Controversy loomed over the semester break as the staff’s union, the NTEU, withheld student’s results. I argue here students should actively support this and any Industrial Action taken by staff for three reasons.
First, that University education standards are declining and staff are fighting for better quality education. Second, that Monash management is able to meet the demands of staff if it is forced to. Finally, that the vast majority of students have a direct interest in standing up against exploitation by employers enhanced by casualisation as they are or will be workers themselves.
Australian Public University education spending in real terms per student has been in decline since 1975 and is in the bottom ranks of the OECD. What this means for students is that “student contributions” as our Vice Chancellor Ed Byrne has put it – better known as fees that grow into tens of thousands in dollars in debt for students – is increasingly funding the education system. The decline has meant Universities have resorted to lucrative full-fee paying students for funding, luring particularly International students with false promises of education nirvana and possibilities of permanent residence when to the University’s bottom line they are merely high paying customers.
On the ground, there’s far fewer contact hours for students and class sizes have soared, with staff bearing the brunt of super-sized workloads. Casualisation is a growing cancer fed by management, with now around half of all undergraduate teaching done by casuals, which obstructs the development of experienced teachers.
These general trends have been resisted and shorn off by the collective power of staff through their union. When similar cuts to Higher Education were initiated under the Howard Government in the late 1990s, the NTEU was prepared to go on strike and fight. The absence of up-front fees for undergraduate domestic students is a legacy of rallies in the 1990s. Importantly they were not alone, and students played major roles in these national days of action. Currently, the NTEU is fighting alongside students nationally against the Federal ALP’s $4 billion in Higher Education cuts over the past year.
The common complaint from management is that they cannot afford to grant staff a wage increase. A close look at Monash’s budget demonstrates that this is wrong and hypocritical.
Monash made a $94 million operating surplus last year. Further, Vice Chancellor Ed Byrne boasted in The Australian this year that Monash has “hundreds of millions just sitting in the bank.” In recent years, Monash has splashed cash worldwide with executives travelling the world to start new ventures in China, India, Indonesia and the UK to name a few, and of course there’s the notorious loss-making South Africa campus. These are hardly the actions of a cash-strapped University, but do highlight how management make decisions for this University as if they are the rulers of the Holy Monash Empire.
Everyday on campus students experience the extravagant refurbishment and building programs as part of Monash’s master plan. This begs the question: if there’s enough money for excess in buildings why isn’t there any for staff?
The answer is that the money is going to management, and running the University as a profitable corporation. Over the last four years to 2012, executive pay has risen 31.9% (off a very high base) whereas staff have seen a wage increase of 16.5%. Ed Byrne’s pay ranks amongst the top 10 most highly paid Vice-Chancellors in the world at an average of $1 million per year – the 2nd highest in Australia.
Education quality is directly related to teaching conditions. On this basis, students should support good pay and conditions for their teachers. But the NTEU represents far more workers than just teachers. For workers as a whole, most students have a direct interest in their struggle because they are workers themselves or will be in the future and want decent pay and conditions too.
Byrne has said in his recent video to students that they come first, suggesting staff are not so important. Students have never received so many e-mails from management – that peddle the idea that it is the NTEU that is destroying student’s education, when in reality it’s the opposite; it’s the overpaid bureaucrats that refuse to grant decent pay and conditions to our teachers. Management is pitting students against staff to fight amongst themselves over the declining education quality they are responsible for.
The NTEU has been negotiating 15 claims with management that include higher wages, better conditions for casuals, binding targets for Indigenous employment, no increase in the student to staff ratio, fair workloads and job security. They’re fighting for the conditions that students aspire to in their jobs. Management have only fully agreed to one of the 15: allowing the NTEU to present information to new staff, providing the basis for Industrial Action after seven months of stalled negotiations.
All forms of Industrial Action at the University have effects on students of varying degrees because they aim to disrupt business as usual in the workplace. This display of collective strength then forces bosses to grant concessions. The main cause of Industrial Action is the exploitation of workers by bosses.
Students and staff have power in numbers. A great example of students and staff working together is demonstrated by the campaign against cuts at the University of Sydney last year, which saw hundreds of jobs saved. This year, the momentum has continued in Sydney as the most high-profile University Industrial Action in Australia with 48 hour strikes, and their Vice Chancellor slowly ceding to many of the demands of staff.
It is this sort of staff and student solidarity that will be necessary as the Vice-Chancellor has warned of implementing cuts beyond the 80 IT jobs cut so far this year. Much of the student side of the Sydney action was organised by an Education Action Group, which has also been set up at Monash. Hundreds of students and staff getting involved and active in action won minor victories in Sydney, and whether it is through an Education Action Group or another group, on the picket line with your teachers, it’s never too late to learn to fight for better education.
