Jeremy Smith

The Victorian state government has begun a neoliberal experiment with the Victorian public as its guinea pigs.

After the Jeff Kennett-led Coalition state government in the 1990s privatised electricity, gas, public transport, roads, prisons, prisoner transport and much else, one of the few things left to be privatised is vocational education.

Job losses of 2000 permanent workers have been reported. However, adding all sessional teachers who won't have their contracts renewed, the number who will lose their job tallies to about 10,000, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) says.

One hundred activists of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) attended the Pushing the Boundaries climate change conference over April 28-29.

The two days of talks, vibrant debate and action-based workshops set a progressive agenda for ongoing union environmental activism and marked the NTEU as the left pole of the global warming debate in the union movement.

NTEU national president Jeannie Rea opened the conference by drawing attention to the special place of the NTEU in the debate about global warming.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) national council meeting over October 9-11 adopted key resolutions around climate change amid significant and vigorous debate.

Thousands of staff from 16 universities across the country will strike on September 16 for new union collective agreements. The actions follow strikes at the University of New England and Charles Sturt University on September 9 and at Victorian and Tasmanian campuses on May 21.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) is planning industrial action at most Victorian universities on May 21.

Two reviews present the Rudd government with opportunities to readjust the policy settings of post-secondary education and determine its future funding arrangements.

The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time: Socialism in the Twenty-First Century

By Istvan Meszaros

Monthly Review Press, 2008

480 pages, $59.49

The Victorian division of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) rallied 500 supporters of tertiary education on November 20.

At the end of May, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) logged all but three universities with a bold set of claims.

The Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) is spreading its net further throughout the building industry in an attempt to intimidate unions from standing up for the interests of their members.