UniMelb staff strike again!

Members of the National Tertiary Education Union at the University of Melbourne walked off the job for the second time this year on 21 June. University management has not budged in workplace contract negotiations, prompting staff to strike for 24 hours and rally outside a meeting of the university board. The rally of 300 was an important step for the ongoing campaign.

The night before the strike, workers received a 6 percent pay increase offer. The proposal was a complete sham. Not only is 6 percent well below the 15 percent staff are asking for, but the university proposed to fund the pay rise, not with the millions of dollars it already has, but by reducing the university’s contributions to staff members’ superannuation.

One of the biggest achievements of the day was student support workers shutting down their entire department. Activists in the department recruited five people to the union in the morning on their way into work.

The Students Support Staff Strikes campaign group also had a presence at the strike and held a campaign meeting afterwards that was attended by members of the staff union. The student turnout was not as big as it had been for the first strike in May.

Students are either finishing their exams or are on winter break right now, which made mobilising students, who have very little experience with strikes, a challenge. Staff know this, so the smaller student turnout did not detract from confidence of staff at the strike.

Those who did mobilise arrived with gusto. “If the NTEU wins, we all win!” a student declared in the campaign meeting after the strike. It is important that students do not let university management isolate the staff or play us off against each other.

The question “What next?” is on everyone’s mind. That will be up for debate in the staff union. Semester two will be an excellent opportunity to build both staff and student campaigns against University of Melbourne management.