University of Melbourne NTEU President

I’ve had the pleasure of working on many staff-student campaigns with Dani at University of Melbourne. I’ve always been impressed with Dani’s measured responses to adversity and her ability to convince students and staff to question the status quo on climate justice, racism, transphobia and wage theft. It’s no surprise that Dani has brought that same spirit into bargaining at USyd. Her tenacity and determination to build rank and file activism in the NTEU is inspiring. Vote for Dani for USyd branch committee. I have no doubt she will continue to be an amazing voice for trans rights and rank and file involvement – something desperately needed in the NTEU.

Student support, Business School

“I will be supporting RAFA in the upcoming NTEU elections because they are offering a clear and principled approach to winning real gains for University staff. Their commitment to job security, fair pay, an end to the exploitation of casuals, and a more inclusive and socially just University is commendable. I have had the privilege to know several RAFA members as committed activists who have worked tirelessly in promoting RAFA’s goals over many years. The strength of our union comes from the rank-and-file membership and RAFA represents a commitment to member-driven activism for real change at our university.”

Law School

I am honoured to endorse RAFA in the upcoming elections. Our university needs a militant and nonsectarian Left committed to upholding and improving our conditions. In the recent strike action, RAFA unionists led from the front to demand job security, fair pay and social justice. RAFA is also committed to further democratise and expand our local branch by working with everyone to reach our common goals as university workers. So vote RAFA in the upcoming elections to return proven champions of real change.

USYD NTEU member 2002–2016

I retired early from the University of Sydney back in 2016, because amongst other things, I hated the way the place was going. It was all too easy to see the direction the management was taking the place, especially undervaluing the staff and regarding the international students as resources to be soaked. Since then with COVID and the ever more overt hostility of the Coalition governments things have got so much worse.

So I welcome and offer my support to the Rank And File Action ticket because they address the casualisation, the insecure work, the miserable pay for the precariously employed and they demand a more inclusive university. That they also stand for an extensive social justice program is the other reason I support RAFA because sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, and justice for First Nations and the question of peace, not war, are all workers’ issues, and should be matters for unions to take up and campaign about.

Traditionally we have looked to the academy to comment on all such issues, from the standpoint of expertise and ethics not swayed by vested interests. Sadly the precarious nature of university employment has cowed so many in the tertiary sector that such independent opinion is far rarer than it should be. Fighting on a workplace basis to gain teaching and research staff permanency with adequate pay and restore the dignity of the university workforce is important not only for the workers themselves, but for the health of our society.

La lotta continua

History Department

As a union member who is deeply troubled by the attacks on our university community by management, RAFA colleagues have brought hope. I am proud to endorse their ticket which offers a new way forward . I have been inspired by their clear activist vision, their inclusive political debates, their intellectual generosity, their thoughtful vision for a better, more just world and the diverse range of perspectives and life experience on the RAFA ticket; here is a group that brings the best of dynamic activist politics to the challenges that define our lives. We have a chance this election to build a new consensus amongst union members, one that strengthens our solidarity. I’m excited by the smart, committed leadership of RAFA candidates.

Shawna Tang

Lecturer in Gender and Cultural Studies

RAFA colleagues and supporters have helped this Singaporean, a cultural stranger to union organising, imagine and see what it means to build a good political life. I admire their collegiality, tactics, sense of fairness, leadership and their keen awareness and commitment to a broad vision of social justice beyond the university. RAFA members clearly understand that the university has a role in socialising society: what we fight for at the uni is always in solidarity with workers everywhere else. RAFA’s dynamic and diverse team is committed to and collectively aligned with the interests of a broad constituency. Shout out to Finola Laughren, Gender and Cultural Studies scholar, putting into practice queer and feminist knowledge and methodologies to shape RAFA’s radical politics!

Professor in Gender and Cultural Studies

I’m very happy indeed to endorse the RAFA ticket in the upcoming elections–happy, because this combination of a humane, practical vision for the University with active commitment to job security, fair pay, social justice and real democracy within the NTEU has come along just as the deterioration of our work conditions seems endless and morale is at the lowest ebb I can remember. This team has shown it can be effective and offers us goals worth fighting for.

Health Sciences, NTEU member since 2002

I am voting for RAFA in the upcoming NTEU election because:

• they have stood with me on the picket line in our fight for better working conditions;
  
• they are clearly committed to increasing our membership in order to create a formidable rank and file movement;
  
• they have given me and other rank and file members a greater say in how the NTEU represents us, so are already in the process of expanding member engagement;
  
• like me, RAFA want a unified NTEU focused on fighting the Manageriate, not each other;
  
• they are determined not back down or make compromises in enterprise bargaining;
  
• they share my vision of a more collegial university run by the workers, not the Manageriate;
  
• I like that their team is broadly representative of USyd’s workforce, with a mix of students, professionals and academics employed as casuals, continuing and fixed term staff;
  
• like me, they are passionate, progressive unionists with a strong social justice agenda.

Senior Lecturer, Studies of Religion

When the FASS departments of Studies in Religion and Performance Studies were threatened with closure last year my colleagues, Nick Riemer, Sophie Cotton, Matte Rochford, leading a hell of a lot of other NTEU members, stood up with me in defiance of these insane closures. They did all they could to fight the false economic arguments that were trying to put me and my colleagues out of our departments and our jobs. This is why I am thrilled and delighted to support them and my other dedicated colleagues running for the Rank and File Action Ticket (RAFA) in the coming Sydney Branch elections.

Unlike a majority of NTEU members at Sydney, I have had the privilege of serving on Branch Committee on and off over the last five years. Through that experience I have seen close-at-hand who has been dedicated to our membership’s genuine needs, who was a little too eager to give into management bastardry, and who has a serious attitude to grassroots organising. Those years of service confirm in my mind that the hard work, considered strategies, and dedication of those on the RAFA ticket are worth supporting. Colleagues, take seriously the opportunity you have to vote in the coming Branch elections and please consider joining me in supporting the RAFA ticket. Our jobs and our workplace conditions will depend on it.

The headline takeaway from bargaining meeting #8 this week was that management seeks to have as much of our conditions to be in ‘policy’ as possible rather than the Enterprise Agreement. This distinction is significant.

Policy is made without the need for consultation and agreement by staff. Our Enterprise Agreement is on the other hand a legally binding document and gives us rights. We have built our agreement over many years and we must ensure that our rights and conditions remain in a binding Agreement instead of ethereal policies.

The other major concern is that we put to management the need for a proper fact-finding approach to the big issues: workloads and overwork. We say let’s pull a working group together and initiate a genuine inquiry into the state of work at Sydney. We heard in response that there is only interpretation and that facts could not be agreed upon.

This is dire, folks! Our biggest concerns are being evaded. Why? Are management scared of the funding out the truth? We need to force management to confront these issues with real evidence-driven data. Fill out our workloads survey and encourage your colleagues to as well, so we can make real headway on the workload crisis.

Much of Bargaining focused on professional staff issues around flexible work and hours and job security measures. Management seem concerned that there was no approval process in place. We explained that roster systems and simple trust can deal with requests for flexibility and flexible working hours. Our flexibility clauses are a small measure to help protect staff from having to always negotiate the power imbalance attending the employment relationship.

We also presented our claim that professional staff be given the opportunity to apply and be interviewed for jobs before they are advertised externally. Disappointingly, this was not something management seemed keen on. We explained some of the benefits. Importantly, we have argued that our workforce is a community and people build their lives around their places of work. An internal recruitment process is a small measure but with big consequences to our working lives.

After 8 meetings we can see a few areas where agreement might be possible. But the crisis issue of workloads looms in our next bargaining session (Nov 23rd)!