Alma Torlakovic, a member of the National Tertiary Education Union at Sydney University, has written a response to this piece, which can be read <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/response-julie-kimber">here</a>.
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On 26 September, an article by Alma Torlakovic, “<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/bans-versus-strikes-sydney-university">Bans versus strikes at Sydney University</a>”, was published at Red Flag. Ostensibly about the efficacy of strikes versus work bans at Sydney University, the article also contained (without input from the members involved) a critique of a five-week dispute at Swinburne University. In this article, several errors of fact were made, and the dispute was misrepresented.
What was right and what was wrong in the article? The first paragraph was right. On 11 August, Swinburne management did serve TAFE teachers with a partial work bans notice stating that it would refuse to accept their work and would refuse to pay them while they continued to uphold the bans. But the rest of the detail of the dispute is incorrect. 
In March this year, a take it or leave it non-union enterprise agreement (where the “fair deal for all employees” was a 6 percent pay rise over four years) was put to teachers in vocational education (not the 3.25-3.5 plus super increases mentioned in the article). The non-union agreement was overwhelmingly rejected by over 80 percent of the workforce.
Management did want, as the author stated, “workers to accept work intensification, the removal of annual leave loading and limits on opportunities for (the huge number of) casual and fixed-term workers to convert to fixed-term or ongoing employment”. But they fought against this. That’s precisely what the five-week dispute was about. And they won. 
After five weeks, Swinburne management blinked; the partial work bans notice was lifted. A new agreement has now been negotiated. Annual work plans will be strengthened; annual leave loading will remain in place; casual workers can apply for conversion after twelve months; and significantly (as we have seen management undermine these clauses), conversion cannot be denied after three years. 
We did forfeit an important part of our claims: full equity between TAFE and higher education and superannuation parity for casuals still need to be won. But it’s a vastly improved position and now a leader in vocational education, with contract and ongoing TAFE teachers getting 15 percent superannuation from 2023 and 17 percent in 2024. We still have considerable work to do, but it’s a win. And it was a win only because members stood firm against the odds.
The article also claimed that with employers able to dock 100 percent of pay, “it’s then up to the union to haggle in court over what percentage of pay can be deducted—a process that can result in a major loss of campaign momentum. That is exactly what the NTEU Victorian Division and the AEU Victorian branch are now doing”. This did not happen. We didn’t go to the courts; there was no haggling, no begging. We relied instead on our industrial capacity. This response is what members wanted. The actions of Swinburne management angered them, and they wanted the fight. There was certainly no loss of “campaign momentum”; how could there be when Swinburne management assumed it would be able to starve its workers into submission? 
According to the article, the lessons here are that Swinburne “shows the weakness of a union strategy focused on bans. It places the burden of the action on a minority of union members. And it gives management the opportunity to take the initiative by victimising and refusing to pay the workers imposing bans”. But management has the opportunity to victimise workers in all industrial action. Bans are not unique in this respect. The bans at Swinburne TAFE were implemented by all teachers (professional staff are covered by the higher education agreement) and upheld—as with most types of industrial action, including strikes—by those who could withstand the fight. 
The article suggests: “To maintain bans, individual workers have to withstand pressure of various sorts from management pushing for the bans to be lifted”. Agreed. We all know that industrial action is hard. It is harder still at a workplace that has little by way of a financial buffer. We are not a sandstone institution like Sydney University. The pressure placed on universities such as Swinburne needs to be tailored to their specific circumstances. TAFE is funded differently from higher education, making bans extremely effective. In our case, they held up millions of dollars. This, the solidarity of delegates and members in upholding the bans, and the resultant pressures on management made the difference for us.
And yes, strikes give solidarity and strength, as the author argues; they play a central role in our industrial kit bag. But each dispute is different, each workplace is different, membership is diverse, and strategies must match the circumstances. It is wrong to portray our dispute as an exemplar of how bans are a bad industrial strategy—primarily when the facts to support such a claim are not, in fact, facts. And especially as we employed a mix-and-match strategy of strikes combined with bans. Why assume, as the author does, that this was a top-down strategy? TAFE delegates led this dispute, fought it and won it. Strikes may be suitable for Sydney University workers, just as our mix of bans and stop works were the right levers to pull with Swinburne management, but I’m not the one to judge that. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for how to win a dispute.
The final statement in the article implies that our bans were a “retreat from the sort of action that can win”, but the bans at Swinburne and the solidarity of members show this not to be the case. The dispute at Swinburne University was one of the longest in our sector and tested us all. The sacrifice demonstrated by the members and delegates to protect and improve the working lives of TAFE teachers should not be misrepresented as a failed bargaining strategy. It was anything but. More important, it is not just the strategy, but the strength and determination of members that should feature as the real lesson of this dispute.

Julie Kimber

Strategy is important, but solidarity matters more

Brian Manning was born in Mundubbera, Queensland, in 1932. His parents worked as share farmers on the outskirts of town until his father joined the army at the outbreak of the war. In 1941, Brian, with his mother and four younger siblings, moved to Brisbane.
One profound event occurred shortly after the move. Brian’s mother woke him in the middle of the night after having miscarried. The young Manning took responsibility for burying the foetus. With his mother seriously ill in hospital, Manning spent the next seven weeks caring for his younger siblings until the authorities were alerted to the fact that the children were on their own. Manning was nine years old.
After leaving school at 16 on the insistence of his father, Manning developed as a jack-of-all-trades. He took up positions as a clerical worker, storeman, plasterer’s labourer and offsider to a master builder. In different ways, each radicalised him.
So too did his home life, which was in turn nurturing and brutalising. Close to his mother, whose musical talents he inherited, Manning had a difficult relationship with his father, often a violent drunk. After a nasty altercation, he moved out of home and back to Mundubbera, where he formed, with his older half sister Margaret and a cousin, a dance band.
After noticing groups of boys standing by the door, Manning decided to set up a dance school, which became so popular that the local council ended up providing him with a larger venue to accommodate all his students. It was in Mundubbera that Manning’s first child, Linda, was conceived.
Manning shifted in 1956 to Darwin, where he worked as a carpenter for the Works Department, patrol officer and later fireman at the airport, manager of the Workers’ Club and on the waterfront. It was during his stint with the Workers’ Club that Manning bought the now famous Bedford truck that will be forever associated with his name.
After three years in Darwin, Manning joined the Communist Party. His Darwin home, shared with other “reds”, was known satirically as the “Kremlin”. From the start Manning and his housemates tried to shift the focus of the local branch of the CPA to issues beyond the wharves.
One issue taken up was the “Stay Put Malayans” incident. In 1961 three indentured men who had been working in Australia were threatened with deportation after losing their jobs. With the support of Jim Bowditch, the editor of the NT News, and the CPA, Manning and others set up an anti-deportation committee which hid the men and raised their case across the country.
Eventually the federal government backed down, and the men were allowed to stay. By now, Manning had formed close relationships with politically active Indigenous men such as Davis Daniels and Jacob and Phillip Roberts from the Roper River area.
Together, they set up the Council for Aboriginal Rights. The NTCAR became a formidable defender of Aboriginal rights. It was this organisation, with Manning as assistant secretary, that pushed for the North Australian Workers Union (NAWU) to get equal pay for Aboriginal workers.
After Dexter Daniels triggered a large walk-off of Gurindji and other Aboriginal workers from the British Vestey Company’s Wave Hill Station in August 1966, Manning left Darwin in his Bedford truck, laden with the most practical form of support he could offer: food. Manning and the small leadership group of NTCAR soon formed the core of the Gurindji’s “first wave” of assistance.
Manning then went to work on the waterfront and became secretary of what would later be the NT branch of the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF). Here he ensured that Aboriginal workers got a chance to work on the wharves by stumping up union membership under the system of no ticket no start. He also used his influence to lobby the National WWF to ban the handling of Vestey’s goods. In the early 1970s, Manning’s activism on behalf of workers ensured that barely an issue of the NT News went to press that did not feature his name.
In 1975 Manning travelled to East Timor, where he took up a request to help organise a union. While the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) coup sidelined these efforts, Manning, inspired by Denis Freney, went on to play a pivotal role in the clandestine radio communication between Fretilin members in Dili and their overseas mission.
An obituary of this size cannot do justice to a man who consistently strove to secure justice for others. Each activity he was involved in opens up new and colourful paths along the road to social justice. As a unionist, activist, writer and photographer, Manning left a legacy that will continue for generations.
He is survived by his children, Linda, Brian, Louisa and Jon, and by his grandchildren. A daughter, Sandra, predeceased him. Manning also had an extended tribal familial connection with the Warameri clan group at Elcho Island. His son Brian is trying to raise funds to have the legendary Bedford truck restored
[Visit <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thebedfordtruck">https://www.facebook.com/thebedfordtruck</a> to chip in for the restoration effort.]

Strategy is important, but solidarity matters more

Brian Manning, a fighter for justice

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