A&TSI STAFF
NEWS & CAMPAIGNS
Building recovery for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander staff & students The impacts of COVID-19 on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (A&TSI) staff and students has been an ongoing question. In an environment where universities are cutting staff at a dramatic rate, through Enterprise Agreements with percentage-based A&TSI employment targets it may suddenly begin to look like progress is being made.
Celeste Liddle National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Organiser
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Initially it was felt that perhaps both would receive a certain amount of buffering due to dual facts that Indigenous Student Success Program (ISSP) funding was direct from the government and provided some funding surety in uncertain times, but also, that considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and students are still vastly underrepresented in the sector, the need to retain and grow these numbers remains apparent. Yet, unfortunately, this has not been the case across the board. When the A&TSI staff and student data for 2019 was finally released by the Government in early July, it showed that there had been a 10% full time equivalent (FTE) increase of academic staff and a 7% FTE increase of general/professional staff between 2018 and 2019. These numbers, however, did not tell the full story. The gap between the actual number of staff and FTE holds steady and therefore the assumption
Sentry
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AUGUST 2020
can be made that as the numbers of A&TSI staff in secure employment grows, so too do the numbers of A&TSI staff in insecure employment. In total, according to the Governmental data, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff now make up 1.3% of the total staffing complement at universities. Whilst this is a welcome increase that mirrors the student data, it remains a long way off both population parity rates of employment and also the NTEU-negotiated employment targets contained within Enterprise Agreements. As has been noted numerous times during the COVID-19 pandemic and the unique circumstances we find ourselves in right now, universities still have a responsibility to ensure they are striving to achieve these employment targets and your union has a responsibility to ensure we are enforcing these clauses. However, there are further considerations. In an environment where universities are cutting staff at a dramatic rate, through Enterprise Agreements with percentage-based A&TSI employment targets it may suddenly begin to look like progress is being made. By this we mean that
