Your union has a big 2022 ahead

Matthew McGowan, General Secretary

Welcome to 2022. I know many of you are in the process of returning to campus life, or continuing to navigate working from home and a safe return to work.

The pandemic delivered a terrible two years, and the handling of the crisis by the Federal Government compounded the problems in the higher education sector.

As hard and difficult as this has been for staff across our sector, it is worth acknowledging how hard this has been for students as well. They have been dramatically impacted by the decisions of the Federal Government during the pandemic – the lack of support and the lack of resources for our critical sector has made their educational experiences worse over the last two years.

The work of our members – educators, researchers, student welfare managers, the professional staff that support and make our institutions function– you have all contributed to students learning experiences (most of the time with little support from the people who manage and govern our workplaces).

Your union has a big 2022 ahead. This year we will be bargaining across our sector to improve wages and conditions.

Over the last year, delegates, members and elected officials have been talking with members and non-members, building greater understanding of why the bargaining process is so important, how you can be involved, and the importance of solidarity and strength at the bargaining table.

We have also used the last 12 months to ensure the claims we want to bargain for have been endorsed by the membership.

Bargaining doesn’t start with negotiation. It starts with campaigning. The more people at your campus or your workplace who are aware of their rights, the better and stronger we are.

For every member who thinks – ‘this isn’t about me, someone else can take that responsibility’ – we need to get another five members active, standing up, joining people up and showing university management that NTEU has the support of staff in the sector.

The topline issues that are important for this round of bargaining are around casualisation/job security, academic freedom and pay. Many Branches are also highlighting workload issues.

Our goal is to get 60% of agreements across the sector finalised or near finalisation by the end of the year.

The Union can’t achieve this alone. The support and engagement of members at the workplace is crucial to achieving this goal.

With strong member support, we will not accept management delays and obfuscation.

Staff in the sector have a right to feel letdown and angry as many managements used the staff cuts of the past 2 years to bolster their balance sheets. With real wages declining in an environment of rising inflation, staff are going to demand better from university managements.

Members want support, recognition and decent recompense for the valuable work they do. They want safe workplaces. They want secure work.

And I believe members will take strike action if necessary to make the point.

Job cuts have helped university surpluses, but have put enormous and unfair pressure on our members.

Union enterprise agreements deliver on wages and conditions – but also on our core values such as academic freedom.

To quote from Professor Adrienne Stone, Director, Centre for Comparative Constitutional

Studies, University of Melbourne Law School, two legal cases last year proved the power and importance of our union agreements in protecting academic freedom:

'All academics and anyone who cares about academic freedom should be really happy to see that the courts understand that those clauses in enterprise agreements are legally enforceable.'

To finish up, I want to comment on the coming Federal Election.

This Government has been a clear and unequivocal enemy of the higher education sector.

The Government also failed to deliver on basic health measures for the nation during the pandemic, (the vaccine roll out, management of the outbreaks, the let it rip mentality), they have lashed out using all the tools left available to them – demonising communities, weaponizing culture war rubbish, and imposing their ideological views on learning, research and education.

The Religious Discrimination Bill showed how far they would go to pick on and marginalise the LGBTIQ+ community (and specifically our Trans colleagues), and their interference in the ARC’s research grants processes shows they will stop at nothing to create fear and back ignorance over learning.

These strategies will continue in the lead up to the election and worse. I note ACTU Secretary Sally McManus’ call for every union member to be on watch for the demonising of unions and union action as part of the LNP’s playbook.

Let’s hope 2022 gets rid of one virus at least – the current Federal Government and its ongoing war against higher education and learning. ◆

Matthew McGowan, General Secretary