A strong local Branch essential as we enter the uncharted waters ahead

Susanne Newton, La Trobe University

As I write, La Trobe University will end the Jobs Protection Framework in a fortnight, which has staved off some of the worst impacts of the pandemic for the last year.

We’re just out of our fourth lockdown, with no international students in sight and a cruel lack of support from the Federal Government, it’s hard not to imagine much of what we know and love about the University falling off a cliff after 1 July.

Already, colleagues have taken voluntary redundancies, decades of institutional knowledge simply gone, their Zoom farewells as surreal and unreal as so much of our lives have been this last year.

What will the University look like with hundreds of our colleagues and friends gone in the next few months? When we return to the office again, what university will we be returning to?

Already, half – HALF – the staff are at risk of burnout, according to a recent survey. We were taken through survey results in detail, but simply knowing the problem doesn’t solve it, because the problems are real. Over $150 million less revenue forecast this year compared to 2019; a hole that will take 5–8 years to dig out of; a deficit the Federal Government doggedly refuses to address, not because they can’t, but because starving the tertiary sector suits their ideology just fine.

So many people I know are worried for their jobs, professional staff working long hours beyond what they’re paid for; academics writing grant applications during the ‘leave’ they have to take. There are less people already and correspondingly more work, as we scramble to seek funding in a more challenging environment.

It’s a scary time to enter bargaining. What can the Union fight for when it is inevitable hundreds of jobs will go? It’s a strange feeling to think about how to soften the cushion for those that go – career transition, access to the Employee Assistance Program – but even stranger to wonder, is it actually the better choice to stay, and what can we do in the enterprise agreement to protect those that do?

Already, job intensification is at an unsustainable level, and I hear of people close to breaking down. That’s now, and we’re not even near the worst of it. The University’s reset strategy is unrealistic at best, asking for a '20% improvement in staff productivity' …while concurrently making over 10% of the University’s people redundant.

Already, job intensification is at an unsustainable level, and I hear of people close to breaking down. That’s now, and we’re not even near the worst of it.

I don’t blame university management for this (although their targets are unrealistic). I think they’re doing what they can with what is genuinely an incredibly difficult situation. I blame the Federal Government for starving a sector they had the ability to keep afloat, to take the Keynesian approach and provide us with stimulus to keep us in employment. It could have been done, it simply wasn’t. I’ve been a Branch Committee member since I began at La Trobe in 2017, but since the pandemic began I’ve taken on the position of Vice President (Professional Staff). It is clear there is no more important time for me to be active in my union, and we have built our Branch Committee to be invigorated, strong and ready to fight in bargaining for our colleagues that will go and those that will remain.

The NTEU La Trobe Branch Committee is in good hands, and it has been one of my great joys to see Alysia Rex stand up and take on the role of Branch President. Alysia is diligent, fair and smart and with a quiet strength that will carry us through this time, with our dedicated Secretary Jeremy Seward at her side. We are also so fortunate to have Aimee Hulbert as our Branch Organiser. We know it is professional staff that will bear the brunt of the redundancies, and having a professional staff member as President for the first time in at least 14 years and probably longer, feels exactly right.

We will do the best we can, as we enter the uncharted waters ahead. •

Susanne Newton is the Communications Officer and Knowledge Broker for the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University, and Vice President (Professional Staff) of NTEU La Trobe University Branch Outside of work, Susanne is a Darebin City Councillor, the Council that was the first in the world to declare a climate emergency

...we have built our Branch Committee to be invigorated, strong and ready to fight in bargaining for our colleagues...