I am a PhD Candidate in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, and a casual tutor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. I am nominating to fill the position of Branch Committee Member (Casual Employees).
I have been an active member of the Casuals Network and the NTEU since beginning my PhD in 2021, standing against wage theft, and helping organise forums, rallies, and events about the crisis of casualisation. I’ve worked with other unionists in my local area to run meetings, information sessions, and to organise strong contingents to union meetings, rallies and pickets. Most recently, I’ve proudly served as picket captain for three days of strike action.
I am also proud of the log of claims we have put forward this EBA round. We need to decasualise the campus and create genuine pathways to secure jobs, we need to ensure professional staff maintain the right to internal hiring, we need to retain 40-40-20 and fight back against management’s outrageous proposal to abolish workload committees, and we must tackle the systemic racism at the University by creating enforceable targets for First Nations employment.
I believe we can win all of these demands if we present a united and collective fight to management. If elected to the Branch Committee, I will work constructively with others to recruit more members to the union, organise more deeply across the campus – particularly amongst casuals – and, ultimately, escalate the industrial campaign to make the University a better place to work, research and study.
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I’m running as a member of Rank And File Action. We’re a group of union members seeking to
extend our industrial campaign in Semester Two. We believe our union could be even stronger with more concerted organising, recruitment, and engagement. We’re made up of academic and
professional staff, ongoing and casual, and we want to see the university reflect the voices of its
workers.
We’ve come out of three days of strike action with a boost in membership and lots of good press
coverage. We have a real chance to make change happen at the University – but that needs our
vibrant grassroots campaign to continue and grow across Semester Two. We’ll need to bring new members on board, build towards even stronger strike action, and conclude negotiations not only with a fairer contract but a stronger union.
Vote [1] David Brophy for Academic VP
Vote [1] Dylan Griffiths for General VP
Vote [1] Finola Laughren for Casual BC
Vote [1] to [8] for Ordinary Committee Member: [1] Markela Panegyres, [2] Dylan Griffiths, [3] Dani Cotton, [4] Cian Galea, [5] Ben Miller, [6] Luke Alexander, [7] Matte Rochford, and [8] Ben Graham
For a full how-to-vote and to find out how you can get more involved, go to https://rafausyd.wordpress.com
Rank-And-File Action USYD 