Industrial Action
Industrial Action at Unimelb
The Laureate Team’s activities are on pause while NTEU Members at the University (including Laureate Professor Sundhya Pahuja) take industrial action.
This action is prompted by the lack of meaningful engagement by the University with the Union’s key claims. Central among these claims is a continuing employment target and effective workload and working hours clauses.
You might have seen the news reports on this in The Guardian, The Age, The Australian (paywall), and other papers. Sadly our University Management is now lagging far behind other major universities in coming to a fair and sustainable enterprise agreement. Our colleague, Katy Barnett, has written a very stirring post on her blog.
Next week, from Monday 28 August - Friday 1 September, there is an all-members strike and rally from 12 noon on Monday for half a day. After that, NTEU members from the Melbourne Law School, the Faculty of Arts, the School of Art in the Victorian College of the Arts, the Stagecraft Workshop in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, Library and Scholarly Services, and Student Services located at 757 Swanston Street (including Stop 1) will continue to strike, and have voted to do so for the entire week.
During the week, there will be a range of events put on by colleagues from these different parts of the University. Around the MLS, this will include solidarity gatherings with students featuring special guests, and on Wednesday and Thursday, all day teach-outs in the park across the road offered by over 20 of our colleagues. These stimulating and engaging events will be a festival of ideas, creating an opportunity to show the University we are serious about our claims, whilst freely sharing knowledge in the best spirit of a public university.
Even if you will not be involved in the strike, you are welcome to join us when you are taking a break from your work. Here is the program. But you can also ask those on the solidarity lines outside the law school for a program of events, keep an eye on social media, or check the website next week for more details. https://www.unimelbebanow.com/.