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Episode 21: The strike that was and where to from here
135 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Kate & Tony recap the historic 48hr strike that began the week and look forward to how to continue building the momentum that we have. We've also a brief discussion on the roll out of the PhD fixed term contracts that were rolled out before Margaret Gardner jumped ship.
If you have questions you'd like answered, or any topics you would like to hear covered on the podcast, drop us an email at [email protected]
You can also stay up to date with everything happening with bargaining at our new bargaining website, and with the branch on Facebook and Twitter. All of which can be found here - https://linktr.ee/myunionwroteaneba
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Transcript
Introduction and Apologies
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi everyone. Kate and I just want to quickly jump in before the opening of the episode proper to say a couple of things. The first of this episode is a little bit rougher around the edges than normal. So apologies for that. We wanted to get an episode up and out into the world quickly with the wrap up of the 48 hour strike and between work commitments and exhaustion from all the work that went into doing the strike, our window for doing this has been very small. So please forgive us for that.
Solidarity with Palestine
00:00:27
Speaker
The other reason that it's a bit rough is because while we spent the beginning of this week focused on our industrial action in the background with horrific events unfolding in Israel and the occupied territories. The events there since last weekend have been heartbreaking to witness. And I feel like I speak for many when I say that there is a feeling of sickness and foreboding in what is now unfolding.
00:00:52
Speaker
We would like to echo and express our support for the statements made by people within the NTU for an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation following the recent attacks. The use of targeted and indiscriminate violence against civilians is always unacceptable and the use of such violence by one group is no excuse for it to use by another.
00:01:13
Speaker
We want to support and amplify the calls from Fahad Ali for active solidarity with Palestinians and to show up to rally at the State Library of Victoria on midday on Sunday the 15th of October. Beyond Sunday, we want to encourage people to continue to show their solidarity with Palestinians and resist the reductive narrative of Palestinians equals Hamas that we have already seen proliferate in both mainstream and social media.
00:01:39
Speaker
We cannot lose sight of the fact that these events are occurring within a larger and longer historical context. And whilst the narrative of good and evil is appealing in its simplicity, it is unequivocally wrong and plays into a whole set of implicit and explicit societal prejudices. I want to end by reading part of the NTU's official policy on Palestine that was passed by National Council last year.
00:02:03
Speaker
The NTAU recognises and builds upon the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Palestinian solidarity in their struggles against settler colonial violence. This spirit of solidarity is a central pillar of trade unionism. The NTAU stands against settler colonial violence and land theft in Australia, Palestine and everywhere.
00:02:27
Speaker
In recent years, several leading international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists, have confirmed what Palestinian academics and organizations have said for decades.
00:02:41
Speaker
Israel is committing the crime against humanity of apartheid, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This finding is echoed by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, Israel-based human rights organizations Bet Salim and Yestin, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
00:03:05
Speaker
The NTAU recognizes the urgency of international solidarity in ending the apartheid system and settler colonial control to which Israel has subjected Palestinians for more than seven decades, stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their ongoing struggle against ethnic cleansing and apartheid, and calls upon members to participate in active solidarity with Palestinians. And it is worth noting once again,
00:03:30
Speaker
The use of targeted and indiscriminate violence against civilians is always unacceptable, no matter who is doing it. But the use of such violence by one group is no excuse for its use by another and the collective punishment and violence now being visited upon Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank must stop. We cannot sit by and watch another act of genocide or ethnic cleansing unfold and we must not remain silent.
00:03:58
Speaker
For the notion of never again to have any meaning, it must include Palestinians too.
Monash University Union Actions
00:04:23
Speaker
G'day everyone, and welcome to My Union Wrote an EBA.
00:04:27
Speaker
This is a podcast to chronicle the progress towards a new enterprise bargaining agreement at Monash University and is brought to you by members of the Monash branch of the NTEU. We're here to take the old agreement and hashtag change it. And unlike our namesake, my dad wrote a porno, do everything we can to avoid being fucked in the process. Those involved with the podcast would like to acknowledge that it has been recorded on the unsaid lands of the Kulin nations on whose lands we live, teach and work.
00:04:56
Speaker
We would like to acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional custodians and elders, past and present, and to the continuation of the cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.
00:05:12
Speaker
On Monday at 12, Monash union members down tools, but we had a really great rally. It was a great turnout. And we heard speeches from Ben and Michelle, who are on the bargaining team, Sarah Roberts, local labor MP, Karina Garland, and my lovely co-host here, Tony. Then we had a barbecue and a really fun sign painting outside the chancellery office, led by Danny from Marta with some amazing screen printing and stenciling stuff.
00:05:39
Speaker
Then on Tuesday, we were up bright and early to the news that Angelo had cancelled the bargaining meeting that was supposed to be happening on the Tuesday, cancelled via a simple Google Calendar note that said this meeting has been cancelled.
00:05:55
Speaker
Despite the heartbreak we were all suffering off the back of that, we rallied at the LTB for the picket from 8.30. We had a strong turnout there with enough people for us to be able to have a presence at all three of the entrances and talk to a lot of staff and students and inform them about what was going on and have them respect the picket.
00:06:12
Speaker
After that we marched through the LTB and then onto the Chancellery where we heard some lovely choir singing. It was a beautiful little bridge and segue into the radical rest and morning tea for what was World Mental Health Day. Following that we had the tea chin which was really amazing and then going off from that into
00:06:32
Speaker
the strike salon and then ending the day with union drinks at the counts. And then we were up bright and early again for the 8.30 picket at Corfield. Again, it was really wonderful to see such a great turnout with some lovely fresh faces from around the Corfield campus. And then we had a solidarity morning, morning tea rather, with the lovely community union defence league providing snacks and drinks there as well, which was very nice of them.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yes. Thank you, Cuddle, for your continued support for the different things that not only us, but also other NTU branches have been doing in their industrial actions. So we just wanted to also take this opportunity to reinforce and reiterate.
University Work and Employee Challenges
00:07:12
Speaker
We also wanted to take this opportunity to just reinforce and reiterate what is important for us to be doing these industrial actions and to be fighting for the things that we are fighting for. So we're fighting against insecure work and the indignity of casualization.
00:07:28
Speaker
Things like having to reapply for our jobs every semester if you're a casual. And no sick pay or annual leave for casuals either. And even just the really little indignities of casualization like the fact that in a week or so, most if not all casuals are going to get an email that their access to their email accounts and university systems are going to be cut off. Which is really just rubbing your face into it even if you rely on that access for different things over the break.
00:07:56
Speaker
And then also we're fighting for the issues that ripple across the whole university. So the impact of unrealistic expectations on workloads, applications for grants and publishing requirements. This leads to academic staff at Monash having performance targets that they have to meet, regarding not just the amount of teaching and marking that they should do for undergraduate units, but also how many postgraduate students can collect degrees under their supervision.
00:08:20
Speaker
how many prestigious publications they produce and how much grant income they successfully secure from external sources.
00:08:27
Speaker
And most of these targets are set at aspirational, read unrealistic levels, meaning that staff frequently end up working late into the night, on weekends, on public holidays, and during their annual leave to meet the basic requirements of their role. Sometimes even then the targets remain unachievable. Did you know, for example, that the success rate in most major research funding schemes is only about 10 to 20%?
00:08:52
Speaker
Imagine how many hours academics have to put into developing applications for grants that don't even succeed, instead of putting that effort directly into the research itself. And then in addition to that, for those that are professional staff members, the expansion of the work hours and the span of hours
00:09:10
Speaker
to try and force people into more unsociable working hours that impact people's family responsibilities, their caring responsibilities, and just force a further erosion to the 888 model that unions fought so hard to establish all those years ago. And I think something that's really important to consider is that these issues are not separate from one another. They are just different manifestations of the same problem.
00:09:34
Speaker
They all stem from the same source, the way that people in management choose to run the university. The problem is them and their priorities. The way that the university currently runs, when they make changes in one area, they just assume that someone in another area will pick up the slack.
00:09:51
Speaker
When people were made redundant as a result of the jobs protection framework, they shifted the work that those people had done onto other staff. When the university declared that no casual would do consultation hours anymore after we launched our federal court action, they just made ongoing academic staff offer that consultation time to students. Even though they don't know or have any experience with the students who those casuals in their units had been teaching throughout the semester.
00:10:16
Speaker
And when professional staff were made redundant and not replace, they shifted the logistics of entering the research and publication metrics back on to academic staff while not reducing their workload in other areas. They don't care if casuals get sick and don't have access to sick leave, or if current staff end up in hospital due to overwork. They only care about numbers, maximising research grants that workers at the university bring in,
00:10:41
Speaker
minimizing entitlements like sick leave or annual leave to staff and of course world ranking which they only really care about when they go up. And that's why we strike and that's why we're taking industrial action but now the strike is over so what do we do now? Given how close to the end of teaching year we are now and that many staff become less present on campus during the non-teaching period the strike likely represents our last big industrial action for the year but that doesn't mean we stop working and that doesn't mean we stop fighting.
00:11:09
Speaker
because we will only win what we can fight for. Because we will only win what we can fight for and what we're willing to fight for.
00:11:17
Speaker
We recently got word back from the Fair Work Commission that monitors appeal of the original verdict that went against them was rejected. We can now move back to the federal court to pursue that case. We can do that because we fought for it because casuals turned out, they submitted evidence, they gave testimony to be able to fight for our rights and to be able to fight for what we deserve. We need to continue to do that. To continue winning, we need to continue to build strength. We need to continue to grow. The bigger we are,
00:11:45
Speaker
and the more active we are, the stronger we are and the harder it is for them to ignore us. We need people to talk to their colleagues about what is going on and to try to recruit non-members into the union. We need to talk to casuals and explain to them that they don't need to fear for their job if they join the union and that they cannot be discriminated against for being a union member.
00:12:05
Speaker
And we're succeeding on this front as well, which is super exciting. So this week we had the most new members joining of any branch in the country off the back of the action we took and the 48 hour strike we took. We need to continue to build that momentum.
00:12:21
Speaker
Because the way the university is structured is such that it atomizes and isolates staff from students and from each other. As we heard from Abigail from Melbourne Uni a couple of episodes ago, industrial action and just being part of the union is the anecdote to that. They want to separate us and pull us apart, but the union wants to bring us together.
PhD Student Employment Concerns
00:12:40
Speaker
So to shift gears for a bit, we also wanted to say a quick word about the periodic academic employment contracts that some PhD students have been receiving in the last couple of weeks.
00:12:51
Speaker
You may remember that we did an episode a couple of months back about these detailing some of the information sessions that the university management did where they tried to sell PhD students on the benefits of these contracts. While these contracts have just come out and we haven't had the opportunity to get one of the union's industrial offices to look at them in detail, we do have some initial thoughts. At that time, we had very little information about these contracts beyond vague generalizations from management.
00:13:18
Speaker
So we were a bit hesitant to go into detail about them. But now, as these periodic academic employment contracts are starting to be offered to PhD teaching staff, the verdict is in. From what we've seen, they're shit. And this is on top of the PhD Graduate Completion Award that helps students whose research was affected by the pandemic with some extra funding.
00:13:39
Speaker
being quietly taken away recently without any consultation and despite there being existing PhD students who have had their research affected by lockdowns and restrictions. If you want to sign the petition on this, please check out the show notes. At the time of the information sessions, the university gave a pretty wide range both in terms of pay scales and the fractions for the contracts. From what we've seen now though, they've gone as low as they possibly could on both of those fronts.
00:14:09
Speaker
So fractions are as low as 0.1 FTE and holding a periodic academic employment contract means you can't hold any casual contracts. So that is in terms of your employment for the university. So a 0.1 FTE means a yearly income of $7,812. With the Poultry PhD scholarship rate being a mere $33,000 a year, it doesn't leave enough room to live.
00:14:36
Speaker
One of my colleagues who is given one of these contracts has a young child putting their yearly income below the poverty line of someone with a dependent. This is pretty damning for the university, particularly considering that the former vice chancellor's income when she left was a whopping $3,760 per day. In other words, in two and a bit days, she would be making what these PhD fixed term people would be making in the course of a year.
00:15:05
Speaker
So this payoff is demeaning and really doesn't reflect the important work that PhD students do. And as one of my colleagues said upon receiving their offer, this contract is a joke.
00:15:16
Speaker
What's more, the details of the offer are very different to what was proposed in the information sessions earlier this year. These people have been offered no negotiations, no opportunity for negotiations around the fraction, around the salary, or around the start date, all of which were supposed to be negotiated with the employee before an offer was sent out.
00:15:36
Speaker
As a colleague of mine said, if I had known that I would have not spent the time submitting an application and asked my supervisors to write a reference letter. This is a lie and a complete waste of time. This is obviously a fucking nightmare deal for PhD students. And it's important to recognize the broader pattern here about how the university is attempting to weasel its way out of providing proper, secure jobs. The university is right now in the bargaining room,
00:16:05
Speaker
trying to pull the same shit with their offer of 120 ongoing FTA equivalent jobs. They've, again, provided very little detail and, again, included big-term jobs in that calculation. This is how the university is trying to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to secure employment. They provide a list of jobs that look like secure jobs on a half-page PR release, but in actual fact degrade the already shocking conditions at Monash University, and they should be ashamed.
00:16:35
Speaker
they can't pretend they don't know this either because I sat across the bargaining table from the representatives of the university and told them that fixed term contracts are not secure work and that no matter how they tried to spin it or how much they tried to polish that term nothing would change the fact that as far as the real world is concerned fixed term does not equal secure those are two very different states of being
00:17:02
Speaker
That's why I was so excited to see so many people out of the 48 hour strike. Amazing work to everyone who showed up during that 48 hour period and to those people that talk to their colleagues. That's how, as Kate said before, we've had the biggest membership growth for any NTU branch in the country. So that's it from us this week. And always, if you have any questions or want to share the details of your PhD, periodic academic employment contract, shoot us an email at myunionroadoneba at gmail.com.
00:17:31
Speaker
The union's currently collecting those PhD contracts so an industrial officer can have a look at them. So it'd be really great to have some more of them on hand so we have more detail and obviously this would be an anonymous process as well. And you can also email those directly to the branch at monash at nteu.org.au Thanks everybody.
00:17:53
Speaker
Alright folks, that's it for this episode. Thanks to Kate, Danny, Adam, Bernard, and Pod Daddy Sofio for all the work they've put into this, and we'll catch you next time.