Enforce our hard won gains

Elect RAFA candidates Nikki Wedgwood and Jason Todd to the Branch Committee.

Our historic strike campaign has delivered some important wins in the new Enterprise Agreement. There is no denying that the EA is not perfect, but in the face of an incredibly hostile management, the achievements of NTEU members are significant: we have won the preservation of research rights for ongoing academics; improved conversion rights for casuals; the commitment to 5 days sick pay for casuals as university policy; working from home rights; and the commitment to enforceable measures towards First Nations employment parity. 

We could not have achieved these gains without members’ willingness to take industrial action.

But management is already trying to strip these gains away—for example their plan to curtail WFH rights and their refusal to pay casual tutors for lecture attendance in FASS and other faculties. 

It is clear that Management will do whatever it can to not follow their commitments made in the EA.

Our response must be to mobilise to enforce our hard won rights and resist management’s attempts to disregard them. We will need a democratic, assertive, and militant member-led campaign to enforce the new EA and hold management to account.

RAFA is committed to the on-the-ground organising work that is needed right now: from setting up local area meetings, buttressing delegate structures, empowering members to be active, to supporting all staff in the collective struggle against management.

Electing RAFA members Nikki Wedgwood and Jason Todd for the two vacant positions on Branch Committee will boost our enforcement campaign and ensure the Branch is in a stronger position to take on management. 

Both candidates are committed to turning around the direction of our university, and have led campaigns against management’s most recent attacks on workers in their respective areas and beyond. 
We are facing a serious fight to secure our EA. This is all the more reason to vote for RAFA candidates, who share a vision for a democratic university where all staff get a say in the direction of education and research, and enjoy job security and dignity.