Alison Barnes, National President

Alison Barnes National President

Welcome to the 2020 NTEU Annual Report. This has been a year like no other for our sector and our Union. At the time of writing 12,500 of our workmates, who should be teaching our students, developing theory and innovation or running the administrative functions of our universities, are standing in unemployment lines across the country. What’s more, 12,695 is a gross underestimate of the real numbers of staff across our sector who have lost work. It does not capture those working for private education providers who bore the first wave of COVID-related job losses nor the many thousands of casuals who have silently been let go. A number cannot begin to capture the human cost of unemployment: the financial and emotional strain unemployed workers endure. It doesn’t capture the story of people like Dash, employed for years on rolling contracts at a private provider but who is now permanently leaving the sector; nor members of our National Tertiary Casuals Committee (NTCC) who haven’t worked for months; nor Ali, a professional staff member at Macquarie, who is applying for a VR as her workload spirals beyond breaking point. These job losses impact not only individuals but also undermine the ability of our universities to contribute to the economic reconstruction of Australia. That said, the value of higher education to our society should never be measured by economics alone; the contribution of universities to the rich fabric of our society must not be discounted. We are witnessing increasing job losses among researchers employed on rolling contracts, undermining our nation’s intellectual capacity at the very moment we need to confront not only recession but the devastating impacts of climate change and global uncertainty. COVID-19 has taken a heavy toll across our sector but, as our Blue Stocking Week demonstrated, it is women who have been particularly affected. Two-thirds of redundancies have been borne by professional and general staff, 64 per cent of whom are women. Moreover, evidence is emerging that the publications output by women has suffered as a result of the double burden of managing work and life in lockdown. The longer-term impacts will be to make it harder for women to gain promotion and widen the gender pay gap. The Federal Government, rather than valuing the contribution of our universities, has refused to throw the sector a life-line, thus undermining the sector’s ability to perform its core functions of teaching and research. The Government has stood by as job losses swept our sector and, on three occasions, has denied our colleagues access to JobKeeper, thereby effectively severing the relationship between staff and their institutions. The recent passage of the Higher Education Support Amendment Bill reshapes the architecture of the sector in a way that not only sees students pay higher fees but also provides staff with fewer resources. Yet again, the Government has attempted to reignite the culture wars.

Our million-dollar Vice-Chancellors, who by-and-large have refused to advocate for their staff and students, are now incentivised to make staff and students bear the cost of the COVID-19 crisis. These are the same Vice-Chancellors we have had to fight for safe workplaces, for arrangements for staff to work from home, and for COVID-19 leave for all including casuals. These fights continue. Members across Australia in their many, many thousands petitioned, wrote letters, sent emails, attended snap actions and lobbied politicians to demonstrate their opposition to the Higher Education Amendment Bill, which the Government had erroneously labelled (in a nod more to marketing spin than real reform) their JobReady Graduates package. NTEU members made 400 submissions when the Federal Government first sought to gag our voice by attempting to block a Senate inquiry and then vastly reduced the time available for submissions. Members made videos telling their stories, asked friends and family to write to crossbench MPs, and rallied outside Parliament House. In South Australia and Tasmania, NTEU members were at the forefront of this struggle and helped to launch the moving billboard, and stood up to their ViceChancellors to pressure them to oppose the Bill. Our members nationwide, via their professional associations, sought to increase the chorus of people opposing the Bill and took to social media in their thousands to make the parliament and the public aware of their opposition to the Bill. While NTEU members stood united, we did not stand alone. Our actions in defence of the sector ensured that the Australian Labor Party, the Greens, and Senators Patrick and Lambie stood by us. We had the support of peak unions bodies across the country who emailed their constituents and sought to amplify our message. Our fellow unions joined with us: the Australian Services Union worked alongside us to highlight the impact on social work degrees; the Australian Education Union, whose members lobbied and wrote to MPs to highlight the impact of the Bill on future

generations of students; and, importantly, the National Union of Students who campaigned alongside us. We pay tribute to students in Tasmania like Miranda, who addressed our rally and joined with us in speaking to Senator Jacqui Lambie about what it is like for working class kids from northern Tasmania who want to go to university. Although the Government succeeded in passing their legislation by one Senator’s vote, we have not been deterred in the broader fight; and indeed, the Union has grown even stronger. The ongoing crisis in higher education forces us to continue to focus on last year’s National Council priorities of building our workplace structures, increasing our workplace density, and strengthening our power so that we are robust enough to overcome the challenges our sector faces.

2020 is an election year and we were anticipating meeting and welcoming new National Councillors. But, as with many things, face-to-face gatherings have been postponed and for the first time we will meet virtually. While our Council will be different and while we have faced an unanticipated crisis, the increase in membership and the commitment and defiance of our members encourages me to hope that, if we continue to stand together, to organise and to build our power, we will prevail. ◆

Image (this page): Fund Uni Fairly rally at ANU, Sept 2020; Social media graphics from the Fund Uni Fairly campaign.