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Episode 11: Student Solidarity
151 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Kate & Tony run through a range of ways students can show solidarity with members as we engage in industrial action and fight for a fair agreement. Students understand that our working conditions are their learning conditions, and it has been great seeing the positive responses and offers of assistance from so many of our student comrades.
This episode can serve both as a list of suggestions for members to provide to students and also as a resource that you can directly point students towards. The QR code in the bottom corner of the logo will take them to the linktree where they can get a bunch of useful links and information.
If you have questions about the process you'd like answered, or any topics you would like to hear covered on the podcast, drop us an email at myunionwroteaneba@gmail.com
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 to New EBA
00:00:18
Speaker
G'day, everyone, and welcome to My Union Wrote an EBA. 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 to everything we can to avoid being fucked in the process.
00:00:41
Speaker
Those involved with the podcast would like to acknowledge that it is being recorded on the unceded lands of the Kulin nations, on whose lands we live, teach and work. 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.
Current Bargaining Process & Challenges
00:01:07
Speaker
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. By the time you're listening to this, it'll be right around 300 days since our last EBA expired, 185 days since we started bargaining, and a mere three weeks since the university finally put forward a pay offer, albeit an unsatisfactory one.
00:01:29
Speaker
Within the next week, we'll pass an important milestone. Our Vice Chancellor will have raked in a million dollars since our last agreement expired. That milestone will be passed just a few days before the before NTU members across the state go on strike on the 3rd of May. This week, NTU members began taking protected industrial action. This took the form of making statements while working, explaining why members of the union are taking industrial action.
00:01:57
Speaker
For me, what this looked like was giving students a brief presentation at the beginning of my tutorials, explaining what the situation is with bargaining and what we as the union are bargaining for.
Student Support & Action
00:02:07
Speaker
For secure jobs, for manageable workloads, for a decent pay rise. As well as how difficult it has been trying to get any kind of response from the university to many of our proposals. All they seem to want to do is stall or to wind back conditions.
00:02:23
Speaker
The response from students to the situation we have found ourselves in has been really overwhelming with people commenting and asking questions in class, as well as writing emails offering their support and asking how they can help. So we just wanted to pop up for a quick episode to give you some ideas for things to suggest to students when they ask how they can help. Alternatively, you can send this episode to your students to help give them some ideas for how to get involved.
00:02:48
Speaker
So the first and I guess the most time sensitive and biggest one is they can come to the strike. The first strike is set from May 3rd at trades hall in the city so they can all bring their mates and make a day of it. The second thing is that the MSA has endorsed our claims in bargaining and supports union members in taking industrial action. To this end, they've circulated an email template for students to use where they can write to the vice chancellor.
Encouragement for Student Activism
00:03:13
Speaker
So you can direct your students to the MSA template if they want to send a message of support to staff. Third, students can show their support through social media posts on whatever platform it is that you or they use or whatever the most current one is. I don't know. I'm old now. Instagram is about where I tap out of social media.
00:03:35
Speaker
The other thing you can do is talk to your friends who might not know what the deal is and why their class sizes have gotten so big and all that kind of thing. Fifth, send a message of support to your other tutors letting them know that you've heard about what is going on and that you think they deserve better too. It's been really nice this past week getting emails from students telling me that they support what we're doing and that they're standing with us.
00:04:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's always great to hear. The other thing that they can do is take sort of solidarity photos. This could be in your cheats, around the campus, you know, at the footy, whatever. And then you can post them to social media. So showing things like that that demonstrate that the whole campus stands behind its workers sends a really strong message. Also, students shouldn't be afraid to get creative.
00:04:27
Speaker
do whatever it is that they do, make memes, posters, stickers, whatever floats their boat. There have been heaps of instances lately where people have used platforms like TikTok in ways that have really helped the union and really been a great way of showing support. And the other thing in that vein as well is that if you are posting about this sort of stuff as a staff member or as a student, you can use hashtags that really kind of help people find each other.
00:04:52
Speaker
So things like hashtag NTU student solidarity, hashtag Monash has the cash, hashtag students supporting the strike. And in addition to this, hopefully soon we'll have some frames for Facebook or Instagram or profile pictures. So keep an eye out for those as well.
00:05:13
Speaker
And finally, tell us your ideas. If there's something you think would be an effective way of students being able to support us and that you think other students would be into, let us know. Email us at myunionwroteaneba.com or tag the branch on social media so that we can share them.
Resources & Involvement Opportunities
00:05:32
Speaker
If students are interested, they can also sign up to get email updates about the progress in bargaining via the bargaining website as well.
00:05:42
Speaker
And we'll pop the link to the bargaining website in our show notes too, so you can direct students there. And the final thing is that if you want help or resources to help you spread the word and get more people involved, please email us either at the branch email or at the podcast email. And we'll see you all at the strike on May 3rd. Let's do this.
00:06:05
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.