SA Division www.nteu.org.au/sa Division Officers SA Division Secretary: Ron Slee Division Asst Secretary: Nick Warner Division President: Peter Cardwell Division Vice-Presidents: Virginie Masson (Academic), Katerin Berniz (General)
Division Staff Division Industrial Officers: Annie Buchecker, Kathy Harrington Division Industrial Organiser: Cheryl Baldwin Division Organisers: Juliet Fuller, Rebecca Galdies Administration Officer: Donna Good
The South Australian Division represents over 1,950 members at three public universities: University of Adelaide, University of South Australia and Flinders University.
assistance of national officers. In 2019 and for the early months of 2020 these were held face-to-face including an all-day Cultural Competency Education session conducted by Adam Frogley with Uncle Lewis O’Brien providing valuable local knowledge and inspiration.
Recruitment & Membership, Training and Development
Katerin Berniz, Flinders Branch Secretary and National Councillor, was supported to attend a 4-day Advanced Training Intensive for union delegates at SA Unions. SA Unions held its annual Organising Conference in November 2019 – we attended along with 100 other officials. Three QUTE caucus members (Suzanne Edwards, Liz McNeill and Peter Cardwell) attended NTEU National QUTE Conference in Melbourne this year.
Over the last 12 months, membership increased by 3%. Adelaide Branch increased membership by 5.5%, UniSA by 3.9%, Flinders by 1.4%. At Flinders, we lost many long-term members including seven Branch Committee officers, as a university-wide restructure impacted on hundreds of academic and professional staff. Across all Branches, we monitored all resignations and while most who left the Union had retired or left the sector we minimised attrition by contacting every member whose membership lapsed because their fee payments had fallen behind. Recruitment and retention plans are in place to rebuild membership density at each Branch. Adelaide Branch has an active Campaign Committee, tasked with planning campaigns to recruit new members from amongst staff who feel apprehensive about their future employment especially in light of the financial hit to international student revenue caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Federal Government’s legislation to further cut public funding to universities.
Image (this page): Mobile billboard created to convince Centre Alliance to #BlocktheBill, parked outside the University of South Australia, October 2020.
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We conducted a series of training sessions for delegates and Branch officers with the
In March, the two Division Organisers (Juliet Fuller and Rebecca Galdies) and the Division Secretary attended a training session conducted by Kristy Jones from the ACTU Behavioural Insights Unit. This turned out to be the last face-to-face training conducted by ACTU in SA this year. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Division Forums in SA were held on-line this year as was the National Forum and this enabled all invited members to participate. Division Industrial Organiser, Cheryl Baldwin, led the coordination of 2 series of training sessions for Branch committee members and delegates. The first in May covered ‘becoming a delegate’, COVID-19 and the workplace, mental health at work, and the Fair Work Act and policy interpretation. The second in July dealt with ‘neoliberalism and universities’, having a recruitment conversation, campaigning collectively, and NTEU ANNUAL REPORT 2020 ◆ SA Division
