In the face of decades of education funding cuts and the devastating effect of COVID-19 on the tertiary education sector, the National Tertiary Education Union campaigned for secure jobs and safe workloads for a National Week of Action.
A massive 4500 NTEU members participated in the week; calling for secure jobs and safe workloads – the two most widely felt issues in bargaining, irrespective of the university.
Importantly, this week of action generated the largest membership growth the NTEU has seen this year!
Dome Rowe, Director of Campaigning and Organising from the NTEU, recounts the action:
We held a National Week of Action on secure jobs and safe workloads – the two most widely felt issues in bargaining irrespective of the university. The week lead to our highest growth in 2021 and sent a clear message to Vice Chancellors they are responsible and must deliver secure jobs and safe workloads at the bargaining table.
We launched the week with a report from the Centre for Future Work reaching 4.5 million Australians through the media. Over 4,500 people participated in local events from trivia nights to COVID safe rallies and meetings, to sausage sizzles, to meme competitions, health and safety seminars and much more.
We finished the week with a mass online action and 484 attending. Karen Douglas (casual, RMIT), Mick Piotto (casual, Uni SA) and Sally McManus (Secretary of the ACTU) all spoke about job security. Participants tweeted selfies to #Securejobs and their universities at the conclusion of the event.
