Like most workers, employees at Woolworths distribution warehouses watched their real wages decline while their bosses took home fat pay cheques over the last few years. But rather than shrug and accept falling living standards, they’re doing something about it.
At four sites today, hundreds set up picket lines and went on strike for a pay rise and equal pay for equal work across the distribution network. They are also fighting against a recently introduced performance management program, referred to by Woolworths as the “framework”, which is designed to monitor and evaluate the workers’ every move to increase the pace of work dramatically.
“This program utilises engineered standards to enforce a universal and highly standardised measurement of worker movement and speed”, the United Workers Union, to which many of the workers belong, <a href="https://unitedworkers.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Disciplinary-Power-in-Aust-Grocery-Warehouses-UWU.pdf">noted in a report</a> earlier this year. “Engineered standards assumes that every task of a warehouse worker can be pre-determined, categorised, and assigned a time limit. Should a worker fail to meet the designated speed of work at 100% capacity of every measured minute of their shift, they are placed on a twelve week ‘coaching’ program.”
That the company is being unreasonable is an understatement. Whatever way you look at it, Woolies has done better as its employees’ real wages have declined and as its customers have had to <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/coles-woolies-secret-pricing-deal-undercuts-inflation-claims/">pay more for groceries</a>.
Profitability, as measured by the ratio of earnings to sales, has risen by nearly one-third in recent years—from 4.7 percent in 2018 to 6.1 percent last financial year, according to the company’s annual reports. (Compare <a href="https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/content/dam/wwg/investors/reports/2018/195396_annual-report-2018.pdf">2018’s figures</a> [page 16] with <a href="https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/content/dam/wwg/investors/reports/f24/f24/Woolworths%20Group%202024%20Annual%20Report.pdf">those of 2024</a> [page 31].) The return on funds employed, another measure of profitability, has increased similarly—from 24.8 percent in 2019 to 32.2 percent more recently. And the company’s “cost of doing business”, the expenses incurred to keep its operations running, has declined.
But as the old capitalist adage goes, too much is never enough. Not for CEO Amanda Bardwell and other overpaid managers. Incentive payments for “key personnel” make up one-third or more of their total pay—and most of those incentives relate to increasing profitability and shareholder returns. Just 20 percent of short-term incentives relate to worker safety; none relate to lifting workers’ living standards or giving them a better return for the countless hours they have invested in keeping the company running.
Yet, despite being paid generously, key managers last year each could have “earned” several million dollars extra had the company increased its margins by even more than it has. Woolworths’ 2024 annual report shows that the managing director of the supermarket division, Natalie Davis, was paid $1.67 million of a possible $4.57 million. Outgoing CEO Brad Banducci was paid $3.97 million of a potential $10.9 million.
From management’s perspective, there is much room for improvement—among those they boss around, at least. Is it any wonder that distribution workers are fighting to tread water with their wages and face the imposition of this odious “framework”? Clearly, the worse it is for them, the better the managers’ pay will be. 
But this should surprise no one: workers create the company’s value. The harder they are made to work and the less they are paid, the greater the profit for the owners. That’s true of all companies, which is one reason the whole union movement should support these striking Woollies workers. If they can secure a win, then maybe others can too. The whole working class desperately needs a pay rise after the last two years of inflation­. These workers are setting an example for everyone to follow, if only our side gets organised and confident. 
Many socialists have joined the picket lines in solidarity with the Woolies workers and are helping to raise funds for and awareness of the strike. Several have sent in reports, which are published below.
Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre, Laverton North
By sunrise, Interchange Drive is a sea of hi-vis. Around 70 warehouse workers and dozens of supporters stand together over coffee and breakfast, an hour into their indefinite strike against Woolworths. 
Strike placards line the warehouse gates. Beyond them looms the gargantuan Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre (MLDC). About 500 workers are employed here to pack supplies for Woolworths. Ninety percent of these workers, as many proudly tell Red Flag, are United Workers Union members. 
There is a mood of assured defiance. Speaking to them, it is not hard to understand why. They know their conditions of work––where surveillance, intimidation and injuries are norms––must change. “It is inhuman to make us work like this”, Mitch* says. 
He has worked at MLDC for sixteen years. When he started, he did ten-hour shifts. Chronic injuries sustained on the job, made worse by ever-increasing, impossible performance standards, have left him unable to work for more than six-hour stints. And even now, it is a struggle to go back day after day. “Management want to break you”, he says.
In a typical shift starting at 6am, he has exactly eight minutes to start packing supplies. If he is late, he risks a reprimand. Each hour, he is expected to pack one pallet, which usually holds one ton of goods. He is made to carry around a device to record how long each packing step takes. 
His efficiency rate––measured by AI calculations––is constantly displayed. If he finishes his shift with an efficiency rate of less than 100 percent, the team leader will reprimand him. If it happens several times, he risks being fired—especially under the draconian new “framework” introduced by management.
“We’re not robots”, he says. Woolworths thinks otherwise. 
Kit*, who has worked at MLDC for fifteen years and can now also work for no more than six-hour shifts, has many memories of workplace injuries. “The ambulance has come here too many times”, he says.
Making warehouse work safer and more sustainable is a key reason for his decision to strike. Pay rises matter, he says, but the conditions are key. “We’re doing this for future generations of workers, so they don’t have to face what we do”, he says. 
*Names changed 
Erskine Park Distribution Centre, NSW
At what is reported to be the most efficient distribution centre in the country, 50 to 60 workers are lined up against the outer fence in camp chairs. After a breakfast barbeque organised by the union, the vibes are good as the day progresses. One worker brought a big drum, which provides some rhythm between a few trucks honking their horns in solidarity as they pass. 
“We’re fighting for our rights and for good conditions—such as no ‘framework’—and a fair pay rise”, Mohammed says. “It’s really intense [working here]. They call you up on the PA, where everyone can hear and they will call you by your pin number to come to the handout room. And yeah, it's like a Squid Game here [the South Korean survival horror/thriller Netflix series]. 
How does he feel to be out on strike?
“I’m really excited, it feels like a vacation [laughs]. Yeah, but hopefully, I have trust in the union, and we’re gonna get what we want. The whole shed is out and we still have afternoon shift coming. So it’s gonna be a good turnout.”
Another worker, Nithi, says that he has lost some of his hearing from having to wear a headset for the entire shift. Out of the earphones comes an automated voice, which tells pickers “where to go and how long [to] be at any given station”, he says.
“Also, at this shed, they only hire casuals. After you prove your performance, you can get permanency. Some people waited two years. It’s an open secret that if you claim workers’ comp you won’t get a permanent position.”
Some of the workers here are thrilled to be on strike for the first time and say they hate the company, hate the team leaders and hate the “framework”.
“We do everything; we feel unrewarded”, says one. 
“They can’t do anything without us”, says another. 
Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre , Dandenong South
The mood close to midnight is excited but reserved. Some are nervous—this is the first distribution centre to walk out. Some workers stand around and chat; others dance to 2000s hits.
One of the main things people talk about is the bosses’ surveillance and obsession with productivity targets. The workers say that managers never actually disclose to them the exact rate of packing needed to reach “100 percent efficiency”.
Automation is also topsy-turvy: people are often forced to carry heavy boxes while automated forklifts carry the light ones. This, and the constant harassment to meet KPIs, is exhausting, they say. And they are often unable to take the time to properly sanitise their stations for fear of falling behind, compounding the problem.
All are keen for a pay rise. They call the initial offer by the bosses of 3 percent plus a “sweetener” of $500 cash “insulting”.
Matthew, a student and part-time night shift worker, says he wants a pay rise in line with other warehouses in the area, some of which make up to $7 an hour more. “It’s Woolworths, you know, they can afford to be more giving”, he says with a wry smile.
“I’ve always wanted to go on strike”, he continues. “It makes me proud—96 percent of us voted to reject the company’s offer.” He sees political potential in the strike. “Labour is a gateway to more progressive ideas ... regardless of who you are, who you vote for, we all have to work, y’know?”

Woolies distribution workers strike for everyone

United Workers Union (UWU) members in six warehouses supplying Woolworths supermarkets across the eastern states are walking off the job this week. Industrial action of this scale is unprecedented in warehousing. The UWU has led many strikes in individual warehouses across Australia, but never this many at the same time.
The workers are striking for better wages and conditions, and for Woolworths warehouses to be covered under a single enterprise agreement. They also want to get rid of the company’s “productivity framework”, which requires all workers to meet 100 percent of targets unilaterally set by management or face harassment, discipline and, eventually, dismissal.
Warehouse work is difficult and repetitive. Each worker is expected to pick hundreds or even thousands of boxes a day to be stacked on pallets, loaded onto trucks and sent to store shelves across the state. The weight of items varies widely, from packets of chips to slabs of beer and crates of milk weighing up to 20 kilograms each. This repetitive, endless lifting and shifting of often heavy loads significantly strains the body and mind. Forklifts, loaders and other heavy machinery wizz around these pickers at ever higher rates to keep up with productivity targets. 
The workers in these warehouses experience constant <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7GtoiiLNM">surveillance and performance monitoring</a>. They are told by a computer exactly what to do at all times. They are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse">treated like robots</a>. And there is evidence that the drive towards automation may be making things more difficult, rather than easier. According to Amazon’s <a href="https://revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-crisis/">internal safety reports</a>, the rates of serious workplace injuries are 50 percent higher in warehouses with robots than in those without.
Finding reliable statistics on workplace injuries in warehouses is difficult, as pickers and packers are usually lumped in with truck drivers and other labourers. However, the broader statistics paint a damning picture of the industry as a whole. According to the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/work-related-injuries/latest-release#occupation-and-industry">Australian Bureau of Statistics</a>, the transport, postal and warehousing industry suffers from the third highest workplace injury rate in the country. <a href="https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/insights/key-whs-stats-2023">Safe Work Australia</a> has found that roughly 80 percent of workplace injuries are caused by body stress: falls, slips and trips; being hit by moving objects; and mental stress. These incidents are endemic to warehouse environments and will likely only worsen under Woolworths’ drive for even higher productivity.
But it gets worse. <a href="https://data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/insights/key-whs-stats-2023">Safe Work Australia</a> has also found that the transport, postal and warehouse industry has the highest number of fatalities of any industry, and the second highest fatality rate. Machine operators and labourers perform the deadliest types of work. 
These statistics were <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/nsw/woolworths-worker-killed-in-horrific-pallet-accident-remembered-as-beautiful-man-c-11173079">tragically brought home</a> in 2023 when Basel “Baz” Brikha was crushed by falling pallets in the Woolworths distribution centre in Minchinbury, NSW. Basel later died in hospital. Two of his workmates suffered head injuries when they tried to help him.
These workplace tragedies result from Woolworths’ endless drive for higher profits. The company squeezes workers at one end by increasing productivity at the expense of safety, and it squeezes consumers at the other by price-gouging in the supermarkets. 
From the perspective of Woolworths investors, the strategy has worked marvellously. <a href="https://thedailyaus.com.au/stories/woolworths-group-reported-a-1-7-billion-profit-for-the-financial-year/#:~:text=The%20Woolworths%20Group%20has%20reported,0.6%25%20from%20the%20previous%20year.">The company reported</a> $1.7 billion in profits last financial year. The four leading Woolworths executives pocketed more than $8.8 million in pay, which was down on their “earnings” of $18 million the <a href="https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/content/dam/wwg/investors/reports/2023/f23-full-year/Woolworths%20Group%202023%20Annual%20Report.pdf">year before</a>. 
No doubt Woolworths’ Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre workers, who earn roughly $66,000 per year if they work 38 hours per week, will be deeply concerned about how these executives will make ends meet after this pay cut. 
Corporate greed is driving the cost-of-living crisis in Australia. Since the COVID crisis, one of the greatest transfers of wealth to the capitalist class in history has taken place. The richest 1 percent now owns half of the world’s wealth. Our side, the working class, needs to start fighting back.
That is precisely why strikes—like those beginning in Woolworths warehouses this week—are so important. Previous strikes have demonstrated the considerable industrial power of these workers. 
The just-in-time revolution has turned warehouses into gigantic logistics factories employing hundreds. All the goods that reach the hundreds of Woolworths supermarkets in each state pass through only a handful of warehouses, and little excess stock is held in the supermarkets. Deliveries from the warehouses arrive daily and go straight to store shelves. This means warehouse strikes can be incredibly disruptive. Store shelves begin to empty within a day or two, or even hours, of work stoppages.
These workers deserve the support of the entire union movement. Come to one of the picket lines in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. Bring your workmates, your classmates, your friends and family. Pass motions of support in your union and pass the hat around to raise money for the strike fund or to buy food to bring down to the pickets. 
Let’s show solidarity with these workers as they stick it to a corporate goliath.
--------------------
Workers at the following warehouses will be striking from Thursday morning this week:
From 12am Thursday morning:
Woolworths Melbourne South Regional Distribution Centre (MSRDC), 2 Portlink Dr, Dandenong South VIC.
From 5am Thursday morning:
Melbourne Liquor Distribution Centre (MLDC), 1 Interchange Dr, Laverton North VIC.
Logic Wodonga, 28 Bilston Dr, Barnawartha North VIC.
Woolworths Distribution Centre, 29 Sarah Andrews Cl, Erskine Park NSW.
From 2am Friday morning:
Lineage Cold Storage, 60-68 William Angliss Drive Laverton North VIC - from 2am Friday.
In addition, Primary Connect in Heathwood QLD, another distribution centre supplying Woolworths, will be holding stop-work mass meetings from this Friday to discuss industrial action.

Ryan Stanton

Support striking Woolworths warehouse workers this week (and next)

Swinburne University in Melbourne’s east has recently imposed shocking new measures to restrict the religious freedoms of Muslim students and community members on campus.
It began by enforcing swipe card access to the prayer room, restricting access to many who make use of the facility. The closest mosque is more than ten kilometres from Hawthorn, so for years local residents have gone to Swinburne to pray. Most other areas of campus, such as the library and student lounge, remain accessible to the public.
Alarms were installed on the prayer room doors to prevent them from being propped open. To escalate even further, the university sent in campus security to guard the entrance and then enter the room during prayers to check IDs.
Most insultingly, the university removed the Islamic Society’s chosen prayer leader and replaced them with its own hand-picked Imam, to run the large Friday payer. This was done with little to no consultation. As the Islamic Society pointed out in a statement, no other club or society on campus is subject to university appointment of their leaders or speakers.
Multiple Muslim students at Swinburne told Red Flag they believed the university’s crackdown on prayer room access, and imposition of the Imam, was at least partly because the student-led Friday prayers regularly discuss Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
Things came to a head at a Friday prayer in October, when students prevented the university-appointed Imam from taking over and leading the prayer. The University responded by sending in security guards. Then, in a major crackdown, it announced that the prayer room would be closed for Friday prayers until students accepted the university-appointed Imam. The university also opened investigations into student prayer leaders.
Students defied this attack, holding protest-prayers outdoors on two consecutive Fridays that were attended by more than 200 students, staff and community members. Speakers at the prayers highlighted the rise in Islamophobia on campus and in broader society, spoke about links to the persecution of Muslims overseas and asserted the basic right of students to control their own affairs.
Thanks in part to pressure from the students, including a petition with hundreds of signatures, the university has since allowed use of the prayer room. However, restrictive swipe card access and surveillance from campus security remain.
These moves against the Muslim community are just one example of <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/universities-are-repressing-palestine-solidarity-activism">the repressive climate on university campuses today</a>. Swinburne is among the most repressive campuses in the country, calling the police against socialist and Palestine activists three times this year for the supposed crime of leafleting on campus without permission. Across the country, universities are responding to pro-Palestine activism with new restrictions on students’ rights. These attacks aren’t aimed exclusively at protest actions, but against pro-Palestine speech in general.

James Gallagher

Swinburne University cracks down on Muslim students’ rights

Left-wing activists have achieved a big victory in the recent Student Representative Council elections at the University of New South Wales. Activists from the Socialist Alternative and Students for Palestine clubs contested the election together as Left Action—Free Palestine, competing against a crowded field of Labor, Liberal and moderate independent students. Left Action candidates won seven of the twelve undergraduate representative positions, as well as receiving more than 60 percent of the vote for every office bearer position they contested, including the Education, Environment and Welfare offices, who each received more than 3,000 votes. 
The Liberal Party-backed ticket failed to secure a single position, and the Labor affiliated groups who held a majority of the council in 2024 were reduced to just five of twelve voting positions. 
This victory comes off the back of the student general meeting for Palestine held in September, in which more than 600 students voted for UNSW to divest from weapons companies and to support a free Palestine. Members of the Palestine solidarity campaign are a minority of the student body, but after a year of activism, this group has grown into an active, confident and driven force on the campus. 
Palestine was not the only issue that drove students to vote for Left Action. Arguments for a free and fully funded higher education sector, and university subsidisation of food and student accommodation struck a chord with many students who have been affected by Sydney’s skyrocketing rents and cost-of-living crisis. 
One factor that likely impacted the outcome was that the Labor campaign split prior to the election. This was, at least in part, because the majority faction was trying to drive the socialist left out of the SRC, according to individuals involved in the split. Their plan was to work alongside the Liberals to mobilise a right-wing college vote. In the end, the right-wing vote failed to substantially grow, while the left’s vote doubled. 
This victory for the left comes at an important time for student unionism. Like many universities around the country, UNSW has begun cracking down on Palestine activism, threatening to discipline students and <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/palestine-solidarity-club-suspended-at-unsw">suspending the Students for Palestine club</a>. Also, vice-chancellors are gearing up for cutbacks to staff and courses in the coming months. Using the student council’s resources to challenge these attacks and continue to fight for Palestine will be essential in the year ahead.

Jamie Tyers

UNSW student elections: left wins big

Wollongong Friends of Palestine community activists successfully organised a picket on 15 November against Australian company Bisalloy Steels. Bisalloy has a factory in Unanderra, a suburb of Wollongong, and manufactures steel plating used in tank armour. 
The company’s business manager, Justin Suwart, previously boasted that Israel is the largest export market for Bisalloy’s armour-grade steel and cited the “strong opportunities to further increase sales in the region” in a report on the company’s website. In other words, some of Bisalloy’s profits come from supplying a state that is perpetually waging war on the Palestinians.
Roughly 200 people gathered early in the morning to protest outside the company gates. This is the fourth time since Israel’s current genocide in Gaza began that Wollongong activists have organised a picket. The previous time, the company shut down for the day. This time was no different, although the company dubiously invoked a “picnic day” as its reasoning. At any rate, we celebrated the win. 
A week earlier, the company’s shareholders moved their annual general meeting to Zoom after discovering that we planned to protest the event.
Our protest occurred on the 86th anniversary of the Dalfram dispute—when dock workers refused to load pig iron onto ships headed for imperial Japan to be used against the Chinese. Wollongong Friends of Palestine activists are standing in a tradition of anti-war activism and finding ways to do what we can to disrupt the business of genocide. 
Bisalloy Steels will continue to be a target as long as they are involved in manufacturing materials for war.

Megan Guy

Wollongong Palestine solidarity activists picket company supplying Israel

If you walked past Mark McGowan, former premier of Western Australia, and gave him a serve for his role in locking up Indigenous children, you would probably feel pretty good about yourself. If it was filmed and put online, you might even end up in a segment on the Project. If you happened to do it at Curtin University in Western Australia, you’d probably be suspended. This is what happened to a student at Curtin last month, one of many students across the country facing discipline over justified acts of protest. 
<a>Red Flag has covered</a> the increased repression on campuses in the wake of the Gaza solidarity encampments. In response to the Palestine solidarity movement, universities changed their policies and student charters to make it even harder to speak out against the genocide in Gaza. We are now seeing the impact of these changes, as well as the political impact of the parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism on campuses. The historic student general meetings (SGM), in which thousands of students nationwide have voted in solidarity with Palestine, have also kicked off a new wave of repression. 
There are dozens of examples of universities repressing pro-Palestine activism in just the last few months. Here are a few of them. The Students for Palestine club at the University of New South Wales has been suspended in the wake of the SGM. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology has launched disciplinary proceedings against three students for their participation in a political meeting at that campus. The University of Sydney shut down a bake sale raising funds for Gazans and has brought misconduct charges against students for organising a Palestine solidarity protest on campus, including an anti-Zionist Jewish student. Melbourne University is hunting down students who occupied the office of a pro-Israel lecturer. The vice-chancellor interfered in the student union elections at the University of Technology Sydney to ban mention of the word “genocide”. And at the Australian National University, the spending of elected student union officers is being audited because they promoted Palestine solidarity. Not only students: two academics at the University of Sydney are being accused of racial vilification over their support for Palestine. 
Up and down the country, space for student activism—almost a rite of passage for young people—is narrowing, and those who dare to speak out against the genocide in Gaza are being dragged through misconduct hearings. It’s difficult to grasp the full scale of this, as many universities impose confidentiality clauses that prevent students from speaking publicly about their repression.
The political backdrop for these attacks is a hysterical campaign by the mainstream media, the Labor government, the Liberals and Zionist organisations against Palestine solidarity activism. This resulted, among other things, in a Senate committee about a supposed wave of antisemitism on campuses. Many of the submissions to the committee made the well-rehearsed argument that any criticism of Israel amounts to a racist attack on Jewish people. The purpose here is to accuse pro-Palestine activists of being antisemites who must be stopped.
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott in particular was accused of not doing enough to suppress this supposed problem. Submissions and commentators, including opposition leader Peter Dutton, attacked him for not instantly shutting down the Gaza solidarity encampment on his campus. Jillian Segal, the recently appointed special envoy to combat antisemitism, wrote a submission to the Senate hearing which stated that there is a “pervasive hatred” of Jewish people at the University of Sydney, and that antisemitism is an “embedded” part of university culture. Her accusation is based on a few interviews with Jewish staff and students, all of whom support Israel and are opposed to the anti-war movement. In the months after the campaign against Scott began, the university launched a witch-hunt against known Palestine solidarity activists.
In the initial months of Israel’s war on Gaza, there was a more liberal approach on the campuses. Even when the solidarity encampments were established, most universities chose not to shut them down or bring in the cops, as we saw in the United States. Scott even said he wouldn’t ban political expression and respected the right of students to protest. But a hardline approach has since been adopted by the administrations, who have fallen into line with the anti-Palestine campaign.
Universities are some of the country’s largest institutions that help to manufacture the ideological material of Australian society, as well as the literal material of weapons research in partnership with weapons companies and other imperialist nations like the United States and Israel. This is all far more important to administrations than academic freedom and open political expression. Those who run the universities form part of Australia’s elite: they come from it, and they contribute to it. For instance, RMIT vice-chancellor Alec Cameron is a long-term member of the ultra-conservative, boys-only, Australian Club. Sydney University’s chancellor, Belinda Hutchinson, sits on the board of Thales Australia, a major weapons manufacturer. Many vice-chancellors earn more than a million dollars a year. 
So when a hegemonic political line is established by the Australian elite, university management will toe it. There is a common view of universities as oases of open expression, where ideas flow freely, common sense is challenged, and diversity and debate flourish. This is much overstated. Our universities are embedded in Australian capitalism; they are economically and ideologically beholden to it. Ideas deemed too dangerous to the status quo have historically been repressed.
The Australian establishment ardently backs Israel, regardless of the atrocities it commits, because it is a loyal member of the Western imperialist bloc. The Palestine solidarity movement of the last year has threatened the ideological myth of Israel as a defender of democracy and freedom. The federal and state governments, as well as the billionaire-backed mainstream media, have denounced the movement from day one. Universities, which can feel the pressure of upholding their liberal image, took a looser stance to begin with. But now they have fallen into line.
The excuses that universities have used to justify the repression in recent months are astonishing. For instance, in suspending the Students for Palestine club at UNSW, Arc, the body that oversees clubs and student life, alleged that the mere presence of pro-Palestine posters caused damage to the “psychosocial safety” of the university community. It’s pretty jarring to anyone who has watched footage of dead Gazan babies being pulled from bombed buildings to hear that putting up posters advertising a student meeting is a threat to “psychosocial safety”.
Student activists at the UTS in Sydney have also apparently harmed the psyches of staff and students by handing out a leaflet for an event titled “exposing UTS ties to genocide”. Students were informed by security that the vice-chancellor said the use of the word would be “triggering”. 
At RMIT, students who made use of an empty lecture theatre for a political meeting after a Palestine solidarity rally received disciplinary hearing notices that insinuate the students were celebrating terrorist attacks on Israel. They imply that the mere sight of a keffiyeh caused anxiety and threatened the wellbeing of staff and students. 
The phrase “From the river to the sea” has been banned by multiple universities, including ANU, where students were warned that the phrase was “harmful”, and at Monash, where banners and placards with the phrase were seized. Monash has also disciplined two students for putting up pro-Palestine stickers—one was dragged out of class by security. 
As mentioned, some universities have altered their campus policy guidelines to restrict protests by demanding that students first seek approval from management. While they refuse to spell it out, the motive for this is to shut down pro-Palestine activism. For instance, at Sydney University, the new Campus Access Policy has been used only to shut down Palestine-related events, such as a bake sale, or discipline students who organised a Palestine rally. Other non-Palestine-related events that broke the new guidelines have not been touched. 
RMIT is altering its “Property Management Procedure” and the “Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy”. The changes will give unilateral power to the director of Property Services to bar room bookings or “protest or protest related activity” that might cause “financial or reputational” damage to the university. Like the Campus Access Policy, it also prohibits camping—a clear reference to the encampments. 
According to an anonymous staff member who works in the policy department, an earlier draft of the policy changes was so restrictive and undemocratic that the policy team rebelled against the directives of management, which was forced to revise the policy. This staff member also reported that the emails about the policy included “Palestine protests” in the subject line. 
Last month, Swinburne University in Melbourne’s inner east made the extraordinary move to remove the Islamic Student Society’s chosen prayer leader and replace them with a university-appointed chaplain, and stationed guards at the entrance to the prayer rooms to bar those without a student card. Students feel that this act of religious repression happened because the students frequently make references to Palestinian oppression in their prayers. 
It’s a terrible precedent that a university can interfere with students’ religious freedoms. And it highlights the real social problem in the wake of Israel’s genocide in Gaza: the ramping up of Islamophobia. Jewish students have not had their prayers or events shut down by any university across the country. There has been no enquiry into the impacts of the war on Muslim students. This again speaks to the selective outrage and enforcement of restrictions by university administrations. 
Universities frequently celebrate the struggles of the past. Students learn about the movements against the Vietnam War and South African apartheid in history degrees. Universities use photos of protests from the ’70s and ’80s in their advertising material to future students. UNSW proudly displays a bronze statue of Nelson Mandela. But university managements opposed those movements when they were happening, and they are repressing the students who are confronting the modern equivalents. 
The absurdity at the heart of this issue is that the students and staff who are facing repression are those calling simply for peace, for an end to the war. Yet they are being suspended, expelled, harassed and intimidated. Some staff may even lose their jobs for speaking up for Palestine. The universities are telling us that right is wrong and wrong is right. This is the reality of campus life for socially progressive students and staff. It’s a reality that must be challenged.

Anneke Demanuele

Universities are repressing Palestine solidarity activism

The Students for Palestine club at the University of New South Wales has been suspended. This is just the latest in a wave of attacks on Palestine solidarity activists across the country.
Arc, the body that oversees clubs and student life at UNSW, accused the Students for Palestine club of breaching campus policy by putting up posters, hanging banners, running stalls without bookings and allegedly harassing students by leafleting and making announcements in lectures. While these activities are simply the bread and butter of building any sort of activist life on campus, Arc outrageously claims that they harm the “psychosocial safety” of students. 
In a meeting with club members, Arc representatives objected to our use of the word genocide in promotional material or protest speeches, suggesting that it may be offensive to some students. This is like saying it would have been wrong to criticise apartheid South Africa in the 1980s because students who supported that regime would find it upsetting. 
The suspension follows a historic student general meeting organised by Students for Palestine, which was the largest Palestine solidarity event ever to take place at UNSW. More than 600 students voted to oppose the university’s ties to weapons companies and the genocide in Gaza. 
The suspension will be reviewed in January 2025 but is unlikely to be lifted as Arc has stated that more allegations against the club are still being investigated. It seems likely that university management played a hand in the suspension. Disciplinary proceedings were initiated by Arc shortly after management sent an email alerting students and staff to alleged breaches of the student code of conduct at the student general meeting. Arc staff have also indicated to us that university executives have taken an interest in the suspension case. 
This is an attack on the ability of students to organise a Palestine solidarity campaign on campus. Recently, the university banned a speak-out to commemorate one year of the genocide in Gaza. Despite this, students at UNSW are determined to continue the fight to oppose our university’s ties to this genocide. No matter what the university accuses us of, we know we are on the right side of history—and we will not be silenced.

Emma Terry

Palestine solidarity club suspended at UNSW

Australia has one of the most unfair education systems in the developed world. Federal Labor’s new Better Fairer Schools Agreement, which recently passed the House of Representatives, promises to make things even worse.
According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Education at a Glance report, the federal government spends double the OECD average on private schools. This is while 98 percent of public schools don’t receive the funds they need for most students to meet national minimum funding standards, known as the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS)—according to a 2023 report commissioned by the government. 
The result is that elite, high-fee private schools like the King’s School in New South Wales can, according to a Sydney Morning Herald editorial, receive almost $20 million in public funds while also pocketing $58 million in fees, charges and parent contributions annually. The school’s <a href="https://www.kings.edu.au/discovering/our-facilities/">website</a> boasts of seventeen sports fields, nine “halls” and 480 acres of space for its students to “explore, live and grow”.
Compare this to students’ exploration at Sunshine College North Campus in Melbourne’s west. A couple of years ago, students shared <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/student-video-urging-to-rebuild-sunshine-college-north-20221117-p5bz8v.html">videos</a> online of large cracks in the walls, fallen ceilings, unusable spaces and black-mould-infested rooms. 
This divide in Australian education is the result of years of putting working-class communities last—by both Labor and Liberal governments. 
Labor has often led the charge. In 2010, the Gillard federal government’s Gonski plan promised increased funding for states and territories that signed up to a standardised curriculum and NAPLAN testing regime. The plan failed to secure full funding for public schools but succeeded in maintaining the flow of public funds to private education. Later, Liberal governments pushed for more standardised testing and further entrenched Labor’s funding divide. Analysis by public school advocacy group Save our Schools in 2022 found that private school funding had increased at five times the rate of public schools in the previous ten years.
The Albanese government’s Better Fairer Schools Agreement follows in Gillard’s footsteps by attempting to lock in funding inequality for the next ten years. It removes the Liberal government’s cap on education funding and promises a path to full funding by 2034—but only if states and territories agree to its package and to a funding framework that would leave the federal government paying 22.5 percent of the SRS, short of the 25 percent demanded by the states. Most states have rejected the deal, meaning the current failed framework remains in place. 
The removal of the funding cap and deadlock between the federal and state governments are useful distractions from the real issues with the agreement. Not only does it protect the flow of public funds to elite private schools but, even if the states sign on, Labor’s “pathway to full funding by 2034” is about as trustworthy as its “net zero emissions by 2050”. Governments have already rhetorically committed to full funding for many years, while continuing to leave public schools empty handed. 
There is another problem: Labor is using the promise of more funding to implement a range of other changes through the agreement. These include more standardised tests. Labor is joining the chorus of conservatives who use a supposed lack of synthetic phonics instruction in primary schools as an excuse to blame teachers for poor literacy scores and to distract from the disadvantage fuelling the crisis in education. 
In a welcome move, the national executive of the Australian Education Union has placed a ban on any changes resulting from Labor’s agreement until it deems that there is a “genuine pathway” for all public schools to be fully funded at the SRS standard. But as the failures of “full funding” under previous schooling frameworks suggest, there are reasons to doubt how genuine any of Labor’s pathways might be. 
In the meantime, the King’s School can expect to add a few more sports fields to its collection, while public schools will continue to lack the resources necessary to meet staff and students’ most basic needs.

Tyler Anya

Labor is trying to make schools worse—again

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has passed landmark motions calling for an institutional academic boycott of Israel and condemning the “scholasticide” in Gaza—the systematic destruction of educational institutions and academic life.
At its national council meeting in Melbourne in early October, a motion supporting the institutional academic boycott of Israel passed overwhelmingly. This followed calls from Palestinian civil society going back many years, as well as campaigning from the union’s rank-and-file members and left-wing delegates at national council. 
The motion encompassed refusing cooperation with Israeli academic institutions, promoting divestment from Israel by international academic institutions and supporting Palestinian academic institutions directly.
The union is calling on Australian universities to conduct a nationwide audit of their connections to the Israeli military and its suppliers, and is pushing for an immediate end to any such ties. 
Another motion opposed recent attempts to curtail protest rights at universities. University administrations have increasingly attempted to restrict Palestine solidarity activism across Australia, including through disciplinary actions against students and staff. The NTEU’s motions are a significant push back against this development, asserting that the right to protest and debate remains central to university life.
National Council also formally recognised and condemned the scholasticide. The motion refers to the Israeli military’s demolition of every university in Gaza, the killing of hundreds of students and academics, and the destruction of libraries, museums and archives.
“These motions are a step forward in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign”, said Robin Laycock, a national councillor and member of Socialist Alternative. “At a time when university managements are trying to silence protest and debate about Palestine, union members have stood up for the fundamental right to organise on campus.”
The motions also reflect an important shift in sentiment. Ten years ago, in the wake of an Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza, the union’s national council narrowly voted down a BDS motion.
The motions distinguish between opposing Israeli state policies and antisemitism, the union reiterating its stance against all forms of discrimination including antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism.
The union also calls on universities to provide scholarships to Palestinian students and scholars and to support the rebuilding of Gaza’s destroyed higher education system.
Alexis Vassiley is a national councillor of the NTEU.

Alexis Vassiley

University union endorses academic boycott of Israel, defends right to protest

Just a week after the victory of the Liberal National Party in the Queensland state election, hundreds rallied in Brisbane city in defence of abortion rights. Homemade signs read “LNP = Anti-choice”, “This is not America” and “Hands off my body, hands off my rights!”. The 500-strong crowd heard speeches and then marched around the city. 
Abortion returned as an issue in Queensland after the far-right Katter Australia Party leader, Robbie Katter, pledged to move a private members’ bill to repeal abortion laws during the election campaign. Despite the Liberal National Party leader, David Crisafulli, insisting that there would be no change to the laws if his party were to be elected, he refused to provide details about how this would be achieved, despite being asked more than 132 times. 
There is good reason to be concerned. Abortion was only fully decriminalised in Queensland in 2018. At the time, all but three Liberal National MPs voted against decriminalisation, including Crisafulli himself. Crisafulli and sections of the LNP leadership may have wanted to pragmatically smother the issue for electoral reasons during the campaign, but their MPs and party cadre are highly motivated by religious bigotry. They may well decide to make a stand about the issue, regardless of electoral expediency. 
While Queensland Labor has attacked Crisafulli for refusing to guarantee abortion rights, at the same time the party capitulates to bigots within its own ranks with the provision of conscience voting, and in government has refused to invest the necessary funds in healthcare to make abortion accessible throughout the state. 
As it stands, there are only two clinics that provide surgical abortions in Brisbane. Most public hospitals do not offer abortion access, disproportionately disadvantaging women in regional or rural areas who are forced to travel hours to seek an abortion. Because of this, speakers at the rally emphasised that it is not enough for abortion to be legal, it must also be free and accessible. 
Protest also matters. When the only abortion clinic in Rockhampton was closed in 2021, community activists protested for over a year for access to be reinstated to the regional city. Under pressure, the Labor state government announced that the procedure would be provided from then on at the local public hospital. 
With abortion activists facing a hostile state government, this is an important lesson in resistance and how to defend hard-won rights.

Woolies distribution workers strike for everyone

Support striking Woolworths warehouse workers this week (and next)

Swinburne University cracks down on Muslim students’ rights

UNSW student elections: left wins big

Wollongong Palestine solidarity activists picket company supplying Israel

Universities are repressing Palestine solidarity activism

Palestine solidarity club suspended at UNSW

Labor is trying to make schools worse—again

University union endorses academic boycott of Israel, defends right to protest

Hundreds rally for abortion rights in Brisbane

Other Media

Shop

Conferences

Manage Your Subscription

Contact Us