NTEU strikes to 'stop the rot'

November 3, 1999
Issue 

NTEU strikes to 'stop the rot'

By Andy Gianniotis

WOLLONGONG — Academics at the University of Wollongong struck on October 26-28 to protest against the erosion of working conditions and quality of higher education. The strike, dubbed "Stop the rot", was in response to delaying tactics by a university management that has yet to come up with a reasonable offer for academics.

The local National Tertiary Education Industry Union (NTEU) branch and university management have been in enterprise bargaining for almost a year. There have already been two strikes — a one-day stoppage in April and a two-day strike in July.

Richard Caladine, secretary of the NTEU branch, is concerned that members are yet to receive a reasonable offer from management. At the core of the dispute are workload, job security and wages.

Caladine said many staff are taking leave due to stress-related illness directly related to too large workloads. Despite this, management still talks about increasing "productivity".

Staff have not had an increase in salary in two years. Management's offer barely keeps pace with inflation.

Staff and students are also grappling with threats to privatise the security service on campus and increases in ancillary charges like internet access.

Caladine told Green Left Weekly that staff found the "Kempian" view of higher education — that markets should drive education and the choices students make — repugnant.

Michael Morrissey, NTEU Wollongong branch president, highlighted the serious attack involved in an attempt to blur the distinction between "misconduct" and "serious misconduct".

'At the moment, the only thing [an academic] can get sacked for is 'serious misconduct' (apart from being made redundant). If they blur that distinction, they can come along and say, 'All your classes are on at 6pm and you must teach classes on Saturday'. If you refuse, that's serious misconduct."

"We're in this for the long haul — we'll go on for as long as it takes", Morrissey said. "The bosses' tactic is to see how long we can keep going, hoping we'll fall apart when the semester ends. Next session we'll go out on strike for the whole first week if this hasn't been resolved."

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