I am a Level B Academic in The School of Chemistry occupied mostly with research and teaching.

I love my job and I work hard and I expect recognition from the University for my contribution. This includes a reasonable work/life balance and job security. As an early career academic on a fixed-term contract, I am painfully aware of the terrible precarity and immense stress associated with our work. I believe the University can do much more to make us feel secure, relaxed and appreciated in our jobs. On the Branch Council, I will ensure the Union fights hard for better job security and working conditions. Solidarity and collective action are the best tools we have to improve our working lives.

I have a long history of union activism and have previously served as a union official in the construction industry. I have intimate and direct experience applying industrial relations and safety legislation to protect and expand workers’ rights.

I am running on the RAFA ticket because I want a democratic and fighting union. 

I’m Finola, a casual academic in the Discipline of Gender and Cultural Studies. I’m running for branch committee because I want to continue building a culture of member-led unionism across the university. As soon as I started working at USyd I joined the NTEU, and as soon as I joined the NTEU I started engaging in rank and file union activism: having countless recruiting conversations; supporting peers through case work; collaborating to organise local area meetings and campaign on casual rights; speaking at forums about how unionism is a vehicle for feminist politics and, more broadly, about how industrial improvements and social justice are inextricably connected. Being picket captain and striking for nine days cemented to me the fact that it is us as staff – academic, professional; permanent and precarious – who have the power to make the university the educational institution for public good it should be. I am proud of what we achieved in the last enterprise bargaining round, and I believe we can and should be even more ambitious next time.

I’m running with Rank And File Action (RAFA). Details about how you can get involved: http://rafausyd.com. Vote for us but, more importantly, join us.

“We won’t win in the courts what we can’t hold at the gates.”

I’m Sophie, a casual academic in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and I am running to represent old union principles like this one on the branch committee.

Our branch needs to empower members and delegates to take more independent actions—petitions, letters, and engaging local representatives. Central union bodies and local representatives often centralize control, but relying solely on courts, lawyers, union reps, media, or politicians won’t build union power.

For a stronger 2026 bargaining round, we need to increase union membership and activity now.

I’ve empowered local casuals to recruit their entire Business School unit to the union and end their wage theft, supported maths casuals to recover thousands of dollars, helped organize an NTEU delegation to support the Gomeroi struggle against gas expansion, led the fight for transgender rights, and supported the union struggle for Palestine.

I’ve also challenged central union decisions on wage claim limits, Palestine, opposition to AUKUS, and trans rights.

Please do more than vote for Rank And File Action—start building your own rank and file activity. We urgently need a bigger and more active union.

My name is Tim White. I spent a decade as an academic in astronomy, completing postdocs at European and Australian universities, before landing a continuing professional staff position two years ago. I now support the research of others, working as a software engineer in the Sydney Informatics Hub. I have been an NTEU member since I returned to Australia in 2018.

I believe the best way to build the strength of our union is to prove that together we will fight for what is fair and just. We do this through campaigns and actions that build and show our broad support, but also knowing when to sit down and negotiate and turn that pressure into victories.

To this end, I have been active in our recent enterprise bargaining campaign, leafletting to build the strikes and acting as picket captain. Since then, I have been active in our professional staff EA enforcement committee. I have also taken part in wider union campaigns, namely in opposing fracking on Gomeroi lands, and as part of Unionists for Palestine.

That’s why I’m running to be an ordinary member of our branch committee, and why I’m running with Rank and File Action.

Our workplace must be run for the collective good of staff, students and community.

I’m Matte Rochford, running as a member of Rank and File Action to vigorously defend colleagues’ working conditions, and student learning conditions. 

Joining USyd in 2022 as a Student Centre Assistant (casual), I began building our EA campaign and advocating for strike action. I helped lead Student Centre comrades as picket organiser and agitated for the strongest possible action to win our demands.

An active, member-led, politically engaged workplace was key to winning improved pay, defending academics’ research rights, historic casual sick-leave entitlements, and now an academic boycott of Israel (union position).

Now, as Administration Assistant (continuing) in School of Languages & Cultures, I continue with NTEU organising – which is one of the best parts of working at USyd. We have a very progressive branch which stands for social justice issues like Palestinian liberation and First Nations justice. We can do even more.

Priorities: Recruiting new members, fighting to protect our conditions, and demanding management cut ties with Israeli apartheid/militaries generally. 

We need to grow our branch and build member activity – if we do, the sky’s the limit for what we can achieve.

I am a teacher at the Centre for English Teaching (CET), and have been a member of the University of Sydney branch since 2017. I have been an active member of the branch since 2020, when the closure of the Learning Centre and loss of jobs there motivated me to action.

I helped with the 2022-2023 industrial campaign, acting as a picket captain and also participating in the bargaining team for Schedule 5 on the enterprise agreement that applies to CET, as well as leafletting and picketing. Since then I have served as the union rep on the CET JCC where we have recently had wins reducing workload.

As a Branch Committee ordinary member I believe we need to be proactive in advancing university staff conditions rather than simply reacting to management. I would continue to work to reduce workloads, as well as combatting casualisation.

The Branch Committee particularly needs to focus on building for the next enterprise agreement negotiations. I also feel the union has a role to play in dealing with everyday issues such as the lack of parking, as well as in broader issues of social justice.

I’m a clinical trial coordinator in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, with a background in laboratory academia, where the effects of chronic lack of unionism are painfully felt. I was a picket captain during the strikes, and am currently on the Branch Committee. I’m a firm believer in unionism from below, and have been active in building local and university-wide professional staff campaigns, organising and unionising staff to resist harmful change plans and fight off management attacks on work-from-home rights.

The wins we achieved this bargaining round came from ordinary members of this branch flexing our collective muscle over nine days of strikes. But union business doesn’t stop between bargaining rounds, and our job ahead is building similar union strength from the grassroots up amongst our colleagues in our local work areas, empowering more staff to fight for rights won on the pickets, and reinforcing them with the support of a mobilised branch.

Meaningful union solidarity does not stop at the campus gates, and I am immensely proud of our branch’s strength and unity in support of the people of Palestine. It’s not just morally necessary, it makes us stronger too.