BY SUE BULL
& JEREMY SMITH
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) is a young union by Australian standards. Formed in 1995 from five existing unions, it now represents more than 25,000 workers in post-secondary education institutions. The NTEU has successfully fought to maintain its members' salaries and conditions, NTEU general secretary Grahame McCulloch told Green Left Weekly.
Higher education has suffered from funding cuts, deregulation and privatisation since the government of Prime Minister John Howard came to power. However, the success of the Coalition government's agenda for higher education has been limited by widespread community, union and student opposition.
The appointment of Brendan Nelson as education minister has led to speculation about whether the Howard government in its third term will intensify its attacks on tertiary education.
"We'll be reviewing our overall orientation to the government in light of the new minister... If anything, I think that the new minister is more likely to pursue a deregulatory agenda than David Kemp", McCulloch said. "Kemp was so over the top that it made it very difficult for the government to find a way to market their agenda. Whereas, Nelson is potentially more dangerous to our interests because he may well have the capacity to carry some deregulatory arguments in public in a different way."
NTEU's success in defending its members' salaries and working conditions lies in its "pattern bargaining" strategy. In pattern bargaining, unions strive to produce similar agreements with all employers in a single industry. It maintains uniform conditions of work for all employees, regardless of which employer they work for.
The Howard government's third-term industrial relations agenda includes outlawing pattern bargaining. McCulloch told GLW that the NTEU is undeterred by this. "Our objective is to maintain our pattern bargaining position no matter how difficult the circumstances that the government presents us with."
In addition, it would be difficult to legislate against the NTEU's pattern bargaining strategy. This would require direct intervention by the government in the internal affairs of the union to change its rules. There have been three rounds of enterprise bargaining in the higher education sector between 1995 and 2001. The NTEU has been able to secure similar outcomes in all institutions in each round. This has produced new pressures, McCulloch said.
"We have increased wages in the sector by about 35% since 1994, but the federal funding envelope for wage increases has been less than 15%. So there's an almost 20% gap between what we've generated and what the federal government is prepared to fund. To some degree, we need to be careful about being the unconscious carriers of further deregulation because most of that gap has been made up through fees and charges, particularly from overseas students."
Another round of enterprise bargaining will commence in early 2003 and the NTEU will pattern bargain again. "If we press ahead with a substantial wage push, then we run the risk of creating further pressures to deregulate the domestic market and have students slugged. It is very important that we maintain our alliance with the students", McCulloch said.
"Our priorities are more likely to be employment security, opposition to casualisation and improvements in workers' leave entitlements, particularly maternity leave."
Unions representing building and manufacturing workers have also combined pattern bargaining with militant tactics. This militancy has provoked hostility from state and federal governments. The Howard government has launched a royal commission into the building industry.
According to McCulloch, the royal commission is "about breaking the power of the [Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union]. It fits into the broader political climate, which is for the business sector to wind back what is left of the labour movement's power in the workplace. Clearly. the most powerful unions in the country are, among others, the CFMEU and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, so it's no surprise that they are being targeted."
McCulloch told GLW that in the year ahead the union would review its "political and organisational structure" to improve links between the officials and members. "We're also committed to trying to establish a viable Asia-Pacific network of higher education unions. We're trying to organise a conference, probably mid-year."
The NTEU has a strong position on asylum seekers. "We think what the government is doing is an outrage. This is a very wealthy country. Most people lack a historical perspective when they think about immigration and refugees. They don't seem to realise that most countries have, at various points in their history, had huge changes in their population mix. The current policy settings just don't have a grip on that."
The government's policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers is "a scandalous principle", argued McCulloch. The NTEU membership supports this view, he said, because "the higher education system is pretty cosmopolitan... Our members are quite supportive of us having a reasonably strong view on refugee policy."
McCulloch agreed that trade union movement has been slow to take up the issue of justice for refugees. Prior to the November federal election few unions were prepared to speak out. "A lot of the trade union silence was principally about not creating difficulties for the ALP."
The key to winning broader social demands lies in alliances, McCulloch told GLW. "Alliances need to be extended and consolidated. There will always be tactical differences between trade unions and community-based protest movements... [But] if the kind of approach that was taken during the May 1 protests in Victoria last year is taken, alliances can be consolidated that will work all round."
From Green Left Weekly, February 27, 2002.
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