University casuals campaign off to solid start
The higher education sector has a long-running and increasingly dire problem with casualisation. More than half of teaching across Australian universities in done by casual academics employed for a few hours a week. A majority of all academic staff are employed on casual terms.
In late February, the Victorian division of the National Tertiary and Education Union (NTEU) launched its “supercasuals”campaign at La Trobe University. Named to reflect the superpowers expected of casual workers – from living without pay for weeks on end to fitting 10 hours of marking into two hours – the campaign is also running at Monash, Swinburne and Victoria universities. It aims to improve the standing of casual workers and strengthen the union’s presence amongst this section of the workforce.
Close to 50 casual workers from a range of departments attended the meeting at La Trobe, including many who weren’t union members. Angry stories were shared. One woman explained that working at five campuses meant she needed signatures from up to seven different supervisors to submit her time sheet. Another said that the marking word allowance in her department had unilaterally been doubled, halving the time available to mark each assignment. Numerous stories emerged about casuals not being paid on time – sometimes not until the end of semester.
The union estimates that there are between 50,000 and 60,000 casual staff working at Australian universities. They can be fired with an hour’s notice. They receive no sick pay, no annual leave, no maternity leave and only half the superannuation contributions of permanent staff. But hanging over all of this is the unquantifiable lack of respect that casuals report.
The initial meeting at La Trobe was a promising start to the union’s campaign. A committee was established and quickly homed in on one grievance to tackle first – the frustrating and time-consuming time sheet process imposed by the university. Completing hard-copy time sheets can take hours of work, for which casual staff are not paid. Being made to come to work just to collect pay slips is unheard of in the tertiary sector, except at La Trobe.
The campaign is proposing that casuals claim two hours’ pay per fortnight for administrative work until management agrees to automate the system. Already, the union has recruited new members, and it is hoped an initial campaign victory can help union activists win the argument that the best place for casual workers to be is in the union and fighting, with others, for their rights.
