A response from ‘No Concessions’ casuals to ‘Letter to a fellow worker

We are three casual workers from RMIT, Victoria University and the University of Queensland. We are also founder members of the NTEU Fightback group. We are writing in response to the ‘Letter to a fellow worker’ published in Advocate (vol. 27, no. 2 July 2020). The letter painted a picture of the ‘plight of workers’, in which the only option is to accept a so-called Jobs Protection Framework where all workers are forced to accept pay cuts and the inevitable loss of hard won job conditions. This is not a question of ‘purity’ but it is definitely a question of politics. Debates have always taken place within the trade union movement and within the NTEU. The discussion and decisions that are being taken now will shape not just the future of our lives at work, but the future of the entire higher education sector. The challenge we face as workers in universities is clearly huge. The economic crisis triggered by COVID-19 is continuing to unfold under the leadership of a Coalition Government that shows no signs of offering any further support to higher education. For workers to win anything, we will need to show a willingness to stand up for ourselves and our fellow workers, this is the very essence of trade unionism. Unfortunately, the NTEU leadership took the opposite approach with the concessions based National Jobs Protection Framework (NJPF) that was first formally introduced to members at the beginning of April. After a groundswell of opposition, some of it driven by casual members, in which NTEU Fightback played a leading role, the NJPF dropped the ‘National’ and our officials have continued on a campus by campus level to bargain away pay and conditions in return for threadbare promises to save jobs. The anonymous letter in the last Advocate points to the fact that casuals currently have ‘zero job protection’. This is clearly a significant issue that the NTEU should be urgently organising around. The rapid rate of casualisation in universities is an indictment of the neoliberal approach of management and the weakness of our union. Anecdotal evidence (this is all we have so far) suggests that hundreds, possibly thousands of casuals were effectively sacked at the beginning or during semester one this year. Fixed term staff have also been sacked in their hundreds. When looked at in detail, the ‘guarantees’ you point to in the NJPF contain giant holes through which casuals can fall. For example, the Heads of Agreement clause 32 states:

Where there is no work or insufficient work available for a continuing or fixed-term employee, the University will seek to identify other work for that employee, which might include work usually performed by casual employees. This provision takes precedence over items 33 and 34. When organised casuals networks around the country saw these clauses they agreed that any kind of job protection was a fantasy. They were right – the concessionary approach has already failed to protect jobs at Monash and La Trobe after signing away conditions and pay. Additional concerns centred on the lack of transparency, undemocratic processes, a hiring freeze that left no opportunity for secure work, and undermining existing conditions. Despite the anonymous ‘Letter to a fellow worker’ giving the impression that all casuals supported a yes vote to the NJPF, we do not know of any casual networks that passed motions in support of the NJPF. In contrast, casuals networks and committees at UNSW, La Trobe, Monash, RMIT, Melbourne, Victoria, UQ and ANU all passed motions rejecting the NJPF and offering solidarity with ongoing colleagues against wage cuts and concessions. The widespread resistance culminated in a statement from the National Higher Education Casuals Network rejecting the NJPF and supporting the No vote. Like our casual colleagues in these networks, we don’t believe that solidarity is about ‘agreeing all staff should feel the pain together’. Solidarity comes through building strength, not sacrifice. So what is our alternative to the NJPF? It starts with opposition to rotten deals and an orientation towards building a strike ready union. We too have bills to pay and children to care for at home. There is no quick fix or easy solutions during a crisis. This does not mean letting management off the hook. Industrial action may not be realistic immediately but it remains the only real source of our collective strength, whether that be through refusing to carry out specific tasks – e.g. in student information services, marking work, releasing grades, processing applications – or whether that be full refusal to work through strike actions. Admitting defeat and conceding conditions – specifically around major change proposals – only weakens our ability to build a fighting union that can end the casualisation epidemic once and for all. Since the beginning of this crisis, casuals, including us, have joined with continuing and fixed term union activists to put ourselves at the heart of local organising in an attempt to build our strength and resist management driven sectionalism. We refuse to be divided by the status of our employment, by academic and professional roles, by subject areas or schools, by teaching or research, or by the leadership of our own union. We are joining with our fellow unionists to fight together by organising local area meetings, encouraging solidarity from ongoing staff through resistance to increasing workloads, by enforcing existing rights on casual conversions and pay rates, and by linking together our struggles across campuses and states. We are proud to be part of NTEU Fightback and we encourage you to join us. ◆ Roz Ward, Jack Hynes, Francine Chidgey View the original letter at nteu.info/advocate2702letter

Meeting COVID challenges

...continued from p.2 voice, strong debate and then unity around our decision making and purpose. I urge every member committed to the Union and solidarity to have your say, and then help build the strong unified voice we need to take into bargaining. Having an opinion is not enough, working to deliver for our members is what we must be judged on. While many campuses are still struggling with the reality of COVID-19 job losses, we need to lift our gaze and look to the future of the sector and to the nature of employment in it. COVID-19 has changed everything. And NTEU will adapt to meet the challenge. ◆ Matthew McGowan, General Secretary

NTEU Annual Report 2019-20 online at nteu.org.au/annual_report