Alma Torlakovic is a member of the University of Sydney National Tertiary Education Union Branch Committee.
NTEU Fightback, a rank-and-file union group of the National Tertiary Education Union at the University of Sydney, is calling on staff to vote No in the upcoming ballot on the proposed enterprise agreement. The campaign was launched at a forum on 25 May, attended by over 50 people. A members’ meeting on 13 June will consider the agreement. This week will probably be the first time that members are provided with a full list of proposed changes to our working conditions.
This piece is a response to National Tertiary Education Union Swinburne Branch President Julie Kimber, whose article can be read here.
There has been a vigorous argument over the direction of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) industrial campaign at Sydney University this year. Most recently, those who have been reluctant to argue and organise seriously for frequent enough and long enough strikes are now leading the charge for a “smarter” strategy of administration bans.
Sydney University is in the midst of an important industrial campaign as we fight for our next enterprise agreement. The campaign is happening in the context of plummeting living standards, job losses and a huge betrayal from our National Tertiary Education Union leaders in 2020, when they tried to ram through the now-infamous Jobs Protection Framework (JPF), which proposed a pay cut of up to 15 percent for university staff across the country. Despite the challenges to organising posed by this situation, we have had four successful strikes this year at Sydney Uni.
Universities around the country are entering enterprise bargaining negotiations and there’s a debate about what the National Tertiary Education Union’s wage claim should be.
A 350-strong members’ meeting of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of Sydney has voted to take strike action twice in the next month, kicking off our industrial campaign with a 48-hour strike on 11 and 12 May. This follows two years of savage attacks on university workers.