WHY Students SHOULD support strikes!
Acknowledgement of country The Education Action Group meets and organises on stolen Gadigal land. We recognise the learning and knowledge sharing that has taken place on Gadigal land for tens of thousands of years, and condemn the University’s role in the colonisation of this land. The University of Sydney is a colonial institution which removed Gadigal people from their land and it continues to displace First Nations people through its dispossession of Redfern, a site of Indigenous resistance. We recognise the resistance and strength of First Nations people, from the Day of Mourning to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. We stand in complete solidarity with all Indigenous people fighting for their land, autonomy and sovereignty. Sovereignty has
Education Action Group: EAG This booklet was made by the Education Action Group (EAG). We are a group of USyd students who are fighting for a better education, both at the university and federal level. All students are welcome to join. To get involved, learn more about what we do, or find out more about the upcoming strikes, find us on Facebook @SydneyUniversityEd-
Contributors Writers and editors: Lia Perkins, Priya Gupta, Iggy Boyd, Simon Uptis, Tom Williams, Seamas Pragnell and Deaglan Godwin. Cover art: Carina Kang. 1
Introduction What is happening at the moment? Higher education in Australia and at the University of Sydney is in a dire state. One in five university workers lost their jobs in the past two years and students across the country are facing course cuts and fee hikes. At Sydney University, employees in the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) are fighting management for greater job security, an end to casualisation, the preservation of key academic workload conditions and a pay raise that keeps up with the rising costs of living. Management reaped the benefits from laying off workers, cutting courses and increasing workloads. USyd made a $106 million surplus in 2020, and the salaries of upper management staff have ballooned in the last ten years. Despite this, students are receiving a worse-off education. Our class sizes have increased, many courses are taught entirely online and staff aren’t given enough time to prepare for teaching. What is the way to fight back? This zine will argue that when staff go on strike, it is in the best interests of students that we support them by joining the picket lines, telling our friends and not going to class. Workers at the university have one important tool to hit management where it hurts: they can withdraw their labour in the form of a strike. You may be familiar with strike action or industrial action because nurses, transport workers and teachers have taken action in the past few months to end the NSW Government’s wage freeze. When university workers (tutors, admin staff, lecturers, research assistants etc.) go on strike, the support of students is essential. This is a mutual exchange because staff working conditions are student learning conditions.
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Strikes! What are strikes? Do strikes work? Workers strike by collectively refusing to do work, and we’ve seen this a lot recently. When the teachers went on strike, public schools shut for the day. When train workers went on strike, the transport network ground to a halt. This kind of action puts pressure on their bosses to get them back to work, so they will concede wins like pay raises, sick leave and reasonable workloads. Strikes work because they remind management that workers are the ones running the show; without staff and students, the university stops. Strikes are how most good things in the world have been won. From workplace wins like the 8-hour workday and child labour laws, to broader wins such as women’s suffrage and land rights. This is because bosses depend on profits taken from workers like your tutors and researchers, and so workers can force them to concede by threatening the one thing they care about, their bottom line. Management will keep attacking staff because they run our university as a business, and just like any other business, exploiting workers more and more is how they stay competitive. So strikes matter because they are a major way we can fight these attacks. Strikes can also inspire confidence in other industries to go on strike, magnifying their power. Around the world we have seen general strikes that have threatened military dictatorships and even put an end to wars. Clearly strikes are potent and exciting! In 2013 staff at the University of Sydney went on strike for 7 days and they won a better pay rise, 120 positions for previously casualised workers, and three paid research days per year - among other claims.
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What are the union’s demands? The key demands of the current Enterprise Bargaining Agreement are: Pay increase (12% over 4 years) No forced redundancies Workload committees to ensure workloads do not exceed 35 hours Conversion for casual and fixed term staff Preserve the 40% research, 40% teaching, 20% admin split Establish an Aboriginal employment quota, at minimum 3% Management has implemented austerity measures at the university by cutting staff, employing people more precariously, stealing the wages of the precariously employed, increasing class sizes, forcing more classes online and much more. For example, it was discovered in an audit that Sydney Uni has underpaid staff by $42 million. Furthermore, across Australia universities employ vastly more casual and fixed-term staff than staff in ongoing positions. Large numbers of our best researchers are employed on short-term contracts, while half of undergraduate teaching is performed by casual staff, many of whom need multiple jobs to survive. Why should students support strikes? A major reason why students should support strikes is that staff working conditions are student learning conditions. Every attack that management makes on staff also negatively affects students. The firing of teachers means larger class sizes, in turn meaning less chance to engage with the material. When management slashes the time allowed for staff to mark assignments to 8 minutes for 2000 words, the feedback we receive suffers. The measly amount of time that staff are paid to do administrative work means that our emails go unanswered for hours or days, leaving students frustrated and stressed, or forcing our teachers into unpaid work. Students and staff have a common enemy in upper management and the Vice Chancellor. Management called the police on students protesting for their education in the recent past, who then forcefully attempted to shut down their demonstrations. Clearly we are on the same side as staff, and against the people whose profits come at the expense of everyone else on campus. 4
The second major reason why student support is essential is that without it, strikes are at risk of falling through. Staff care about their students and are striking for us as well as for themselves. To be visibly supported by students gives staff the confidence to maintain their strike and not give into the measly concessions offered by management. A larger louder strike also gains more attention. The university’s greatest pride and asset is their reputation, which is threatened when a large group of students speak out against the way their staff are treated. The university knows that a divide between staff and students weakens the strike and the bargaining power of the staff, and thus students are discouraged from showing solidarity with their teachers. For example, the UNSW NTEU recently lost their court battle to prevent the university from releasing the results of end of semester surveys. Teachers are facing precarious employment, wage theft, bloated tutorials and little time for marking and other administrative work. By publishing the surveys, management shifts blame from their neoliberal cost-cutting agendas onto the teachers themselves. How can students support strikes? Won’t a strike impact my education? During the strike, management will tell students to go to class as per usual. Students should do the opposite. Remember, the common enemies of staff and students are the Vice Chancellors, the Deans, and the rest of management. If you are a student, don’t come to class when there is a strike. Better yet, join your teachers on the picket line. Strikes teach us a lot more than any lecture. They show us the power staff have, and the role students can play in supporting them. Strikes clarify who is attacking education and who is defending it. And they show everyone involved that we are not powerless individuals, but a powerful group capable of fighting back.
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Students have a long history of militant action at the USyd The upcoming industrial action at USyd will be the latest of a series of strikes in the university’s history, with the two latest being in 2017 and 2013. Any success that these previous strikes had was in part due to student support in the form of standing with striking staff at the picket lines, refusing to go to class, and generally supporting staff in their fight for better conditions. Militant student support will also be essential for upcoming action. Education in Australia has been eroded over time Tertiary education in its current form is not ideal; it is not even the best Australia has ever had. In the 1970s we had free higher education, but over time, higher ed has transitioned from a public good to a privilege. Government funding to universities has plummeted over the past few decades, and to make up the difference, universities charge exorbitant fees, cut staff, merge faculties and engage with corporate sponsorships which are antithetical to the values and future of students (eg. nuclear weaponry, fossil fuel corporations). The loss of options for staff and students represents a shameful attack on our education and confirms that the university does not prioritise student choice and education for its own sake, but profit. Students and staff ratios have ballooned, with students reporting in-person tutorials of over 30 people, and zoom tutorials with over 50. Staff employment has also changed, with casuals now overtaking full-time staff. This is a problem because casual staff are vulnerable to wage theft, firing and exploitation. Today, we are being sold shabby degrees for an increasing fee. Our end goal is free education While the goals of the upcoming strikes are to support staff in their demands for better pay, working conditions and job security, we also have our sights set on a brighter future. Students deserve a free and accessible education, where we are able to study what they want without having to shell out tens of thousands of dollars or more. Universities should be run by the students, teachers and staff. We are the ones who make the university run, not the managers and certainly not the Vice Chancellors. We are looking to return to the day of Free Education in Australia, and every time we speak out on behalf of staff and students we are pushing back against the increasing neoliberalisation of education, so join us! 6
Join the education action group The Education Action Group holds weekly meetings and organises education activism on campus. Every USyd student is welcome to come along to EAG meetings and help out at our stalls! When staff go on strike we will be organising student solidarity strikes. As this zine has outlined, staff working conditions are student learning conditions, and we have more in common with staff that management.
On this QR code you can find our: - upcoming events - main organising facebook group - facebook page - instagram - mailing list
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