On Wednesday last week about 150 people, mostly University of Technology Sydney (UTS) staff, rallied outside the campus in central Sydney after the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) called a four-hour stoppage as part of the union’s enterprise bargaining with UTS management.
At the rally, NTEU speakers claimed to be winning the fight against the management’s plans, announced earlier this year, to slash $100 million from the university’s budget by 2027 by cutting 400 jobs—about a tenth of the workforce. The plans included stopping new enrolments for nearly a fifth of the university’s courses, notably in international studies, social sciences, education and public health.
Similarly shocking restructures have been unveiled at many, at least 19, of the country’s 39 public universities in 2025, with proposed job cuts rising above 3,500 nationally.
As at UTS, limited stoppages have been called by the NTEU at several universities across Australia in recent days. The union leadership is trying to channel immense discontent over the destruction of jobs and pro-corporate restructuring nationally back into union-run negotiations over new three-year enterprise agreements (EAs). But these agreements will do no more than the current EAs to halt this offensive.
The NTEU’s New South Wales (NSW) division secretary Vince Caughley told the UTS rally participants: “We are winning.” Caughley insisted that the union’s campaign to expose a “lack of accountability” on the part of...
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