Rank and File Action (RAFA) is a broad-left alliance of experienced and active unionists in the University of Sydney National Tertiary Education Union branch. We are committed to the principle of respectful and comradely member-led unionism, fighting to uphold our workplace rights, and assertively pursuing increased wages and better conditions and job-security. RAFA members are always active doing basic union work – all the time, whether or not we’re negotiating an EA.
We believe that the union movement has a role to play in social justice issues, including fighting for First Nations Justice and Palestinian liberation, and we are active in campaigns for both of these.
We are committed to resisting management’s austerity agendas in staffing and curriculum and their attempts to separate teaching and research, and to campaigning for the university as a place for the democratisation of knowledge for the public good where all staff, professional and academic, are respected.
RAFA was a leading force in branch activism throughout the 2022-23 strike campaign, and have been working hard since then to enforce our industrial rights and ensure management respects our new enterprise agreement.
RAFA members have led campaigns for work-from-home rights and disability rights across the university. We have campaigned against the disastrous new OTA timetabling tool, and been instrumental in winning thousands of dollars of back pay for members in the Business School. We are experienced in work on union committees, in responding to change proposals, and in supporting members in disputes with management. We proposed the recent branch resolution which called on the university to cut institutional ties with Israeli universities and divest from weapons manufacturers.
RAFA is the best placed grouping to lead the branch during the next term, which will run into the next bargaining round. We are running a diverse ticket of academic and professional staff. We understand that management and staff have basically incompatible interests, and that defending our jobs and conditions requires non-sectarian, active solidarity among all union members.
RAFA candidates will take a leading role in putting the branch in the best possible position for bargaining by enforcing our industrial rights, growing branch membership and fostering democratic, participative union activity.
Our principles:
Industrial activism: Management and staff have strongly conflicting interests. If we do not continually campaign to defend and extend our rights, management will erode them. Union activity does not stop between bargaining rounds. We believe an active branch is essential for protecting our rights and preparing the branch for our next bargaining round.
Union Democracy: Members must be in the driving seat of NTEU decision-making. We support member-led initiatives, respect member decision-making forums and promote participation in them. We support regular member meetings and frequent reports from the branch committee, and will create opportunities for members to democratically determine branch policy, including through working groups in bargaining periods. We welcome a vibrant, respectful and comradely political culture in the branch.
Social Justice: We believe in taking a stand against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice and Palestinian liberation. These issues directly impact our fellow unionists, and so they must be issues the union is prepared to take action on.
Union rights: We believe that the right to strike and protest are essential parts of union organising, whether on industrial and social justice matters. We will defend democratic rights of staff and students to protest and reject the new Campus Access Policy, a reaction to the Palestine solidarity encampment.
Non-sectarianism: We welcome a vibrant, respectful and comradely political culture in the branch, and will work in a comradely way with everyone. This has been our consistent practice, whether in or outside of the EA campaign. We’re interested in collaboratively increasing the union’s strength, not in point-scoring or division.
A better and more inclusive university: We want to fight for a just university, where the current top-down management structure is replaced by a truly collegial leadership structure enabling staff and students to play a genuine democratic part in shaping education and research.
Our priorities on branch committee:
- Extending the branch’s existing prioritisation of fighting structural sexism, racism, and homophobia in the university.
- Encouraging maximum union-member activity in the branch
- Enforcing and implementing our Enterprise Agreement
- Campaigning for sustainable workloads (professional and academic)
- Fighting for casuals’ rights, conversion and wage theft
- Developing a robust branch delegate network
- Resisting coercive and punitive management practices, and promoting staff control over our own workplace
- Preparing the branch for the next round of bargaining by starting the discussions early to workshop for 2026 bargaining priorities and demands.
- Protecting working from home rights
- Campaigning in solidarity with First Nations to increase Indigenous employment, retention and job-quality
- Implementing our branch’s motion to cut institutional ties with Israeli institutions and the weapons industry, and advocating for the NTEU to do the same nationally
Our priorities for
National and Division Council:
- Fighting for fair and proportional branch resourcing. Our branch has been under-resourced!
- Advocating for an ambitious national bargaining strategy. With cost-of-living spiralling, the sector needs a real pay rise!
- Advocate for the NTEU to adopt a national Boycott and Divestment position for Palestinian liberation with resources to aid implementation.
Rank-And-File Action USYD 