Green Left Weekly's MARCUS GREVILLE spoke to National Tertiary Education and Industry Union member at the University of Sydney Dr DICK BRYAN about the state of the union's campaign for a 15% pay rise.
Question: What do you think about the NTEU's decision to pursue a campus by campus enterprise bargaining strategy rather than collective bargaining?
Collectivism is always stronger than individualism. The NTEU's decision undermined the campaign by introducing the danger of the worst individual campus agreement setting the benchmark for the rest. While vice-chancellors are saying that they won't be able to meet staff demands, the most financially vulnerable universities will get the worst deal.
Question: At a University of Sydney branch meeting on November 27, NTEU members voted on a pay offer from the administration.
Academics were horrified at the miserly $20 per week offer — a pay rise of less than 2%. After inflation, it amounted a real pay decrease. It has had the positive effect, however, of making academics, as workers, aware that the vice-chancellor, who on one level is a colleague, is also responsible for trying to force them to work more for less.
There was a lot of discussion about how best to respond. Academics have generally been reluctant to pursue industrial action because they have traditionally perceived themselves as artisans rather than workers. This campaign is prompting a reassessment.
Question: What strategies are being used to pressure university administrations?
There is no concrete product of academics that society loses through their strike action, and the personal relationship between academics and students makes students more than just consumers. In that sense, academics are having to choose industrial action out of a limited range of choices. The choice of marking bans over strikes is aimed at minimising the hurt to students while maximising disruption.
There are some difficulties. In strikes, consumers get hurt to some degree. Students are being hurt in the short run. If, however, there is some concern by students that a reasonable quality of education be maintained, then they should be supportive. Having your marks come late is inconvenient but not dreadful, and it shows that the university is not functioning properly.
The question of exemptions from the marking ban was raised at the November 27 meeting — honours students in particular need to know their results to apply for postgraduate scholarships. But it has to be seen as the responsibility of the university. They have had over six weeks to respond to the latest proposal and still haven't paid it serious attention.
We recognise also that this is a confrontation with the government, which needs to see that the essential roles attributable to universities will not be filled. This concretely means preventing the next rung of the professionalised labour force from graduating.
Question: How do you think the government will react in the long term to the current wage claim?
Since academics have such a wide variety of specialisation and hence marketability, there is a fear that there will be a move to individual contracts. Most lecturers will earn low pay, while those deemed to be commercially successful will receive high pay. This will be very divisive. A small number of over-award academics are already not supporting the current campaign.
Question: What should students be doing in the campaign against cuts to higher education and around the academics' pay claim?
The angle that the NTEU and NUS [National Union of Students] need to push is that cuts to higher education are cuts to the non-commercial activities of society and that everyone should be outraged.
Any separation of cuts to higher education and other budget cuts is false. It is all about a broader social project in which the education sector should be protesting along with all other affected sectors. In terms of the pay claim, students should play the same role that all unionists play in relation to another; be supportive because their claims are not ultimately separate.