@intro2 = As students campaign against proposals to make higher education more expensive and more polarised, many university workers are arguing for their union to actively support the protests. RMIT staff member LISA FARRANCE, a member of the Socialist Alliance and of Workers Power, reports on staff solidarity in recent actions on her university.
On March 31, a national day of action against fee increases and cuts to public funding for education, around 100 students occupied the Chancellery of RMIT — on the seventh floor of Building 101 — for seven hours.
Many of RMIT's buildings are run down, with overcrowded classrooms and staff crammed into open plan offices. The Chancellery is quite different, recently renovated and overlooking the city. Building 101 is a symbol of university mis-management and luxury.
Following the stress and work overload of the failed implementation of the Peoplesoft software in late 2000, a saying arose on campus: From Building 101 you can't hear the screams. So it's not at all surprising that many staff celebrated with students at the occupation.
At RMIT, staff have faced a constant battle with management. There are massive workloads, and round after round of budget cuts are still made, despite the university turning around its budget from red to black.
RMIT management was not ashamed to announce last year that it had found $10 million for restructuring and staff redundancies. Not content with exploiting the thousands of unpaid overtime hours staff have worked, they reward us by sacking us. The first rounds of redundancies began only months ago.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the RMIT branch of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) have contributed little to defending staff from these attacks.
Industrial action is the show of strength that is needed to stop the attacks, win the filling of the hundreds of vacant positions across RMIT (a demand we have had on the university for two years now), and achieve some real gains in the current enterprise bargaining round.
Instead, the leadership has opposed and refused to implement actions agreed upon by members, instead appointing themselves and their allies onto the university's restructuring committees.
So when students occupied, many staff rallied to support them, sending solidarity messages, and joining the protest downstairs. We see that we have common enemies in the fight for free and publicly funded education.
A group of union members within the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) wrote to the protesters: "We support the student protesters at RMIT and reaffirm the importance of viable, properly resourced, public education at all levels... The revival of direct action is a reminder to us all that we need to challenge the system, rather than accommodate its never-ending demand for the priority of profit over human need."
Since the occupation, there has been an RMIT management campaign to demonise the student occupiers. This must be exposed for what it is: a campaign of lies aimed at dividing students and staff at the very time when we must be united.
In a statement made on the same day as the occupation, RMIT's vice-chancellor, Ruth Dunkin, said: "this sort of action is abhorrent and counterproductive. Trespass, harassment and bullying of staff, and damage to university and personal property are unacceptable under any circumstances".
This is in stark contrast to the reports of those who were actually there, including RMIT staff, and from the official report of the Student Union Council:
"This was a direct action targeting the university management and council, and was not directed in any way toward staff in the RMIT chancellery... at no time were staff in any physical danger, and the occupying students were there to make a political point... The main property damage to the chancellery in fact occurred when the police, under instruction from the vice-chancellor, broke through the barricades, some wielding batons, only to be faced with a row of students with arms linked, standing in silence, and offering no resistance to the police."
The NTEU branch president, Jeanette Pierce, decided to follow a line similar to that of university management. In a conversation with a Student Union representative, Pierce announced her intention to release a statement from the staff union condemning the student occupation.
Such a statement did not represent the views of members, and would clearly play right into management's hands. Through rank and file and Socialist Alliance networks, NTEU members organised to contact the NTEU branch office with messages of support for the students. This put significant pressure on Pierce to not publish the condemnation.
Some of the messages of support: "I believe any condemnation of their actions creates both division and harm to the campaign and the important issues related to education, when we need to present a united and committed stand." — NTEU delegate at RMIT.
"There were many discussions revolving around how to establish better communication between staff and student unions so we can support each other in what should be the primary goal: keeping tertiary education accessible to all... We did not vandalise, destroy, harm or harass staff and their belongings." — NTEU member who joined the students on the seventh floor.
"When the government is attempting to shift more of the cost burden of higher education onto students and their families, to further restructure higher education to better meet corporate interest, and to attack the rights of all unions, and most university managements are willing accomplices in these goals, then a divide and rule strategy suits their interests very well... Joining the hypocritical police and establishment chorus about supposed student violence can only obscure what the real issues are and alienate student activists from the NTEU." — Nick Fredman, NTEU branch executive, Southern Cross University.
A significantly milder statement was finally released, which supported the student protest previous to the occupation. This is a testament to how quickly solidarity can be organised when required and how important rank and file student and staff networks are for building this solidarity.
However, the statement still accused students of threatening staff. It includes: "unions [sic] has a duty of care to our members and cannot support or condone action that intimidates or threatens NTEU members performing their normal duties in their workplace."
This statement is just one more example of why members of the NTEU at RMIT must take the battle against the Nelson reforms and introduction of fees on campus into the elections for the branch leadership later this year.
We cannot continue to have a branch president who acts to divide our common struggle with students, a president who not only fails to organise, but tries to condemn, the type of militant action that is necessary.
Last year, protests across the country, a national strike of NTEU members, and even a Senate inquiry, barely amended the Nelson reform package.
It's clear that the time for negotiation is over. The student movement is right to focus on occupations. A mass student campaign of occupations on every campus and directed against DEST, united with staff industrial action, is the only kind of campaign that can win the abolition of fees and a return to a publicly funded education system.
This is what we should be fighting for.
From Green Left Weekly, April 29, 2004.
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