Exercising one of its numerous anti-strike powers, the Fair Work Commission recently suspended customs and airport workers’ right to take protected industrial action. An interim decision announced by the commission on 3 April at the request of the immigration department was made final on 27 April. The strike ban will remain in effect for three months.
In the wake of the Brussels terrorist attacks, the commission found that planned industrial action by airport workers constituted an unjustifiable threat to the safety of the Australian population.
The decision is a major win for the federal government, which is in the middle of a number of significant pay disputes with public sector workers. Customs and immigration workers, represented by the Community and Public Sector Union, have been campaigning for a new enterprise agreement since June 2014. The department is seeking to implement a series of cuts to their wages and conditions. In May 2015, union members in the immigration department, by a significant margin, voted to authorise industrial action under the Fair Work Act.
Unions need to be clear that the militarisation of Australia’s borders is an ideological exercise, designed to whip up fear about asylum seekers and Muslims.
In accepting the government’s argument that their strike action posed a “serious and compelling” risk to the public, the commission acknowledged that any suspension of industrial action would hinder the workers’ ability to bargain effectively with their employer. The exercise of a basic industrial freedom is not as important as fanning the flames of hyperbole and ideological furore about national security, according to the commission. Scant evidence was provided by the government about any concrete threat posed to Australia by terrorists. Instead, the existence of more “terroristic opportunities” was largely accepted as common sense.
Sections of the union movement have criticised the particular power relied on by the commission in this case. It has previously been used to prevent nurses, university staff, transport workers and other public sector staff from taking legal industrial action.
However, the CPSU accepts much of the national security logic behind the government’s case, making it difficult for the union to defend effectively its members’ right to strike. Most notably, the union itself called off planned industrial action in the immediate aftermath of the Brussels attack, citing “concern about airport security”.
Throughout its industrial campaign, the union has also agreed to exempt certain staff from industrial action, at the request of the department, and has consistently provided more notice of planned actions than is required by law. These political concessions have emboldened the government to seek more and have hamstrung the union’s ability to counter the push to ban strikes altogether.
Unions need to be clear that the militarisation of Australia’s borders is an ideological exercise, designed to whip up fear about asylum seekers and Muslims.
A recent internal survey commissioned by the immigration department found widespread discontent among workers about the “militaristic” culture of the newly established Border Force agency.
However, instead of challenging the government’s racist narrative about border control and national security, the CPSU has fallen into line. The strike ban issued in this case shows clearly that workers’ interests will not be advanced this way.

Declan Murphy

Public sector union hamstrung in right to strike case

According to the budget papers, “from 1 January 2016, the government will fully deregulate higher education by removing fee caps and expanding the demand‑driven system to bachelor and sub‑bachelor courses at all approved higher education providers”.
Inspired by the US model of higher education, where multi-billion-dollar universities rort students with excessive fees, education minister Chris “the fixer” Pyne dreams of a university system where the market rules.
He wants to transform universities into profit-driven institutions which demand ever higher fees from their students.
Allowing universities to set their own fees would lock working class students out of a range of tertiary institutions by encouraging them to cater to the richest clientele possible.
Poorer students could attend university only if they were prepared to burden themselves with decades of debt. In the US, national student debt is now around $1 trillion.
Deregulation entrenches inequality within the university system. By forcing universities to compete over fees, it creates a two-tier education system.
We must stand united against this latest assault.
[Declan Murphy is the National Union of Students Victorian education officer.]

University fee deregulation is back on the agenda

Thousands of students took anti-budget action on streets across Australia on 20 August. The National Day of Action organised by the National Union of Students had a clear demand: that the Abbott government’s assault on higher education be stopped in its tracks.
Education minister Christopher Pyne has attempted to implement some of the most severe attacks on university students in Australian history. Fee hikes over the next two years, the complete deregulation of university fees and the introduction of interest rates on student HECS loans make up the core of the government’s agenda.
If successful, these policies will herald an entirely new era in Australia higher education. The cost of a degree, the level of student debt and the class divide between the richer universities and the poorer would be massively increased.
When the budget was released in May, the government clearly viewed the student movement as an easy target. It believed that student unions were too weak to mount a challenge. But successive mobilisations of students across the country this year have proven the government wrong.
The protest on 20 August was only the latest instalment in a student campaign that has put Abbott and Pyne on the back foot.
Now its entire agenda for higher education is in jeopardy. Opposition and cross-bench senators from Labor, the Greens and the PUP have all pledged to block the attacks in the Senate. They have been encouraged by the incredible unpopularity of the proposed changes.
Recognising that his desired policy simply will not be passed in its current form, Pyne now talks openly about the need for compromise.
The student movement needs to capitalise on this momentum. We can’t rely on the promises of the parliamentary opposition parties, which are apt to sell out and make compromises of their own. Our strength is on the streets, where we can demonstrate the widespread anger of students.
We will need further protest action if we are to defend our education.
[Declan Murphy is the education officer at Monash Student Association.]

Students take anti-budget action to the streets

The 2014 National Union of Students Education Conference was held on 9-11 July in Perth. More than 300 student activists and representatives from every state attended. The agenda focused on building student resistance to the federal budget.
There were two key themes. The first was deepening our understanding of how the budget will devastate Australian students. It threatens to transform higher education by replicating the US university model of huge fees, growing student debt and a gulf between a tiny handful of elite institutions and a sea of underfunded colleges.
The conference heard from academics in the National Tertiary Education Union, who explained the ramifications. In particular, fee deregulation would mean raising the cost of a degree to whatever the market can bear – in some courses, a rise greater than 200 percent. Additionally, the 20 percent reduction in government contributions to HECS would immediately lead to a substantial fee hike. The changes will, over time, exclude substantial numbers of working class students from higher education.
The second theme revolved around the crucial question: how can we fight back? Students this year have mounted an impressive campaign against the Liberal government. There have been mobilisations of thousands of students on national days of action (NDAs), which have formed the backbone of the campaign. These large demonstrations have been coupled with direct action protests such as the Q&amp;A protest in May and the series of protests at universities, which were organised whenever a Liberal minister dared to come on campus.
The result of this approach has been the most successful NUS campaign in years. Labor, the Greens and the Palmer United Party have all pledged to block parts of the government’s education attacks. While their promises must be taken with a grain of salt, the campaign can claim this as an early victory. The decisive test will come when the attacks are put to the Senate, probably in August.
The consensus coming out of the conference was that the next NDA on 20 August, occurring in all major cities, is the key focus for the student movement in the next period. We workshopped effective ways to advertise this demonstration. We need to keep protesting to strengthen the flimsy resolve of the parliamentary opposition to Abbott’s agenda. A lively protest of more than 200 conference attendees at the nearby office of cabinet minister Julie Bishop is proof of our commitment to keep fighting.
There are, of course, live debates in the student movement. The key argument is around what kind of student movement we need. This was discussed at the conference. The left has for years argued that student unions are political bodies whose aim must be to lead students in campaigns for student rights. This argument gained backing from a number of conference guests: organisers from the MUA (WA branch) and the NUW, as well as several Indigenous activists. They all argued strongly for a militant approach.
The more conservative opposing argument is that student unions should retreat from politics, and instead focus on being fiscally viable service providers and lobby groups.
The federal budget shows the inherent flaws in the latter strategy. Students need to build political campaigns to defend their education because failing to do this allows the Liberals to implement their agenda without opposition. All activists need to focus on building the next NDA to maintain the student resistance to everything the Liberals stand for.

Student conference pledges to keep fighting budget

Hundreds of academic staff and campus workers at Monash University have struck in support of their industrial demands. The half-day strike, on 4 March, was the latest episode in enterprise agreement negotiations that have dragged on for over 18 months. That management has refused to budge for this long demonstrates its contempt for the university’s workers.
Two picket lines were set up at the university’s Clayton campus, and the day’s actions culminated in a 250-strong rally outside the vice-chancellor’s headquarters. Well more than 50 students joined the pickets and rally to back staff claims.
The workers, represented by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), are fighting about three key issues. The first is the increasing casualisation of the workforce; more and more workers in the tertiary sector are having their jobs renewed only on a casual basis. Casual contracts curtail workers’ rights and entitlements as well as imposing a real sense of insecurity. “I was once asked to teach an entire 13-week unit, with three days’ notice. I couldn’t say no; I would have been fired”, explained one worker on the picket line.
The second issue the union is agitating about is management’s proposal to extend regular working hours. It wants the right to dictate that shifts can begin at 7am and finish at 9pm and to direct that staff work during summer trimesters. Also in management’s sights are current staff-student ratios.
The third point of contention is the university’s pay offer. At 2.5 percent a year over three years, the offer barely keeps pace with inflation. Management is also refusing to backdate any increase to July 2012, when the previous agreement expired.
The union’s demands are vital to protect the rights of workers and the quality of education at Monash. That management refuses to even countenance the NTEU’s basic demands only shows that staff and students have a fight on their hands, one that needs to be taken up with gusto if we are to safeguard our education.

Public sector union hamstrung in right to strike case

University fee deregulation is back on the agenda

Students take anti-budget action to the streets

Student conference pledges to keep fighting budget

Monash staff strike

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