her academic work. An example was the inclusion of her personal art work in her PhD. UWS strenuously opposed this and Maree mounted a protracted defence of the right to do so as part of a Koori based discipline. Further, when Facebook was ‘feared’ by many university bureaucracies and staff were informed that they were not to have students as Facebook friends, Maree and Terry Mason mounted a defence and wrote papers arguing that the open use of Facebook was culturally sound and supportive for Aboriginal students in the tertiary sector. The transparent use of Facebook is accepted now. These two instances are examples of Maree’s advocacy in areas that may seem to be outside general union work but

from an A&TSI perspective, they are the implementing of the self determination and cultural practice and safety that the Union has fought for. It is leadership of these union principals in action and with the belief that the Union would defend against any adverse action. Maree was always staunch in her defence of union members in the workplace even under great duress. During an extended period of rolling workplace reviews and also discipline actions against three colleagues Maree put the Union case in university committee meetings and at short notice took on the pastoral and co-ordination role to ensure the Aboriginal Mixed Mode Education course was maintained. During this time there was lateral violence in many forms in the Koori Centre but unlike many, Maree maintained proper protocols and supported her union colleagues. Maree transferred her membership to the University of Newcastle Branch and immediately began to support and negotiate the Union stance during extensive workplace change. She brought charges of harassment and bullying against a senior Aboriginal colleague and followed through with these at great personal cost and stress.

There has been a perceptible positive change in behaviours in the workplace following this. Her consistent involvement in maintaining cultural and academic standards against great odds both won her favour with some and the annoyance of others. She did say once that she may not be that liked by raising some matters except by the Union. Some in the Union may consider her a pain for raising them but in the view of A&TSI members, fighting for those issues is praiseworthy. Maree’s meritorious role has not been the more usual one of holding elected positions but one of unwavering union action and implementation of policy as an active member and showing leadership through that. Maree left UON during a recent restructure, some may say redundant as a result of her union stance, and took up online work with the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin. Although gravely ill, she maintained her standards and her union membership and is an inspiration to those who have worked with her. Terry Mason, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 43

My Union Life Members Members honoured with Life Membership in 2019.

Annabel Beckenham University of Canberra

Stuart Bunt University of WA Professor Stuart Bunt has held one office or another on the NTEU UWA Branch committee since 1999 and continuously since 2004, including Branch President and Vice President, an office which he held until 2018. Before his arrival in Australia, Stuart was also active in the UK equivalent to the NTEU, the Association of University Teachers, serving as that Union’s Treasurer and Secretary from 1985 to 1996. Stuart recently completed a term as WA Division President and as a representative on the NTEU National Executive, and has represented UWA on the UniSuper Consultative Committee for several years. He has been an active member of the bargaining team at UWA for several difficult rounds of bargaining, and represented members on a host of local UWA committees and governance bodies. During his time in the union movement, Stuart has been a steadfast and resolute champion of the rights of workers, both within and outside the field of higher education. He has been an outspoken champion of academic freedom and freedom of expression within the context of our Universities. Stuart has been a fantastic delegate within the faculty of Science at UWA, having recruited most of the School of Anatomy at various points in his career. Most importantly Stuart is generous with his time and expertise. He brings both academic rigour and enthusiasm to everything he approaches, and is one member who can always be relied upon to not only turn up to rallies, meetings and protests but to lead them from the front. He will be sorely missed by many in NTEU as he enters what will no doubt be a retirement filled with intellectual curiosity and intense activism.

Annabel has had a lasting impact on union membership and activism at University of Canberra College (UCC). She took the leading role in building the Union at UCC at the negotiation of the inaugural Agreement in 2014-15. UCC was very poorly unionised before NTEU proposed to staff that they needed an Enterprise Agreement. NTEU membership density in the College tripled over the bargaining period, with Annabel recruiting the majority of the new members. She arranged, publicised and got members to meetings, and built members’ active engagement. She was the key figure in ensuring members and bargainers communicated well and won an Agreement that truly represents the views of staff, and leaves all staff better off overall. When 51% of UCC was sold to Navitas, Annabel was the key union contact for the many problems. She ensured that a successful dispute was immediately lodged and led a consultation group representing members’ issues to management. She continued recruiting members so that her colleagues stayed strongly unionised under private management. At bargaining management had a very short list of claims as they knew NTEU membership density was high at UCC: Annabel was absolutely crucial in building this strength. As well as building membership herself, Annabel also did the crucial work of encouraging and developing other activists. This meant that we would have a competent bargaining team and delegates to continue in her absence. UCC has a culture of active membership and ongoing recruitment, with a competent and confident bargaining team and two other enthusiastic delegates. Members are well informed and ready to do what’s needed to win a good second Agreement, despite having to negotiate with new, private sector management. This has borne fruit early in negotiations with management reducing their bargaining claims in the face of a workforce they know is strongly unionised.

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Sue Hodgson University of Newcastle Sue has made many valued and outstanding contributions in official union roles and as a grassroots activist, advocating for individual and collective causes. Sue’s contributions to the work of the University of Newcastle (UON) Branch are held in high esteem by NTEU members and the wider UON community, including management. Most notably, Sue has worked tirelessly as a delegate for teachers – continuously encouraging union membership and activity, participating in meetings and rallies, and assisting teacher members. Sue undertook these roles to ensure that teacher members had a voice and their interests represented within the Branch leadership and decision making. Sue’s unfaltering commitment to advocating for teachers extended to the representative mechanisms within the UON. Her continued advocacy for teachers ensured their voice has been heard within the work of the UON Branch and within the decision-making processes at UON for over 20 years. Sue has continued to stand firm on the inclusion of teachers in all matters and holding both the Union and management to account on this. Sue has been an integral part of every NTEU enterprise bargaining team since we started enterprise bargaining at Newcastle. What might be less known, is that Sue never gave up on any argument or detail (she played a phenomenal ‘goalkeeping role’). Sue demonstrated an unwavering prowess for drafting and minimising the ambiguity of wording in Enterprise Agreement clauses that may affect the robustness of staff conditions. These skills, combined with her long-standing encyclopaedic memory, records of bargaining rounds, and organisational knowledge are held in high esteem on both sides of the table, and made her a formidable force at the bargaining table. Sue leaves behind a robust legacy for the representation of teachers at our Branch and massive shoes to fill for the next round of enterprise bargaining.

My Union Tony was an early supporter of a clear union identity for universities instead of the traditionally non-union staff association model.

Janice Wegner

Tony Welch

James Cook University

University of Sydney

If only three words must be used to summarise this nominee’s claim to nomination as a life member, this is the moment we can acknowledge her selflessness, fearlessness and determination.

Tony helped shape the university academic union response to the revolutionary Dawkins changes in the 80s. He was a tireless advocate for university autonomy, academic freedom and tenure. Unlike some of his more conservative colleagues,

Jan organised the relatively new JCU campus at Cairns from 1990 onwards. This organising task was very hard. It is 350km to the main campus in Townsville, and the financial pressures on JCU, both from its internal over-spending and the lack of government funding, and the impacts of the rivalry between Cairns and Townsville, kept the campus frequently under pressure. Also, managements have been largely unsympathetic to the NTEU. Jan was the single most important voice on the Cairns campus for the Union and one of the main reasons for the Union’s survival at JCU. Jan has lead the bargaining team in five or six enterprise bargaining rounds. For nearly 30 years, when a member has needed a representative for a management meeting, Jan has been the first to put up their hand. More generally, Jan talks to her colleagues on the ground, gets them engaged in union activities and brings them to meetings and rallies. Jan was an activist for women’s rights, and was on the first equity committee formed by JCU. She was also one of the first advisers appointed by the University to deal with staff and student complaints about discrimination. As an academic since 1985, her particular passion is weeds, the history of their introduction and attempts at control. Her understanding of the way feral pests first gain a foothold before dominating a previously-pristine landscape informs her approach to management attempts to alter the culture of the university towards private-sector practices. All this, and Jan is self-deprecating and quietly spoken. She achieves outcomes through attention to detail, rational arguments, and persistence. She very rarely loses her temper, which means that when she does managements had to listen! Jan has taken a methodical, collaborative approach, which has built solidarity amongst colleagues.

As foundation President of the NSW-based Academics’ Union (AU), he argued for the creation of NTEU as a national union representing all university staff, including professional staff. He was actively involved in the transfer of nearly 1000 members of the then NSW Teachers’ Federation Lecturers’ Association to membership of the NTEU. Tony’s academic work has always been informed by a rigorous and progressive intellectual framework and he has written and published extensively on many aspects of education, including the implications of globalisation and neoliberalism for higher education in Australia and internationally.

Merit Awards

Paul Adams (VU) Jeremy Smith (FUA) During Jeremy’s six terms as Branch President he was directly involved in multiple rounds of Bargaining, most notably during the infamous “Kerry Cox (UB VC) era”, when he led a 3-year campaign to resist AWAs and other direct attacks on the wages and conditions of UB members. During this tumultuous period, members took multiple rounds of strike action, erected pickets around the Mt Helen campus, boycotted and picketed Open Days, undertook 10 weeks of bans on student results, and many other forms of Industrial Action. Jeremy led all these actions with a strong sense of collectivism, and with great wisdom and determination. During Jeremy’s tenure as Branch President, he was always willing to develop other leaders in the Branch. Jeremy is still willing to offer support and advice to the Branch and the Executive.

Maree Gruppetta (WSU/ UON) See obituary, p. 43.

Paul Adams was very dedicated and worked tirelessly for members interests. When he became Victoria University (VU) Branch President in 2012 he faced a level of change plans which dwarfed all others. He was endlessly in meetings with management and with the employees affected. It was amazing to see how he coped with these pressures. For over 20 years Paul has played a key role in the bargaining team as an important member, and since 2012 as leader of the Branch negotiating team. He has been a strong contributor to the Division Council, including two years as President. In the recent round of bargaining at VU Paul has taken a leading role in negotiations. Even after being made forcibly redundant in 2018 he has voluntarily continued to provide his vast experience to ensure continuity of understanding to help the effective operation of the NTEU bargaining team. Over 20 years Paul has dedicated a large amount of his time and energy to making VU a better and fairer place to work. As a result, his own research and publications and capacity to be promoted have been limited.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 45

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My Union New NTEU staff Simon Dougherty Div Organiser ACT Division Simon has been teaching at university since graduating last year with a PhD in Social and Political Thought. His thesis was on “The Art of Political Solidarity,” and he’s keen to apply his research by building union power with the NTEU. Previously, Simon organised public servants with the CPSU. Before immigrating from Canada, he studied film and philosophy, did media work with NGOs, and championed workers’ rights as a federal election candidate in the wake of the GFC.

Becc Galdies Div Organiser UniSA Becc is an incorrigible, political hack with experience coordinating campaigns, events and communications. An all-rounder with a passion for building positive workplace culture and long-term sustainable relationships, she enjoys working in inspiring teams with people that are not afraid to take risks, explore new ideas and dangerous concepts in pursuit of a healthier, fairer society. Becc enjoys conversing with intelligent, creative people about ideas that can change the world.

Sheryl Vine Branch Organiser WSU

Patsy O’Brien Branch Organiser USQ

Sheryl comes to the NTEU with extensive Organising experience at the Finance Sector Union and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. Most recently, she worked at Legal Aid and as a volunteer Ethics Teacher across several schools in Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Outside of work, she loves teaching piano and spoiling her family and pets.

Patsy has been passionately advocating and campaigning for social and environmental justice for many years and is excited to bring her extensive experience in grassroots member-driven movements to her new role as a Branch Organiser.

Mike Oliver Senior Organiser Qld Division Mike Oliver joined the Queensland Division in July, taking over the role of Senior State Organiser from Lachlan Hurse, who has retired. Before joining NTEU, Mike worked for 5 years as Campaign Officer for Queensland Council of Unions, working on campaigns like Save Our Weekend, Change the Rules, marriage equality, and union efforts to support refugees. But he is glad to be back with a union helping members use their power at work. Mike also spent six years in commercial radio, doing online content for several Breakfast Teams. He knows the location of every ‘icey-cold can of coke’, met and was unimpressed with every Big Brother contestant, and knows all the best combinations of 80s Australian rock songs for an effective Two-up Tuesday.

She has been working voluntarily to raise awareness of the issues faced by those who are marginalised in our society and is dedicated to the work of raising the voices of First Nations Peoples and pushing for truth-telling, reparations and treaties.

Simon Linskill Div Organiser Vic Division Simon joined the NTEU in August. He worked at the University of Sheffield in the UK for around 14 years, with much of that time spent in union positions within the Unite union, most recently as Branch Secretary and member of the Union’s Regional Industrial Sector Committee. In 2018, he moved to Australia and had brief stints at both RMIT and the University of Melbourne before finding his natural home back in the union movement. Fun fact: despite his calm demeanour, Simon spent around 10 years yelling and thrashing in noisy bands and allowing other bands to sleep on his living room floor.

NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 26 no. 3 • November 2019 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 47

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yOUR EMPLOyMENT GROUP

HAVE yOU PREVIOUSLy bEEN AN NTEU MEMbER?  yES. AT wHICH INSTITUTION?

C YOUR EMPLOYMENT CATEgORY & TERM

 FULL TIME  PART TIME

 FIXED TERM CONTRACT

DATE Of ExPIRy ______________________

D PAYMENT METHOD

ChOOsE either

FEEs = 1% GROss ANNUAL sALARy except for casuals/sessionals – see below

CAsUAL/sEssIONAL: INDICATE ANNUAL sALARy RANGE

1 2

 Under $20,000  $20,000–$29,999  $30,000–$49,999  $50,000 or more

ChOOsE either

1 PAYROLL DEDUCTION AUTHORITY

annual salary range

Monthly

Under $20,000 $20,000–$29,999 $30,000–$49,999 $50,000 or more

AVAILABLE TO ALL MEMBERS

— — —

|ACCT NO.

 MONTHLy  QUARTERLy  HALf-yEARLy  ANNUALLy

|DATE

3 CREDIT CARD

AVAILABLE TO ALL MEMBERS

| | ExPIRy |DATE

5% dISCOUNT fOR ANNUAL dIRECT dEBIT

— — — —

SIGNATURE You may resign by email (national@nteu.org.au) or by written notice to your Division or Branch Secretary. Where you cease to be an eligible 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.

E MEMBERsHIP DECLARATION

— —

☛

 VISA /

— —

 MONTHLy  QUARTERLy  HALf-yEARLy  ANNUALLy

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.

fOR ASSISTANCE IN COMPLETING THIS fORM, PLEASE CALL 03 9254 1910 F sCAN & EMAIL TO:

please sign & date

I hEREby APPLy FOR MEMbERshIP OF NTEU, ANy bRANCh & ANy AssOCIATED bODy EsTAbLIshED AT My wORkPLACE DATE

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. Full text of DDR at www.nteu.org.au/ddr

processed on the 16th of the month or following working day

 MASTERCARD

NAME ON CARD — — — —

ALL SMALL PRINT ON THIS fORM IS REPRODUCED AT NTEU.ORG.AU/ jOIN/sMALL_ PRINT

processed on the 15th of the month or following working day

| NAME |&bRANCH ADDRESS

SIGNATURE

$104 $156 $208 $260

fINANCIAL INSTITUTION

ACCOUNT NAME

☛

annual

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.

INSTITUTION

2 DIRECT DEBIT

$52 $78 $104 $130

Office use only: Membership no.

If kNOwN

SIGNATURE

CARD NO.

half-yearly

$26 $39 $52 $65

|STAff PAyROLL NO. |HEREby AUTHORISE |DATE

I INSERT yOUR NAME

☛

Quarterly

$8.67 $13 $17.33 $21.67

Members are required to pay dues and levies as set by the Union from time to time in accordance with NTEU Rules. Casual/sessional rates are adjusted in March each year. Further information on financial obligations, including a copy of the NTEU Rules, is available from your Branch or at www.nteu.org.au/rules.

NOT AVAILABLE TO CASUAL/SESSIONAL MEMBERS

Of yOUR ADDRESS

— — —

fees are based on estimated annual salary range as indicated in section C, at left

CAsUAL/sEssIONAL:

I INSERT yOUR NAME

bSb

CAsUAL/sEssIONAL MEMBERsHIP FEEs

Choose one only

FULL TIME, PART TIME, FIXED TERM CONTRACT:

If kNOwN

 ACADEMIC sTAFF  TEACHING & RESEARCH  RESEARCH ONLy  TEACHING INTENSIVE

MEMBERsHIP FEEs

Choose one only

 CAsUAL/sEssIONAL

HR PER wk OR fRACTION (EG: 0.6) ___________

fULL TIME EQUIVALENT

 GENERAL/PROFEssIONAL sTAFF  RESEARCH ONLy  OTHER: __________________________

ARE yOU AUSTRALIAN AbORIGINAL OR TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER?  yES USE My HOME ADDRESS fOR ALL MAILING

☛

|GROSS ANNUAL SALARy NExT |MONTH INCREMENT DUE

CLASSIfICATION LEVEL

OR HOME PHONE

national@nteu.org.au jOIN ONLINE AT NTEU.ORg.AU/jOIN National Tertiary Education Union, National Office PO Box 1323, South Melbourne VIC 3205 Australia ph 03 9254 1910 • fax 03 9254 1915

OR POsT TO:

NteU National Office PO box 1323, South Melbourne VIC 3205

ed b t n e s e r P Dr Lisa Lines, Director and Head Editor