Pay and condition strikes to ramp up in Victoria

University strikes are on track to intensify across the state of Victoria over pay and conditions.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) confirmed members will go on strike at Monash University and Swinburne University this week. The industrial action is in response to management offering a real wage pay cut and refusing to budge on secure work or workloads, according to a statement from the NTEU.

“Swinburne University management has proposed brutal cuts to conditions in a radical plan which would strip more than 140 rights and entitlements from the enterprise agreement,” the statement read.

“Staff at RMIT are also expected to launch industrial action next week, unless management allocates serious time to enterprise bargaining negotiations.”

NTEU Monash University branch president Dr Ben Eltham said the action by Monash University staff “will highlight the poor governance record of Monash chancellor Simon McKeon”.

“Mr McKeon was the chancellor of Monash throughout the period of the university’s $8.6 million in staff underpayments,” he said.

Meanwhile, NTEU Swinburne University branch president Dr Julie Kimber said the strikes there demonstrate how “staff are at breaking point with unmanageable workloads and poor governance”.

“We are taking this action for staff and also for students, who suffer when their teachers are overworked and have little job security,” she said.

The latest strikes come after NTEU members at the University of Melbourne launched major industrial action ranging from one to seven days last week. The members in the industrial action included staffers across the faculty of arts, Melbourne law school, the VCA school of art, student services, stagecraft and the library.

It came after vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell allegedly refused to engage with what the union called “reasonable claims” around secure jobs and a fair pay rise. The vice-chancellor’s team at the University of Melbourne had also refused to engage with the NTEU’s claims around workloads, flexible working arrangements and limiting restructures, a statement noted.

NTEU Victorian division secretary Sarah Roberts suggested this latest round of strikes may not be the last.

“We are now seeing deep anger among members at multiple universities, and that’s a direct result of vice-chancellors and executives refusing to constructively engage with the NTEU’s reasonable claims around fair pay rises, secure jobs and safe workloads,” she said.

“University staff made incredible sacrifices and worked harder than ever during the pandemic only to be rewarded with employers playing a cruel game of hardball on pay and conditions.”