Occupy Melbourne takes to the streets again

There is a growing dissatisfaction with RMIT, at RMIT and beyond. The reason the Occupy moved into RMIT on Saturday, was no coincidence but also to Occupy it. A decision of 'Occupy Melbourne' to join in solidarity with the 'Occupy RMIT University' event planned on the day. (https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=167124456709539&ref=ts) OCCUPY RMIT UNIVERSITY (facebook event) Casualisation, redundancies, increased workloads, courses axed, limited facilities and poor working conditions, slashes to courses, merging of subjects into meaningless clusters by non practitioners, cut contact hours, degrees which International students have been working towards and are (by international standard) no longer recognised in their own country: RMIT's history of extreme behaviour: taking out unwarranted and illegitimate intervention orders on students and staff openly questioning management decisions, and of calling in hoards of police to quell any dissent or dissatisfaction at the University (a history of details of recorded in the event information), - must be seen within the context of the effects of the marketisation of Universities and the commodification of human knowledge. "The neo-liberal assault upon Universities as places of learning - Universities as forums within which ideas are taken seriously, and citizens are provided opportunities to critically reflect upon society and the ways in which the powerful seek to exercise that power - must be stopped. We would also like to add that menacing behaviour on the part of RMITS unscrupulous management can and must be resisted, and that this resistance can be successful.' (Occupy RMIT University comment) The hidden cost of RMIT’s profitability, and apparent, -censorship of concerns by those at the University, has come at a high cost for staff, local and international students paying a high price for their education, and the affects are far reaching, The effect of cuts imposed by RMIT management on related industries for example vary and in many cases have a disastrous social impact upon that industry. Fine art students for example, are being taught to keep their head low and toes the line because of the example made of students and staff speaking out. A $78.6 million dollar profit for RMIT in 2010, was recorded by National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), Australia's specialist national union solely representing staff in tertiary education,http://www.nteu.org.au/library/view/id/1575RMIT - details on senior exectutive salaries also specified here• These high salaries are at odds with the status of RMIT as a public institution and in the context of cut imposed by it's management, sounds like theft to most.. "NTEU members on the receiving end of the myriad of both serious and petty cost-cutting measures will be relieved to hear that despite what you may have been told RMIT is not in fact going broke" "RMIT can no longer realistically call itself an educational institute. It is primarily a big business. It's aims are now that of a multi-national corporation: grab as much money as possible; expand across the city like an octopus; trample on the human and legal rights of staff and students alike; support management at all costs, no matter how badly they perform; cut contact hours to below the international minimum requirements" (Occupy RMIT University, comment)

RMIT is no longer a place where freedom of speech can be expected. Universities have traditionally been places where ideas can be freely expressed and where dissent is be tolerated. The recent history of RMIT seeking to stifle those who question it is appalling. In April of this year artist and lecturer Steve Cox was sacked for complaining that the Fine Art course was no longer recognised internationally. When he went public with this information, Pro-Vice Chancellor Colin Fudge and the head of the art school, Professor Elizabeth Grierson attempted to get an intervention order passed in the Magistrate's Court against him, to shut him up. They dropped the case with minutes to go before the hearing. Several months later Fudge attempted the same trick with a student who questioned the management of their course. They dropped this case also. RMIT's record in this regard is outrageous. No wonder that they ordered the police to use 'whatever force necessary' to move protesters on. Interestingly, Grierson resigned on Friday having been told that her contract would not be renewed in February.