Celebrating casual activism in Qld universities

Mike Oliver

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.

‘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 demanded what seem in retrospect small things – our own desks and workspaces,participation in institutional decision-making fora, to be treated as employees. But we also demanded fair pay and job security, which cannot be achieved without systemic transformation. The Caucus held stalls and events where we publicised the Charter and talked about the working conditions of casual staff.

At the end of 2019, we delivered 626 signed postcards of support for the Charter to the Vice-Chancellor’s office. Every one of those postcards represents a conversation about casualisation and a step on the path to building a broad coalition of support for decasualising higher education.’

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.

‘I had heard about the successful wage theft campaign run by casual staff at the University of Melbourne and thought there must be a way for us to do something similar. It was the perfect time to start acting on systemic underpayment and exploitation of casualised workers. We had all worked around the clock to sport our students through the transition to online learning, in most cases without any additional payment or support. We just felt enough is enough, you know?’

Find out more about the UQ Casual Caucus Wage Theft Campaign: www.nteu.org.au/uq/casuals

Delivering 626 signed postcards of support for the Charter to the UQ Vice-Chancellor’s office

Griffith Casuals Network

While UQ’s Casual Caucus keeps growing in strength and numbers, Griffith NTEU Branch has just launched its own Casuals Network.

Clare Poppi is the Casual Representative on the Griffith NTEU Branch Committee and a founding member of the Griffith Casuals’ Network. Clare started work as a casual technician/academic at Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art in 2011. She is a jeweller/artist.

Clare Poppi, Griffith

‘In the College of Art, we don’t teach in Trimester 3 (Summer), so that does give me some time to pursue other interests. Like all casual academics, this isn’t the only place I teach. I also teach at another community art college, and of course, I am an artist, so I need time for commissions and art pieces.’ Clare Poppi, Griffith

‘I wasn’t very involved in the Union until a few years ago,’ said Clare, ‘but the position of Casual Representative on the Griffith Branch Committee " Clare is not sure what shape the Griffith came up and my Network will take. It is still in its early, cathartic colleague Liz Shaw convinced me to phase where casual workers are sharing their run.’ stories and building bonds.

Since coming onto the Branch Committee, Clare has learned a lot; about the broader problems faced by casual and non-casual workers across the University, and what it means to be union.

‘Pre-COVID (2019) I went and had a chat with Ellyse Fenton from the UQ Casuals Caucus, to find out how they do it there. When COVID really hit, a few times members asked if there was a casuals’ network at Griffith. So, I went and talked to Stewart (Organiser) and Garry (Branch President), and they said, ‘Go for it!’. So, I did.’

Clare is not sure what shape the Griffith Network will take. It is still in its early, cathartic phase where casual workers are sharing their stories and building bonds. Clare holds high hopes for the Network’s future.

‘Will we take the same path as UQ – which has done very well – or do our own thing? Not sure. But whatever we do will be democratically decided.’ ‘I am daunted. I haven’t done any organising or activism in my life. But, I am getting so much support, and I am very excited.’

For more information about the Griffith University Casuals Network, call Griffith NTEU Organiser Stewart de Lacy-Leacey at gu@nteu.org.au.