Grassroots organising Dani Cotton relates members’

Dani Cotton

Casual employees representative

Grassroots organising

DANI COTTON, casual employees representative on the NTEU University of Sydney Branch Committee, spoke to the Friday Session about the campaign around winning Gender Affirmation Leave.

“Bottom up organising, not action at the negotiating table, is what will make the difference to real wins during enterprise bargaining.

It’s not about waiting around for the ‘perfect’ union. Of course, we want full density, we want full adherence to NTEU’s action. That’s the big picture. But we can’t afford to wait around for the perfect union before we take action.

We need to be practical, to take up the struggles all around us, issues that come up, whether that’s inside or outside of bargaining, whether it’s social issues, or an issue for only a particular work area.

This is where I wanted to bring in some of my experiences in fighting for gender affirmation leave.

At Sydney University, following the circulation of a draft log of claims, our campaign started with a number of unionists (including both trans and cisgender members) started a small open letter calling for the union to strengthen its claim. After reading our letter the union immediately changed the claim to better reflect what we needed on the ground. Then once bargaining hit proper, we started getting more organised. That meant having meetings, talking about our demands, and campaigning.

Having these meetings and input is essential: it means hearing the voices of people impacted and learning the problems properly. We learned about the realities of transphobic bullying by managers, we heard stories of those who had pushed unsuccessfully for leave improvements in the past.

This also gave us the organising base to build real action, and put pressure on the university to make gender affirmation annual, not “one-off”. This included an open letter signed by over 300 people, a powerful campaign video with around 30 staff and students from across the campus explaining why Management should listen to the union. We also worked with community organisations to build community demonstrations which demanded annual gender affirmation leave, and strong NTEU contingents to those demonstrations.

The NTEU has won several important concessions, including a one-off bank of 30 days leave and ways to access personal leave for gender affirmation. But there is still distance between the NTEU and Sydney University management, with management insisting that annual gender affirmation leave is not necessary.

The National Campaign for Gender Affirmation Leave

Not only was this University of Sydney-specific, but it also blew out into a national campaign.

After a decision by National Council, we saw probably the biggest union meeting about trans rights we’ve seen, with 130 attending, and talking about the kind of fighting union we need to oppose transphobia in every way.

Following this, we saw a renewed emphasis and energy on the national claim for gender affirmation leave. This

is a huge credit to Amy Sargeant, the head of QUTE, who played a key role, and Alison Barnes who supported us in that fight, as well as all the rank-and-file activists and organisers who are still fighting to carry this through.

Every unionist can support our campaign by displaying the NTEU poster in their lunch room or office, signing the petition to support the University of Tasmania branch, and standing for gender affirmation leave across the sector.

We’ve seen wins. Unions are leading the way on gender affirmation leave. After taking strike action, the NTEU WSU branch won an agreement with 20 days per annum of gender affirmation leave. Likewise, the Australian Services Union at Geelong Library won 20 days per annum of gender affirmation leave after taking strike action. The Finance Sector Union is petitioning for gender affirmation leave in agreements at most major banks. Places where you have a union fighting is where we have the best wins.

The big picture is that our sector is under attack. We’re all still reeling from the COVID crisis, from the decades of cuts. I’m a casual member, and casual and fixed term staff make up three quarters of the workforce at my university and similar proportions across the country. We’ve got a long way to go but now is a pivotal moment for change.

This same approach we saw for gender affirmation leave is what we need at every branch and on every issue. Every fight, every issue, can help build our union to be stronger.” Dani, Anthony, Damien and National Bargaining Co-ordinator Wayne Cupido spoke at a very popular Friday Session on Bargaining (we had over 650 people register for the Session and over 300 attended).

If you missed the Session you can watch a recording of it here.