◆ SECURE JOBS SAFE WORKLOADS
The vagaries of casual employment I have been a unionist all my working life and the last twelve years have been with the NTEU. I remember the days when almost everyone was in full time permanent employment, a privilege now, it seems, and one I enjoyed for decades until being made redundant at the beginning of 2020 (but that is a story for another day). Since then, I have been employed casually at the University of South Australia (UniSA) in a combination of academic and professional roles. After almost two years of teaching the same courses in the same semester periods in a program that will be ongoing, there appears to be no likelihood of any offers of semi-permanency (fixed term contracts) or ongoing employment. I will again have to go through the twice yearly casual staff registration process, expressions of interest, and then waiting for confirmation of a contract offer, always received the week before semester begins, if you’re lucky. There is no induction or orientation beyond an email advising where to find HR policies and procedures. There is no payment for the hours spent reading and trying to understand how university systems work.
Mick Piotto University of South Australia
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ADVOCATE VOL. 28 NO. 3 ◆ NOV 2021
Support service contacts provided are merely email addresses or phone numbers to generic staff services with no names provided. Am I part of a team and who is in my team? There is a one hour Zoom session to meet the Course coordinator and other Course teachers, instructions are provided and then one is left to themselves for weeks with no further meaningful engagement. Just go and teach. You’ll be fine. There is no job description attached to contracts, so beyond running a tutorial and marking assignment, what is actually my job? There is no payment for the hours of administration spent logging on, downloading assignments, uploading assignments, answering student emails, submitting pay claims, making phone calls to gain assis-
