Celebrating casual activism in Qld universities
Mike Oliver Senior State Organiser, Queensland Division
This year the NTEU Queensland Division is proud to announce the birth of a new Casuals’ Network at Griffith University and the further maturation and expansion of the University of Queensland (UQ) Casuals’ Caucus. Casual academics deliver more than half of all undergraduate courses in Australia. The backbone of Australian university teaching, casual academic staff have no paid holidays, no paid sick leave, no job security, significant breaks in income, and are deliberately excluded from university life by management. The working relationship of most casual academics with their employer is, simply put, exploitative.’ Casual union members and activists across Australia are saying ‘no more’ to the lack of respect, the lack of value, and the lack of engagement shown to them by university managements and are measuring, revealing, and pursuing underpayments for the millions in wage theft across the sector.
UQ Casuals Caucus Casual Representative on the UQ Branch Committee, Dr Ellyse Fenton is one of tens-of-thousands of casual academics who recently lost work. After 13 years of work at UQ, she is now facing a semester unemployed. This was after a hellish Semester One in which Ellyse (and every university worker) went over-and-above to move studies online and keep Australia’s universities running in a COVID-19 world. Since late 2017, Ellyse has been working in her Branch’s Casuals Caucus, organising with fellow casual academics to challenge exploitation and fight for better conditions. With a group of colleagues, Ellyse has logged her work hours for the past two years, comparing the time it takes to do her job well with the amount she is paid. Unsurprisingly, the result is thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. Casual academics are paid according to formulae that routinely undervalue the work involved in teaching. These rates underestimate the time needed to mark assignments, prepare lectures and tutorials, and support students. In some institutions, essential work like course and subject coordination and attending lectures is not paid at all.
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‘Some teaching staff have been instructed to do a poor job, I suppose, because there is widespread acknowledgment that these rates are inaccurate,’ said Ellyse. When workers are forced to cut corners, it diminishes the product, the experience, and the value of their labour. In the end, it is students and casuals who bear the burden. ‘The first couple of meetings at UQ (late 2017) were about catharsis I think,’ said Ellyse. ‘Members would come to meetings and just share their stories with each other. Get it out. We started to hear all the horror stories and knew none of us was alone.’ In 2018, the UQ Casuals Caucus launched the UQ Charter of Rights for Casual Academic Staff that laid out how casuals wanted to be treated by their employer. ‘The Charter made a range of claims. We Ellyse Fenton, UQ demanded what seem in retrospect small things – our own desks and workspaces, participation Members would come to meetings and in institutional just share their stories with each other. Get it decision-making fora, to be treated as out. We started to hear all the horror stories employees. But we and knew none of us was alone. also demanded fair pay and job security, which cannot be ‘I had heard about the successful wage achieved without systemic transformation. theft campaign run by casual staff at the The Caucus held stalls and events where we University of Melbourne and thought there publicised the Charter and talked about the must be a way for us to do something working conditions of casual staff. similar. It was the perfect time to start acting At the end of 2019, we delivered 626 signed on systemic underpayment and exploitation postcards of support for the Charter to the of casualised workers. We had all worked Vice-Chancellor’s office. Every one of those around the clock to support our students postcards represents a conversation about through the transition to online learning, in casualisation and a step on the path to most cases without any additional payment building a broad coalition of support for deor support. We just felt enough is enough, casualising higher education.’ you know?’
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After the Charter campaign wrapped up, The UQ Caucus gave thought to what came next. With a long list of problems to address it was hard to know where to begin.
Connect ® Volume 13, no. 2 ® Semester 2, 2020
Find out more about the UQ Casual Caucus Wage Theft Campaign: www.nteu.org.au/uq/casuals
