RMIT Strike Action by NTEU members

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

The table is everything

Nearly two years ago now, my therapist and I were exploring the world of difficult conversations and confrontations particularly in the context of professional relationships.

Although I didn’t think of myself as being someone who avoids difficult conversations, I had to admit that when I had some degree of responsibility or ongoing involvement in a situation, I would either avoid them like the plague, or become in turns aggressive or defensive, and sometimes both! I knew these were not productive behaviours but I didn’t seem able to interrupt the reaction long enough to change them. The damage was piling up. I was overwhelmed.

She told me this:

In every interaction with other people there is an imaginary table before you. When someone raises an issue, makes a demand, identifies a problem, offers you something, imagine this as an item they place on the table. Imagine the same for the things you raise, request, offer, or identify with others.

Someone may think they are passing responsibility for the issue to you but, like it or not, they have to place it on the table before you pick it up. If you don’t know the table is there, the tendency is for you to catch it to stop it from falling. But the table is there. Let things come to rest there a while and consider your choices: whether or not to pick them up, whether to examine them some more before deciding, whether to consider alternatives. There is always a choice.

It’s taken me a while to realise the value of the table. But it is everything! At first I thought it was just a way of temporarily stalling the inevitable. I realise I’ve been conditioned to see differences of opinion or perspective as battle-grounds. I was on a continuum of conflict – either fleeing for my life, digging in, or pressing the charge. The table transforms any encounter from a battle to a buffet. Now, rather than fighting an opponent for who has to take away the responsibility, you are conversing with a dinner companion, getting to pick from the items on the table, what you’re hungry for and what will be good for you, always acknowledging that some of the stuff you bring with you, you will be taking home again.

I’ve started mentally saying to myself: “there is a table” when I become aware of a potentially difficult conversation, or when one takes a turn for the difficult. I still forget about the table in these situations as many times as I remember it but the result, when I do remember, has been surprising to me.

It’s not the positive outcome of such encounters that surprises me. Sometimes the outcome is not a success in terms of what is agreed between parties. There are times when we leave the table with a problem still to solve. The surprising difference is in my attitude to the other parties. I have more space for empathy because they’re people offering a choice, not forcing a reaction. I have more space for finding a solution, finding the right words to communicate an idea, finding peace in my choices. I am free from the continuum of conflict for a time.

The table is everything!

Relational displacement

 Relational displacement

I sailed across the sea.

A fool,

Who clung to hope that

There might be a welcome

At the other end.

The smiling embrace of a friend, perhaps.

I dreamt a homecoming.

Not one which nailed down 

Time and space,

Or one, which 

Blood or earth defined,

But something like a sense 

That, while tomorrow here

Might next be there,

That's where we'd be - 

You and me. 

Constant motion; constant still.

I cast away with this in mind

And lived adrift 

For so long that the dream,

Playing over waves,

Made me sick.

I now no longer know.

Is this a trick?

I look down.

Somehow I came to be standing on the shore.

It doesn't seem so solid any more.

There you are!

Shall we begin?

But in your diary it seems

There's no space, no time

To fit me in.  

Next week maybe, you say, 

As you wave and walk away.

Mary Goodman 28/6/2013

A tribute to Uncle Willie Gray

Every Sunday, the wider family in Kilmaurs gathers after church at Arran View. I’m about 7 years old. Our family are staying with my grandparents and my friends, Shona and Douglas, have come with us. The adults are having aperitifs (sherry or whisky) in the living room, and we children will be having Curries’ Red Kola.  

There is just one significant problem: On the sideboard is ranged an assortment of glasses, some tall; some wide; some with indents; some smooth, and there is not enough of the same sort for all us. The choice of glass could influence the share of Kola each child receives. We line up at the table. The tension is palpable. Who will get the lion’s share of Kola and who will be short-changed? We eye the glasses, and then each other, with a mix of longing, suspicion and rivalry. 

Uncle Willie, my Gran’s brother, steps up to the sideboard, and assumes responsibility for the Great Decanting of the 1983 Cuvée Rouge. Douglas, emboldened by the presence of an adult, kicks off proceedings by stating his preference for the tall glass.  

Silent outrage emanates from Shona and me. Katie is only little but she senses the height of the stakes and pushes to the front.

“Oh?” responds my Great Uncle. “Is that so? Very well.” He begins to pour, slowly, steadily, and deliberately.  

“But that will mean he gets the most!”, Shona blurts out what we’re all thinking. I’m mindful my parents are in earshot, but secretly glad that someone has pointed out what is clearly a terrible injustice.  

“Aha!”, Uncle Willie exclaims, “That’s what you’d THINK, wouldn’t you! But look …” 

He finishes pouring the Kola into the tall glass destined for Douglas and then, with a flourish, pours its contents into a shorter, wider glass. He stops and steps back from the glasses to allow each and every one of us, including Katie, to observe the results. We stand in a solemn semi-circle in front of the glasses, looking for a hole in his argument, but finding none.  

“Now!”, He continues, “We’ll use this glass as the measure and fill the others equally”.

Douglas, suddenly seeing the possibility of the balance being tipped against him despite his initially strong position, retorts, “But you didn’t fill my glass up to the top! How will you know the others are getting the same?”

We all see the point of this and squawk our agreement that the whole transaction might still not be as fair as Uncle Willie is pointing out. Katie is not sure what exact point has been made but she points at a random glass insistently, and makes loud noises along with the rest of us, being keenly aware that she has yet to taste this magical ruby liquid, which is just now the subject of such contention. 

Uncle Willie silences us all with a raised index finger. We are transfixed. He sweeps deftly out of the room and returns after a few minutes with a wooden ruler. Not one of us have moved a millimetre from the spot he left us. Something momentous is happening, we are aware. Our impatience for Kola melts in anticipation.  

The ruler is brandished like a fine blade, and placed against the tall glass. Our eyes collectively widen further at this. Uncle Willie then proceeds to pour the Kola back into the tall glass from the short, fat one. He stoops down until he is at eye level with the surface of the liquid. Without taking his eyes for a second off the glass, its contents, and the benchmark his arm reaches out and a hand is placed on Douglas’ shoulder, drawing him towards the glass.  

“What number is there next to the top of the Kola?”, he enquires. 

Douglas peers at the ruler. “Four”, he offers. “But the juice is higher than the four”.

“How many marks more?”, Uncle Wille asks, urgently. 

Douglas again approaches the ruler and his lips move as he counts the marks on the ruler: “Six.”

“Right!”, Uncle Willie declares decisively.  

He then pours the liquid in the glass out. “We’ll start fresh so everyone gets the fizz.”

The ruler is applied to the side of the tall glass. Liquid is poured in to the four inches and six mark, with deep concentration and great precision. The same liquid is carefully poured into a plastic glass and passed to Katie, who receives the glass reverently, as if it were the Blood of Christ.  

The same process is then followed to furnish Shona and me with a glass each of Curries Red Kola. Each of us in turn receive the glass with awe.  

Finally Douglas, who chose the tall glass, sees it filled to the exact same level as was poured at the start. Uncle Willie turns to him, his bright blue eyes shining with the reflected joy and wonder he sees in our little faces, and bestows the prize upon its claimant.  

Satisfied that justice has been done, and amazed at the miracle witnessed, we each drink the most delicious Kola that has ever been tasted.

Me, Uncle Willie, Katie, Stuart

Gran and Aunt Marion

Many years after.  

Joy

I'm reading Brené Brown's new book, 'Braving the Wilderness' at the moment.  It's one of those books that incites feelings of confusion, contrition, choleric outrage, and at times a compulsion to consign the whole thing to the freezer until I recover my equilibrium.  Do read it.  I've just read the following and it's a reiteration of statements she's made in many of her previous publications:  "Joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience."

I suddenly remembered this poem I wrote nearly two years ago.  It was in response to the challenge laid down by a poetry group I was a part of briefly, to write something about joy.  In applying myself to the task, the realisation dawned on me that it was a long time since I'd felt any.  Reading Brené's words again I am beginning to see why.  

Here is the poem:

Joy

Plink.

Every odd

Moment,

A drip

Drops

Down

Into the deep.

Plink, plink.

Once and again,

There it falls,

Echoing

Against

The stones

Slickened with moisture.

Plink, plink, plink

Dark moss drinks a draught

And drains each drop,

Each tiny drop

Of water

Right away

But still the damp persists.

Plink, plink, plink, plink.

Frequency increasing.

It’s flowing faster,

Firmly, fervently.

I keep hoping

That, keeping faith,

My cup will soon run over…

Mary Goodman 5/12/2015

Less traffic, more friendliness

I have observed something intriguing in recent months on my walk to the station on the way to work.  The walk usually takes around 15 minutes.  There are several ways I could go.  I suffer from perpetual lateness so I have pretty much always chosen the quickest route, which is up and down the hills of Lower Plenty Road.  This is a very busy road and at the time I’m going to work it’s usually teeming with cars and trucks.  There is a set of lights I have to cross at.  I press the button and then stand back a metre or so to avoid being run over by the cars and B-doubles which clip the kerb as they race round the corner. 

There are lovely views in this neighbourhood but I rarely take them in as I hurry to the bottom of the hill, watching the boom gates with anxiety. Any movement from them when I’m too far up the hill might mean I’ve missed my train. 

A few months ago I decided to start walking to the station another way.  The walk is longer by nearly five minutes, the first five of which are along an equally hectic and busy road, but then I turn off the road and walk through quiet, suburban streets with the roar and hiss of the traffic quickly fading away behind me. 

I walk past houses and I imagine what it would be like to live in them and what kind of people do live in them.  I ask myself why on earth anyone would a build a house that looks like a medical research facility, or why you’d build a house from scratch to look like a sloppy bungalow conversion.  I mentally award the houses prizes for being the most friendly, the most quirky, the most in need of love.  I notice when someone’s pruned their trees.  Pruning is a dark art to me: I don’t understand it.  There’s a house on a corner with a growing fleet of raised veggie beds covering what was once a manicured lawn.  I check the progress of the stuff growing in them as I pass, noticing the effect of a recent load of rain or an unusual warm spell.   

But it’s the people who are the really interesting factor, myself included.  On each route into work I probably pass or encounter between 5 and 10 people.  Only since walking the other way have I realised that on the Lower Plenty route, I find myself trying to isolate myself from the noise and intrusion of the traffic, and in doing so I tend to ignore any people I pass.  My anxiety is heightened because of the noise and fumes and I just want to get the chore of a walk over and done with as soon as possible.

On the other route, I look around, the atmosphere is calm, and when I meet people on the way, we exchange greetings and sometimes brief chats.  I am reminded that I live in a neighbourhood full of people of different backgrounds and interests.  It is a far richer, friendly experience.  Even the people in cars will wave or acknowledge each other and the pedestrians as they cross roads and driveways.

I would never have thought that such a seemingly trivial difference could have such a profound effect. 

Signs

Australian road signs freak me out.  Like today, Matt and I noticed one of these 'people crossing' signs over another sign, which in large, upper-case, ominous letters read:  'IN SIDE STREET'.

Something about the composition of these two signs suggested to me that whatever ferocious misfortunes were being visited upon these poor figures, the fact that it was happening IN A SIDE STREET was somehow compounding their suffering.  

I explained this to Matt.  

He now knows me well enough to know that he has a choice of either silently tolerating my weird; or jumping in and going with it.  His heavenward glance and sigh gave nothing away about the way he was going to go before he asked me what I meant. 

I replied:  Well - they're clearly recently escaped victims of a chainsaw murderer, who enjoys half decapitating people before cutting off their extremities to keep as trophies and these poor bastards in the SIDE STREET, there, have just managed to drag themselves off on their stumps in an attempt to reach safety, while the mainstream populace are being warned away from the area, thereby isolating them further and condemning them to a long, slow, bloody death.  It's deplorable really.  I'll write to the Council directly. 

Matt retorted:  No it's not that - it's just there's been a terrible sewage leak and the people are wading off out of the SIDE STREET in search of some clean socks.  

To which I responded:  No, no, NO! It simply can't be that, Matt.  See the man on the left there?  See how his limb has been severed at an angle?  If he'd just been traipsing through some effluent, that line at the bottom of his lower-right leg would be horizontal, but no.  It's a gory stump.  Mark my words!  

But, says Matt:  What if the Council has already been alerted to the catastrophic spill and has sent some workers over in a speed boat to assess the damage.  They've just swept past this chap and his girlfriend and the strange angle you're seeing at the bottom of his leg is in fact the backwash of sewage after the passage of the boat.  

Ah!  I conclude smugly:  But how do you explain the fact that said chap's right leg is so much longer than the left?  If he straightened his legs he'd have a mighty discrepancy in leg-length to be contending with.  Now it's just possible he's afflicted with some congenital disorder but my money is on Murder and Mayhem.  

Matt looked heavenward once more - which, right enough, for an atheist is an odd thing to do but then, the imminent threat of chainsaw murderers will maybe do that to a person.