In what is now the longest-running strike campaign at any Australian university, National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members at the University of Sydney will be on strike on Thursday March 9.
The union has been in negotiations with university management over a new Enterprise Agreement since August 2021.
Key issues include workloads for academic and administrative staff, ending casualisation and casual wage theft, job-security, Indigenous employment targets, preserving the nexus between teaching and research, and pay.
Despite posting a $1.04 billion surplus in 2021, the University has refused to meet the union’s claims for a fair pay increase.
Thursday will be the seventh day of strike action in the campaign.
“Sydney University is seriously threatening staff rights at work,” said Dr Nick Riemer, the president of the NTEU branch at the university.
“University managers have been responsible for spiralling overwork and relentless inefficiencies. They’re badly distracting us from our key responsibilities of education and research. Union members are trying to fix that. How long will Mark Scott, the Vice-Chancellor, fight his own staff?”
University operations are expected to be widely disrupted by the industrial action, with union members forming pickets at the university entrances on Thursday morning.
Classes and laboratory sessions are being widely cancelled, the student union’s food outlets will be closed, and administration work, including on grant applications and results processing, will not be going ahead.
Key deadlines risk not being met. Support on many IT systems will be reduced or unavailable. The university museum shop will be closed.
“Sydney University is wildly rich and our management draw extravagant salaries,'”Dr Riemer said.
“The number of students each staff member is responsible for recently rose very significantly. Staff are badly overworked, but management want to intensify workloads even more and take our pay backwards.
“They want us to believe they’re the incarnation of generosity, but they’re making a miserly salary offer that is lower than far less wealthy institutions like Australian Catholic University, or Western Sydney University. That’s simply unacceptable.”
NTEU General Secretary, Dr Damien Cahill, said: “If the University of Sydney is to meet the social expectations to provide high quality teaching, research and student experience, then it needs to invest in its staff.
“Staff got the University through the worst of the pandemic, but are facing increased workloads and widespread job insecurity.
“The University of Sydney needs to use its eye-watering $1billion surplus to deliver a fair pay rise and secure jobs for staff and ensure manageable workloads that underpin high quality teaching and research.”
More industrial action is planned, including further strikes in late March and May, if the union’s claims are not met.
