Sentry, Oct 2020

SENTRY Stop the Bill

Fund Uni Fairly

Deepfakes Artificial intelligence vs Real Intelligence

The jobs apocalypse It's happening now!

Published by National Tertiary Education Union

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OCT 2020

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CONTENTS

The jobs apocalypse. It's happening now!

Since March this year, the NTEU began issuing strong warnings about possible heavy job losses coming to the sector. Thousands of higher education jobs have already been lost or are targeted to go.

03 Cover: Indian entrant in the United Nations Global Call Out To Creatives to help stop the spread of COVID-19. (Sam Varghese)

Sentry is a free online news magazine for NTEU members and Australian higher education staff.

Sentry will be published during the COVID-19 shutdown in between publication of the Union's regular member magazine, Advocate.

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Fund Uni Fairly campaign

Deepfakes

The fight against Dan Tehan's flawed funding bill is now at the pointy end.

Do you believe what you see?

Can you tell real from fake? Can anyone?

In case you missed it... 01 A flexible and & dynamic dynamic work work culture culture0606 Current disputes 13 How are disability practitioners surviving COVID-19 'isolation' 'isolation'?1414 Recent AUR special publications issue call16 for papers 16

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Sentry will be published in May, June, August, September, October and December.

Advocate will be published as usual in July and November.

SENTRY ISSN 2652-5992 Published by National Tertiary Education Union PO Box 1323, South Melbourne VIC 3205 Australia ABN 38 579 396 344 All text & images ŠNTEU 2020 unless stated Publisher

Matthew McGowan

Editor

Alison Barnes

Production Manager

Paul Clifton

Editorial Assistance

Anastasia Kotaidis

Sentry is available online free as a PDF and e-book at www.nteu.org.au/sentry

CATCH UP

NEWS & CAMPAIGNS

In case you missed it...

Jacqui Lambie, Please don't pass the bill!

University of Tasmania scientist, Jenny Smith, made a passionate plea to Senator Jacqui Lambie, asking her to block Dan Tehan's university funding bill, pointing out it would result in worse educational outcomes for Tasmanian students.

Luckily, Jenny's voice was heard and Jacqui Lambie has said she'll block the bill!

Watch the video E Upload your own video message to Senator Sterling Griff Video

A message for future students and their families from university staff Staff at the University of Wollongong produced this short video to highlight the many problems, miscalculations and adverse consequences in the Morrison Government's Job-Ready Graduates bill.

Watch the video E

Rex Patrick asks: Is this just a masked funding cut?

Send a message to Sterling Griff!

We're struggling to understand too, Rex! In the Senate Education & Employment committee, Senator Rex Patrick asked some great questions about the Government's real agenda to cut $1 billion from Australian universities.

NTEU President Dr Alison Barnes and ACTU Secretary Sally McManus call on members to send a video message to call on him to reject the Liberal's Job-Ready Graduates package.

Watch the video E

Watch the video Video

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more overpage...

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CATCH UP

NEWS & CAMPAIGNS

In case you missed it...

'I will be voting NO to the Tehan cuts' We asked Federal MPs to sign our pledge to oppose the Morrison Government's Job-Ready Graduates bill.

View the photo gallery

Agenda, vol. 28

Connect, vol. 13 no. 1

AUR, vol. 62 no. 2

NTEU's annual women's journal, Agenda, was sent out on 11 Sept.

It covers Bluestocking Week activities, how women are bearing the brunt of COVID pain, the latest gender stats, and what life is like in a pandemic for precariously employed women and more.

The 2nd semester issue of NTEU's casual magazine, Connect, came out on 28 August with features on wage theft, COVID as the casual pandemic, parenting in lockdown, building an inclusive post-COVID sector and much more.

The 2nd issue this year of NTEU's refereed academic journal, the Australian Universities' Review, was released on 4 September, packed as ever with interesting articles, opinions and book reviews.

Read online Book-Open

Read online Book-Open

Read online Book-Open

NTEU online meeting backgrounds We've created a range of striking NTEU background images for members to use in those unavoidable online meetings. Download them now and help grow the Union!

Download the images Camera

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The jobs apocalypse

JOB LOSSES

POLICY & LOBBYING

It's happening now!

It is not too late for the Senate to do the right thing in the coming weeks and reject this bill – and we continue to urge members to join us in contacting the crossbench senators to achieve this outcome.

Since March this year, the NTEU began issuing strong warnings about possible heavy job losses coming to the sector in the wake of lost international student revenue.

These warnings included TV and radio appearances, pleas to the Government, and even full-page newspaper ads.

gaping hole in international student enrolments.

Later, in June, the Government dug the boot in again, announcing the surprise funding reforms they called the Job-Ready Graduate Package that would be rapidly legislated and implement for 2021 and beyond.

At the time, the NTEU’s own modelling confirmed Universities Australia’s estimate of at least 20,000 job losses in 2020 without government support.

This bill has been widely criticised from all corners of the sector for its idiosyncratic fee increases, cuts to funding per place, and complete unwillingness to acknowledge the teaching-research nexus, or indeed even the concept of teaching quality (over quantity).

Sadly, these warnings went unheeded. Instead, the Government moved to restrict Universities’ access to JobKeeper and released a disingenuous 'support package' on Easter Sunday that did nothing to address the

It is not too late for the Senate to do the right thing in the coming weeks and reject this bill – and we continue to urge members to join us in contacting the crossbench senators to achieve this outcome. continued overpage...

Kieran McCarron Policy & Research Officer

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JOB LOSSES

POLICY & LOBBYING

Getting to the bottom of the job loss numbers

If reductions of these magnitudes are occurring sector-wide then it is not out of the question to assume that up to 50,000 of our casual colleagues have lost work since the COVID-19 disaster began.

NTEU ad in the Geelong Advertiser for the Deakin Day of Action in June

The NTEU can confirm that there have been at least 12,185 positions lost in Australian universities since March. This comprises at least 5,300 continuing positions, 6,486 casual positions and 399 fixed term positions that we are aware of.

Sadly, the full figure is likely much higher. Universities generally cannot conceal continuing staff redundancies – this is because NTEU negotiated Enterprise Agreements have strong redundancy provisions, including mandatory consultation.

These processes reveal the numbers of jobs affected to us.

Notably, however, the 5300 figure comprises a mix of headcount and full time equivalent (FTE) counts.

This is because several universities have announced FTE redundancy targets, but they have not announced which positions are affected. The total number of positions affected will always be higher than these FTE figure targets as not all positions are full time.

Casual staff losses Beyond continuing staff redundancies, the true extent of job losses becomes more difficult to quantify. The NTEU has confirmed that fixed term

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staff and casual staff have not been renewed as a result of cost cutting at a handful of universities, but we have little official data on most.

If universities are going to the expense of making hundreds of continuing staff redundant, it is very likely they are ending fixed term and casual roles too. After all, we estimate that casual staff account for 45% of all university employees by headcount, and fixed term staff 21%.

Two universities where we are aware of the full extent of casual job losses are La Trobe and Deakin, each with a reduction of over 2400 casual staff.

These figures are enormous.

There is currently no requirement for universities in states other than Victoria to report a headcount of casual staff (something we have lobbied for consistently), however, they do report a FTE figure annually to the Department of Education.

Based on these figures, it appears that La Trobe has reduced its casual staff by almost the full amount reported in 2019, while Deakin has lost about two-thirds versus this particular figure.

Overall, NTEU estimates that there are around 100,000 people engaged on casual contracts in the sector.

If reductions of these magnitudes are occurring sector-wide then it is not out of the question to assume

POLICY & LOBBYING

Continuing staff redundancy targets: forced & voluntary RMIT MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 605 UNSW MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 493 Melbourne MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 450

Division between forced & voluntary unknown

ANU MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 415 Deakin MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 386

Currently paused due to NTEU action

CQU MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 287 Swinburne MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 280 Monash MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 277 La Trobe MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 239 Wollongong MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 200 UNE MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 200 MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE

At least 100 planned at: Adelaide, CDU, CSU, Murdoch, UTS, VU

that up to 50,000 of our casual colleagues have lost work since the COVID-19 disaster began.

on staff at Australian universities and the ongoing problem of insecure employment in our sector.

Honesty in numbers needed

We will also be surveying sector employees shortly to try to get to the bottom of the true extent of concealed job losses among those in precarious employment.

The NTEU has requested all universities openly provide data on these changes in employment so we can properly track and publicise the enormous impact this crisis is having

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WORKPLACE

MEMBER STORIES

A flexible & dynamic work culture My name is Alex Vickery-Howe and I’m a lecturer in Creative Writing and Drama at Flinders University, South Australia. My main focus is on foundation teaching, including equipping students with literacy and research skills.

The great disruption The advent of COVID-19 has obviously disrupted university life and created a great deal of uncertainty for both staff and students. For staff, employment is no longer secure – far from it – and workloads are increasing to unsustainable levels.

For students, camaraderie is lacking, teachers are harder to access, and online tutorials are still in their testing phase.

Despite these disruptions, I believe there is an opportunity now to reflect on the structure of university life and adapt both our teaching methodologies and our office culture. One thing that has startled me is the way many introverted students, who were previously struggling in my classes, are now thriving in the virtual environment.

Another unexpected discovery is how effective lectures can be in the online space and how much more relaxed I am when I give them, with coffee in hand. For every challenge, there are perks and positive lessons.

Alex Vickery-Howe Flinders University

From an office point of view, it is fair to say that the virus has changed our work habits and the way we interact with each other, and many of these changes will continue after the creation and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine.

To tell your COVID-19 story to the NTEU member community, please contact Helena Spyrou

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MEMBER STORIES

Changing the workplace My focus – or my hope – lies with the possibility of a more flexible and dynamic work culture, combining online and face-to-face teaching with working hours that suit individual employees.

Many of us prefer to work at night, for example. As a writer and researcher, and possible vampire, I’m drawn to the idea that productivity and ERA outcomes will be significantly increased if we allow people to work away from campus and schedule their lives according to their own strengths and preferences.

In this environment, traditional metrics for evaluating the value of staff, including workload models that are applied across disparate colleges or incompatible subject areas, will become less and less meaningful.

At Flinders, the Work Allocation Unit system is like a lost level from Super Mario Brothers as teachers eagerly claw at WAUs (pronounced ‘wows’) like phantom gold coins. Every so often, a staff member catches that elusive shining star in the form of a research theme leadership or director of studies position. That’s when the music kicks in and Mario goes wild.

consistently or how frequently a staff member is working. WAUs cannot accurately quantify industry profile, level or quality of student interaction, curriculum innovation and development, approachability, collegiality or commitment to university values. The landscape is changing and so too must the modelling.

Union support So how does the NTEU support its members in a post-COVID world?

How do we collectivise when we are more distant than ever? Part of the answer lies in responding proactively to this new landscape and demonstrating to management that flexibility leads to productivity.

Our worth to our employers cannot be sliced and measured in pretty, sparkly WAUs but manifest in the depth of our research, the achievements of our students, our dedication to our disciplines and our connections with community.

At Flinders, the Work Allocation Unit system is like a lost level from Super Mario Brothers as teachers eagerly claw at WAUs (pronounced ‘wows’) like phantom gold coins.

It is difficult to say with any confidence what the Union will look like in the near future, to say nothing of the next five years, the next ten years, the next fifty... but there is a chance now to redirect the conversation and create a new normal.

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Much more often, however, the number of WAUs bears little or no resemblance to how diligently, how

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FUND UNI FAIRLY

NEWS & CAMPAIGNS

Fund Uni Fairly campaign at pointy end The August issue of Sentry detailed the Morrison Government’s attack on the higher education sector through the Job-Ready Graduates legislation announced by Education Minister Dan Tehan on 19 June.

NTEU ad in the Burnie Advocate in August

NTEU quickly launched the Fund Uni Fairly campaign, to mobilise members and university staff, students, the wider community and politicians to oppose the Government’s attempts to cut overall funding to the sector and make some courses, especially humanities, more than twice as expensive.

So what have we been doing?

• Over 16,000 people have signed our Fund Uni Fairly petition to Education Minister Dan Tehan. The petition was tabled in the Senate

by ALP Senator Louise Pratt on 2 September.

• Nearly 6,000 people from around the country sent emails to the crossbench Senators urging them to block the Government’s legislation.

• Over 100 members from three NSW Branches sent emails to National Party MPs and Senators urging them to block the Bill because of the potential effects on regional universities.

Michael Evans National Organiser (Media & Engagement)

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• Nearly 600 members and supporters sent submissions to the Senate inquiry on the Government’s proposed legislation. Over

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80% of the submissions received were negative about the proposed changes to funding.

• Many NTEU members have contacted their local MP urging them to not support the Bill.

• We have prepared briefing papers to assist members and supporters to lobby their MPs. • ALP education spokespeople Tanya Plibersek and Louise Pratt spoke to a gathering of Tasmanian members online to announce that the ALP would not support the proposed Bill.

• We developed a Fund Uni Fairly pledge that has been signed by ALP and Greens MPs, an independents Senator Rex Patrick (SA) and Andrew Wilkie MP (Tasmania).

• We have regularly targeted social media ads at the crossbench Senators urging them to block the Bill.

• We ran a full page advertisement in the Burnie Advocate on 21 August, urging the crossbench Senators (and Jacqui Lambie in particular, as Burnie is her home town) to block the Bill.

• NTEU prepared three different submissions in relation to the

NEWS & CAMPAIGNS Bill, and NTEU National President Alison Barnes gave presentations to two Senate inquiries about the legislation.

• We have had strong support from the Australian Services Union and the Australian Education Union who have sent information to their members and urged them to contact their local MP. • Our ACT members demonstrated against the Job-Ready Graduates Bill in front of Parliament House in August, the first sitting day of the last Parliamentary session.

• We have received support for our campaign from a range of academic professional associations, especially in the arts and humanities.

• Over 80 NTEU Tasmanian members, students and supporters attended an online meeting on 24 September to discuss the Bill and our campaign.

• Over 180 people attended an national online seminar on 25 September to hear a presentation on the Bill and the campaign. The meeting culminated in participants sending emails to the crossbench Senators, phoning their offices, and tweeting and posting on social media to get the message across to the MPs. • On 30 September, Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie announced she would vote against the bill.

Whew indeed! It’s been a busy few weeks.

The fight continues and we will certainly never give up The Senate inquiry handed down its report on 25 September. The government-dominated Committee (predictably) recommended that the legislation be passed without amendment, despite strong opposition to it from a wide cross section of stakeholders, including all three SA Vice-Chancellors, Sydney VC Michael Spence, and a range of higher education policy specialists.

The legislation will return to the Senate in the Budget session of Parliament, beginning on 6 October. The two One Nation Senators have said they will vote with the Government.

Independent SA Senator Rex Patrick has publicly opposed the Bill and will vote accordingly, as will Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie. Lambie declared in a statement that she wanted 'everyone to get a chance at being what they want to be. I’ll be damned if I’m going to be the vote that tells the country that poor people don’t get dream jobs.'

Centre Alliance Senator Stirling Griff is yet to declare his final position.

The Government needs his vote for the Bill for it to become law. NTEU is encouraging members to send Sterling Griff a video message.

Watch out for more lobbying efforts over the next few days in the lead-up to the Senate vote next week.

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TECHNOLOGY

MEMBER EXPERTS

Deepfakes Artificial Intelligence vs Real Intelligence Do you believe what you see? Did Obama really say that (he probably did but not on video)? Can you tell real from fake? And if you could, would you share it with others? Deepfakes are getting better and better yet (some) humans remain the best judges of the truth despite the efforts of the machines.

The more well-known deepfakes videos circulating are either for entertainment, such as Bill Hader channelling and momentarily becoming Tom Cruise and Seth Rogan, or to illustrate the danger of deepfakes, as pithily done by Jordan Peele (and Barak Obama). More disturbingly a recent example of Joe Biden falling asleep in an interview has surfaced, which in the year of the US elections takes an altogether more sinister turn.

The dissemination of false information online is a well-recognised societal problem that has been around since the internet itself, and indeed the spread of disinformation is a fundamental characteristic of human self-interest.

Dr Simon J. Cropper University of Melbourne

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Image: Morning Brew/ Unsplash

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The harmful (conspiracy) theories surrounding COVID-19 highlighted by David Coady in the August edition of Sentry are doubtless fuelled by such disinformation. Indeed, there is growing concern that credible fake videos (known as deepfakes due to the way in which they are produced – plus it sounds cool) are an insidious form of online disinformation, exploiting the innate assumption that photographic evidence is more reliable that written or spoken evidence.

These sources of ‘information’ inevitably erode our trust in traditional sources of information and ultimately promote disengagement from democratic processes, arguably fundamental to a civilised society.

Deepfake detection In response to this problem, there has been an extensive body of research into artificial intelligence (AI) methods of deepfake detection to weed out the fakes before they reach the audience; human vulnerability to deepfakes, however, remains largely unexplored.

The AI approach has recently resulted in one of the more culpable disseminators of false information issuing a challenge to coders to find a way to automatically detect manipulated videos: The Facebook Deepfake Detection Challenge (DFDC). Facebook/Kaggle created over 124,000 videos, both real and

TECHNOLOGY

MEMBER EXPERTS

fake, of unknown ‘actors’ talking about day to day things to train and test the submitted code.

The winning code (written by Selim Seferbekov) was able to distinguish a real video from a fake video in the private test set 66% of the time (guessing is 50%). That's not particularly good, and with the rate at which the quality of the fakes improves, that performance is likely to get worse rather than better over time unless the detection technology can keep up.

We think humans can do better, so using the publicly available DFDC stimulus set. We developed our own challenge for National Science Week in Victoria, Fake Out, a short (15 minute) challenge where we showed a selection of the DFDC videos and asked the participants to judge whether they were real or fake, how confident they were, and on what basis they made their decision if the video was deemed to be ‘fake’.

You Won’t Believe What Obama Says In This Video!, deepfake by Jordan Peele (Youtube)

We also concurrently ran a longer survey which included more videos and personality measures. The short survey has been completed by over 700 participants thus far, the longer one by over 100. While we are still examining the data there are some interesting aspects falling out of the analysis so far.

On average, people (RI – Real Intelligence) seem to be about as good as the machines (AI) with a hit rate continued overpage...

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MEMBER EXPERTS

of around 62%, but the variation between individuals is large with the highest scorers getting almost perfect performance. The AI did not even do this in the public test videos where the code could ‘examine’ the stimuli multiple times before coming to a decision; our human subjects only saw them once (equivalent to the private test set conditions in the DFDC).

When asked about the reasons for their decision, apart from the stimuli where there was some obvious glitch or discontinuity, to which we are particularly sensitive in natural images such as faces, a very common response was that the person in the video did just not ‘feel’ right: a very RI response. It remains to be seen whether performance correlates to measurable traits of personality and whether the ‘super-detectors’ are good at other related tasks such as facial recognition or memory for time and place, but it is a clear suggestion that RI can beat AI at its own game.

Of course, these results characterise only the first stage of the deepfake lifecycle; being sufficiently good to deceive. Then the viewer needs to decide to share it, to have the means to do so and for the cycle to continue; examining this behaviour is the next phase of the research but as with all good science, however slow it may seem (for good science is slow), you start at the beginning.

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Trust your gut So, what does this all mean? In the current climate of a global pandemic and heavily distorted political power structures, misinformation and disinformation play a significant role in skewing people’s beliefs and reactions to the world, often with the potential for great damage to be done.

From dangerous ‘cures’ for COVID-19 to discrediting a presidential candidate, these things change the course of society, and it is not in the right direction. Our research suggests they are not easy to detect when done well and it might well make sense to trust your gut if you do see something odd or unexpected.

With the pandemic simply being the forerunner to the crises we will have to deal with in the 2020s, accurate believable information is crucial. We need to believe Dr Norman Swan when we see him on our screens and hope for better leaders at every level; they need to be allowed to speak and be heard and seen unadulterated.

I once harboured hopes that Donald Trump was simply an elaborate fake to warn us of what might happen if we were truly that careless, but the sad truth is that no fakery can make him more repulsive to humanity than he really is.

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Current disputes NTEU continues to raise disputes and fight on behalf of members and their interests.

Newcastle annual leave dispute In the August issue of Sentry, I reported on a dispute at the University of Newcastle regarding a direction for all staff to take annual leave over the Easter period. NTEU alleges that this direction was not consistent with the Enterprise Agreement.

The matter did not settle at conciliation, and the dispute is now set to be arbitrated by the Fair Work Commission (FWC). We are asking the FWC to find in our favour and have all of the leave taken in reliance on management’s direction recredited to staff.

JCU variation Management at James Cook University (JCU) asked staff to vote on a variation to the Enterprise Agreement in response to the financial impact that COVID-19 will have on the University. The vote was successful by a very narrow majority.

The deal was supposed to postpose a pay rise due this year until December 2021, but management drafted the variation in such a way that it does not provide for that pay rise – a good example of why it’s always im-

INDUSTRIAL

NEWS & CAMPAIGNS

Union win at Murdoch portant to have the NTEU involved in drafting Agreements!

As the variation does not have the effect that management said it does – and that difference could have a negative financial impact on our members – the NTEU has no choice but to raise these issues with the FWC. We will argue that the poor drafting of the variation means that it cannot be approved, and that management will need to try again if they wish to change the current Agreement.

Griffith casual wage theft In the latest example of casuals having their work reclassified in order to pay them less, the Problem Based Learning Facilitators at Griffith University have had their pay rates redesignated from tutors to clinical facilitators, effecting a drastic drop in pay with no less work being required.

After discussions with management were unsuccessful, this matter has been referred to the FWC for resolution. We are asking the FWC to find that the tutorial rate is the correct rate of pay for these members, and order that Griffith pay them accordingly.

A ballot seeking to vary the terms of the Enterprise Agreement at Murdoch was voted down with a massive No vote of 73%!

The overwhelming successful rejection of Murdoch’s Senior Executive drive to attack staff pay and conditions tells the University that NTEU members are a united and powerful voice.

The exorbitant salaries of senior executives are grotesque in the midst of a crisis where staff are being told that they must sacrifice their working conditions.

Staff workloads were already at a breaking point and then management came after staff pay.

Murdoch management refused to provide any transparency about their financial position stating that even the University Senate had not seen the financials and wouldn’t until October - after they had already attempted to vary the Enterprise Agreement. This was an outrageous attack on staff pay and conditions and just the latest since the Senior Executive terminated the Agreement in 2017.

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Campbell Smith, National Industrial Officer

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ACCESSIBILITY

MEMBER STORIES

How are disability practitioners surviving COVID-19 'isolation'?

Four of the five 'hot spot' municipalities in Melbourne’s west that were locked down in June, surround three campuses of Victoria University – Sunshine, Werribee and St Albans. This is where I work.

Along with a small team of Accessibility Liaison and Student Wellbeing practitioners, we support students across eight metropolitan campuses – two in Footscray and three in the city.

With the exception of essential workers, strict restrictions were extended at the end of June and Melburnians were 'locked in' with limited reasons to leave our homes; 5km travel limits and unending uncertainty impacting the fear and anxiety levels of 4.5 million people!

The problem-solving aspects of my role as Coordinator of services for students with illnesses and disabilities went into overdrive, as the dread set in. Students lost face to face classes, events, access to libraries, clubs – many lost their jobs. International students arriving early in 2020 had do deal with no family in Melbourne, homesickness and unending uncertainty. Studying online is possible for most, but this has been not without its challenges.

Jen Anderson Victoria University

As we collectively realised the isolation was not going to end any time soon, we hurriedly printed course materials for TAFE students, arranged Zoom support sessions for note takers and sourced local options for cheaper devices. My thoughts returned to a national Disability Liaison Officer (DLO) Zoom session, where

To tell your COVID-19 story to the NTEU member community, please contact Helena Spyrou

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MEMBER STORIES more than one hundred disability practitioners shared their initial thoughts as campuses across Australia closed.

For clients – Compassion!

For teams – Coaching!

For colleagues – Encouragement!

For academics (online teaching, with one week’s notice) – Awe! For our communities – Advice!

To have a job – Gratitude!

Buoyed by the flood of positivity from our dedicated network of colleagues, we got on the phone to check in with our students and we’ve been monitoring, solving problems and realising new forms of liaison across the university community ever since. Then there’s juggling Jabber, Zoom, WebEx and phone meeting – with competency improving, despite unstable internet connections. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve abandoned a Zoom session on my computer to quickly join the session via mobile.

The wonders of technology paving the way for what will hopefully become a silver lining to the pandemic improved awareness of 'accessibility' for all. Are your course materials compliant? Do your videos include captions? Do your images have 'Alt text' descriptions? Is your university willing to engage hybrid attendance options post COVID-19?

Initially the problems and challenges seemed insurmountable as we juggled increasingly complex issues, referrals and advice.

How do you learn online whilst sharing two devices with a family of younger siblings being home schooled? How do you access the Braille printer in the Library at Footscray Park, when you live in Keilor? How do you upload assignments with an unstable internet connection? How do you participate in the Zoom class when you don’t know Auslan and your hearing aid isn’t compatible?

Never fear, AustEd1 is near! The national community (via email) of disability practitioners – where advice, tips and stories are shared warmly and delivered with just the right amount of humour and wit to keep us all motivated. No matter how strange the request – all you have to do is ask! Before long, a caring and dedicated DLO out there in AustEd land will respond with suggestions or a solution!

In our work, we skip along the border of Switzerland, with one foot in the independent learning camp and the other advocating for what is reasonable? Since the COVID-19 lockdown, I am noticing more nods, more flexibility, more compassion and more willingness as we and our academic colleagues work for all students to succeed – despite the myriad of impacts and challenges the pandemic has brought.

How do you upload assignments with an unstable internet connection? How do you participate in the Zoom class when you don’t know Auslan and your hearing aid isn’t compatible?

Man using a Braille screen reader (Sigmund/ Unsplash)

Stay well, be hopeful it will be over soon and be kind to yourselves!

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1. The AustEd email list is a closed list to facilitate discussion and information-sharing among disability practitioners and teachers within the post-secondary education sector.

vol. 1 no. 5

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nteu.org.au/sentry

15

CALL FOR PAPERS

PUBLICATIONS

Call for Papers: AUR special COVID-19 issue Guest editors Associate Professor James Roffee and Nic Kimberley are calling for papers for a special issue of Australian Universities’ Review, the NTEU's refereed academic journal, entitled 'Coronavirus and the crisis of higher education: Post-pandemic universities'.

Papers should centre around the impact of COVID-19 and focus on any aspect of the pandemic and its impact on higher education.

We welcome submissions from contributors at all levels, and particularly encourage early-career academics and professional staff to participate.

KEY DATES

FURTHER INFORMATION

Abstracts due: 31 October 2020.

Notification of acceptance: 20 November 2020.

Papers due: 15 March 2021.

Publication date: September 2021.

For further information, please read the blogpost.

To submit an abstract, please email nicholas.kimberley@mymail.unisa. edu.au.

For AUR submission information, please refer to the AUR website.

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16

Sentry

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OCTOBER 2020