Chanting “no cuts, no way, this is what the staff say”, 200 staff and student supporters defied rain to march through the University of Sydney on February 29 to protest against the university management’s move to axe 340 university staff.
The rally, organised by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), took place on the first student orientation day.
“On Monday February 20, 100 staff received redundancy notices,” NTEU Sydney University branch president Michael Thompson told the rally. “A further 64 staff were told they had a ‘wonderful opportunity’ — to drop research and take up teaching-intensive roles, or also face redundancy.
“The university says it is also looking at further staff freezes. Yet the workload for staff is increasing. There is more work, more students, but less staff ... and this will impact on the student experience.
“When university management estimated student revenue they got it wrong by $36 million, yet it is the staff and students which pay. After they got it wrong so badly, why should we trust them?
"But when [vice chancellor Michael] Spence welcomed students this morning, he didn’t get what he expected — students pointed out that cutting staff was not welcomed.”
Students opposed to the staff cuts organised two actions earlier that day. When Spence gave a formal welcome to new students, protesters disrupted his speech to challenge him on the job cuts. Students later held a speakout about the attacks.
Freya Bundi, on behalf of Students against the Cuts, told the staff rally that university management “has millions for swimming pools, for a new business school, for a huge bonus for Spence — yet they cut a crucial refugee language program.”
Julie-Ann Robson, who has worked both as general staff and as a casual, told the protest: “This is about casualisation by stealth. Management wants to cut staff then bring in casuals. I know what it's like as a casual — you get called up the day before classes, with no preparation time ... bad for staff, bad for students.”
A February 10 open letter signed by 68 senior Sydney University staff said that “higher education is already the country’s second-most casualised industry, after catering”.
The letter savaged the university’s method of job slashing and said there are “750 academics on a ‘hit list’, with one in five of those due to be pushed out by the end of this year”.
The letter said management has adopted a crude “target culture”: “Safety is only for colleagues who’ve published a ‘quota’ of ‘research outputs’.
The letter said the university planned “to axe nearly 200 general staff” meaning an “already overstretched workforce will be left to spend more of its time plugging gaps in basic teaching and administration”.
Despite these deep concerns, Spence told ABC’s PM on February 21 that the cuts are “good for morale at the University of Sydney” and that “staff want to see that the university is being managed responsibly”.
Thompson told Green Left Weekly: "Less general staff means longer time for students in queues, while less academic staff mean bigger tutorials or even no tutorials."
He told GLW he believes other universities may face similar attacks. "The cuts reflect the fact that universities today are so dependent on the market. The Australian dollar, rather than the education needs of Australian society, is more important to the people that run universities."
A mass meeting for university staff, students and supporters will be held on March 7 at 1pm in the Sydney University main quad.
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