The current NTEU elections are the most contested ever in our branch. This is testament to our democratic culture, and something that we should all be proud of. At RAFA, we want to focus on our record and our positive vision for the union. But we need to respond to a number of claims made by competing tickets which we think are wrong, and also quite seriously out of touch with what’s actually happening in the branch.
Strategy in EA campaigns. Both of the other tickets make much of the role of strikes in industrial strategy. NTEU Fightback have structured their whole campaign around the need for longer strikes. Essentially, we agree: we do need longer strikes in EA periods, but that will only be possible if we have the collective strength and stamina to pull them off. This is a point Fightback have consistently ignored. Instead of patient building work, outreach, recruitment and political discussion with colleagues to convince wider layers of the need for participation in branch activism, Fightback prefer to emphasise what they see as the errors of the previous campaign and the inadequacies of the existing clauses – even though most members voted for these!
Renewal also want to talk about strikes – to emphasise that they’re only one tactic among others. We don’t think this debate is the most important one to be having in our current situation, given that protected industrial action of any kind won’t be possible again until 2026. Candidates for Branch Committee need a vision for the branch now, given the options that are open to us at the moment, and a set of proposals for activism that isn’t just about what the best tactic will be in unknown concrete circumstances in two years’ time. We remain committed to strikes as our most powerful industrial tool, but we’ve moved on since the EA campaign, and we’re busy with a whole variety of campaigns to defend members’ interests in the branch. An active branch membership, practiced in implementing and enforcing our current agreement will ensure the branch is best placed to pursue improved conditions in future bargaining rounds.
Branch priorities. Renewal say they want to concentrate on three areas of union work: workloads and job security, change management, and workplace representation (see below). We agree with all three, and we’ve been working successfully on all of them, as detailed elsewhere on this site. But we’re puzzled as to why Renewal members have waited until the election campaign to raise these priorities. Two Renewal candidates, as well as their presidential pick, Peter Chen, are already on Branch Committee; one candidate is the current Vice-President for professional staff. If they have ideas for what the branch should be doing, they have had any number of opportunities to present them – whether at branch meetings, through Branch Committee, or through one-on-one approaches to other elected branch office-holders, including us. At no point since the end of the EA campaign have Renewal candidates made concrete proposals for a strategy on any of these fronts. Quite the contrary: they have been silent, and, we can only assume, on board with the branch’s current activities in these domains, all of which have been discussed and approved at Branch Committee meetings.
What are Fightback’s priorities? They say they want better clauses, and a more “watertight” EA. However, the only way we will win better clauses in our next EA, and, more importantly, enforce them, is to build an active, confident and comradely branch that works with members to build opposition to management’s constant restructures, wage theft, the so-called ‘Academic Excellence Framework’, the draconian Campus Access Policy, and other hostile initiatives. RAFA members also want better clauses, higher pay, and a better university for all, but we see the need to orient to the entire membership in order to achieve this.
Workplace representatives. Renewal say they will prioritise creating a workplace delegates network. But there are central NTEU plans underway to roll out a formal delegate structure throughout the union – something we have not had before, and something which requires changes to the rules and structure of the NTEU. This is currently being pursued at the NSW Division level. As a result, creation of formal delegates simply isn’t something that we have power over in the branch. At RAFA, we think that, while we’re waiting for a proper delegate structure to be formally established, the route to greater workplace representation lies in encouraging involvement and activism in local areas, thereby identifying the organic workplace leaders who can play a de facto role as delegates. This is exactly what the branch is doing, for instance in the context of the change plans in the Library and ICT, or in organising around academic workload.
Branch inclusiveness and involvement. Like Fightback and us, Renewal is a self-conscious, open faction in the branch. Yet they disparagingly refer to us and Fightback as ‘factionalists’, and accuse us of treating the branch as our ‘plaything’. To be honest, we find this quite unfair: as we’ve said, Renewal members are office-holders on Branch Committee and Branch Executive, and therefore in positions of direct influence over branch activities. All of the major initiatives the branch has taken since the EA have been consensus or near-consensus decisions of the very Branch Committee to which their members belong. RAFA members consistently work with everyone in the branch, and we consistently seek out consensus positions. Even though we have a majority on Branch Committee, we have never needed to use it in the post-EA period.
Renewal also want to suggest that we’re only interested in catering to the interests of a minority of branch members. Tell that to the members who we’re supporting through change plans, the ones we’re campaigning for a better deal over campus parking for, or the ones we’re defending against hostile managers! They also don’t even have casual members on their ticket – how can you unify the branch without elevating casual voices?! The politics that RAFA has been arguing for have consistently led to the largest branch meetings we have ever had, both during the EA campaign and after it, in the form of the Palestine vote. At these meetings, we have taken consistent steps to encourage more comradely interactions, and throughout 2023 we held regular branch drinks to boost members’ sense of the branch as a community. We don’t recall Renewal candidates often (or in some cases ever) attending these drinks. We’d also note that they’re not regular attendees at other branch events, either – a very strange position for people who are promising to increase involvement in the union.
Finally, we have to note that the candidate for Branch Secretary resigned from that role suddenly and very publicly last year over Palestine, without any attempt to discuss her concerns with us first, and sending an inflammatory and factually inaccurate email to the entire branch, which immediately found its way into the Sydney Morning Herald, where it can provide ammunition to conservative voices eager to discredit unionism in general and the NTEU in particular. We don’t think this kind of behaviour was in the best interests of anyone: in fact, it was an example of exactly the kind of divisiveness that Renewal claim to oppose.
Rank-And-File Action USYD 