As an National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) member, I am participating in Union strike action from 1230 Monday 25 March to 2359 Thursday 28 March 2024.
The Union has proposed industrial action on the basis that:
- It is over 1000 days since the expiry of the last enterprise agreement for higher education staff, and close to 800 days since expiry of our VE enterprise agreement and progress towards a current agreement has been too slow.
- Wage increases proposed in current bargaining are not in line with cost of living increases, putting many lower paid staff into stress.
- Unsafe workloads continue to perpetuate across the University.
- Job security continues to be an issue for a large proportion of the University workforce.
I am not taking this action lightly, and I am not taking this action in my own interests.
Relative to many of my hardworking colleagues, I am lucky to be able to absorb the rises in cost of living at least in the short term. I am also lucky not to have an unmanageable workload where I am required to work significant and sustained amounts of time over and above my contracted hours.
Sadly, this is not the case for many of my colleagues. Effectively we have been hiding the cost of further and higher education, and research by trading on the commitment and good will of staff who believe in learning and knowledge for public good, while the sector is governed by assumption that education and research are commodities to be bought and sold at a market price.
Realistically there will always be a gap between the cost of and remuneration for work, particularly for those who bring their whole selves, their values, and their vision to their work. Higher education is full of these sorts of people. Most are able to tolerate the gap while it is relatively manageable. There are other trade-offs like job satisfaction, a sense of achievement and fulfilment from supporting students and making a positive difference in the world. However, with a career spanning over 20 years in the higher education sector, my observations have led me to conclude that the human cost of this arrangement is now becoming untenable.
Every day I meet staff who are burnt out and who are unable to do their work to the quality they would like to achieve because of workload and time pressures. Every person I have talked to on campus recently identifies time as the main resource they lack to do their jobs effectively. Not only is this demoralising and devaluing for staff, it is having a knock-on effect to RMIT's ability to achieve its strategic aims. My own team's contribution to the University's strategy is entirely dependent on voluntary engagement by colleagues requiring time that they simply do not have. My experience demonstrates that the problem is both structural and deep-rooted.
Meanwhile the Executive simply refuses to acknowledge this, choosing to believe that the issue stems from individuals' own inability to prioritise tasks. By making this an individual problem, the institution (as well as the wider sector) seeks to abdicate responsibility for structural change in favour of its human capital - upon which the entire higher education endeavour depends. This position not only lacks credibility, it could be interpreted as gaslighting.
The problems faced by the RMIT workforce are mirrored in the wider sector. It is a problem that is bigger than one institution. However, RMIT, as one of the few dual sector institutions in Australia, has the opportunity to be a leading light in the sector: to work smarter towards rewarding goals where quality of output matters at least as much as the quantity, and where its people are truly empowered to deliver valuable and innovative contributions.
It is for this that I join my comrades in industrial action this March.
Mary Goodman
