Anti-war victory at UNSW

An anti-war speak-out held on February 21, during orientation week at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), halted military recruitment on that campus for the day. The action was organised with the support of socialist youth group Resistance, Christian Students Uniting, the Bike Club, the UNSW Greens and the UNSW Environment Collective.

After leaflets advertising the protest began circulating on campus from February 19, the first day of orientation week activities, military recruiters from the UNSW Army Regiment decided not to show up at their booked stall on the advertised day of the protest.

The anti-war action went ahead, calling for an end to US-led occupation of Iraq, and condemning the imprisonment and unjust treatment of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay and the visit to Australia of US Vice-President Dick Cheney scheduled for later that week.

On February 19, activists from the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) had been ordered to remove their campaigning stall by a representative of Arc. Arc is the new UNSW student organisation, formed this year as an amalgamation of the previously separate services and representative student organisations.

Arc provoked protest from the NTEU and other activists when it announced late last year that Arc employees earning more $40,000 per year would be forced to accept Australian Workplace Agreements (individual contracts) and that other employees would be covered by a "greenfields" employer contract.

When confronted by security guards and told to remove the stall, the NTEU members refused. They were eventually allowed to stay. On the same day, Arc representatives forced the activist group Socialist Alternative to remove their stall from the campus.

From GLW issue 700