BARGAINING
MEMBER STORY
Transparent, open, collective bargaining in our Branches I work in gender-based violence prevention programs at Victoria University (VU) in Melbourne. I’ve been in this role for about three years and I like how it brings me into contact with a wide variety of staff, students and community partners. I’ve only been an NTEU member since I started work at VU – previously I worked as an editor and was a member of the MEAA for nearly 20 years. I’ve been a socialist and community activist for most of my adult life. I joined the Branch Committee of our local NTEU Branch not long after I started at VU and was recently elected to the Vice-President (Professional staff) position. We gained lots of new Branch Committee members out of the recent elections, and there is a new sense of energy and determination in our Branch. VU members lost important conditions in the last Enterprise Agreement and we are determined to win true gains this time round! The key industrial issues at VU, as at so many other unis, are workloads and insecure work. The fact that these issues are so widespread should mean that our universities are in ferment and fighting back everywhere. The NTEU is definitely impacted by the long and disastrous decline of union density and militancy in Australia since the 1980s. That is the legacy of Hawke and Keating’s ‘Accord’, in which Labor and the union leaders systematically crushed independent union militancy and paved the way for WorkChoices.
Fleur Taylor Victoria University
To tell your story to the NTEU member community, please contact Helena Spyrou
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Sentry
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SEPTEMBER 2021
