BREAKING: TEU has won in the Employment Relations Authority!
@AUTuni
will be required to suspend or withdraw their redundancy notices. More details tomorrow…
Sending solidarity to our members at Victoria Uni's Pipitea Campus (across the road from Parliament), especially the security staff, who have been having a rough time over the last few days - this, on top of everything else... Not cool!
The phenomenal
@SiouxsieW
receives an Award of Excellence at
#TEU2021
for epitomising academic integrity as she talked to the public and helped us all understand the issues we faced during COVID-19.
“This is an aggressive move by the VC, to suspend striking staff for three days with no pay for a strike that would have only seen our members refuse to undertake a small part of their job. Instead they are now forced to withdraw all of their labour."
It's official! TEU members at all eight of Aotearoa's universities are united, determined, and they have sent a powerful message today - almost unanimously. We're holding nationwide strike ballots next week.
What an incredible day yesterday was! One of the biggest in TEU history. Huge shoutout to the thousands of brave people who sacrificed a chunk of their week’s pay for the future of our sector. To everyone else, stay tuned! We are not one hit wonders…
"Ka tangi mātou, ehara tēnei i te mate o te marama engari ko te rā tonu mō te hunga e mōhio ana ki a ia | Let us weep, for this is not the death of the moon but of the sun itself for those that have known her.”
It was a privilege to be out on the picket lines today in support of
@NZPFU
members, on strike for the first time in their history. Awhi atu, awhi mai.
#SolidarityForever
#FireCrisis
UPDATE: The ERA have now issued a compliance order. AUT "shall desist" from terminating our members' employment, giving notice of termination, and/or allowing the period of notices currently in force to elapse until the CEA has been complied with.
From the National/ACT coalition agreement: "Amend the Education and Training Act 2020 such that tertiary education providers receiving taxpayer funding must commit to a free speech policy." 🧐
[1/3] Our UoA team have made the difficult decision to not renew our strike notice tonight because continuing to not enter and release grades would unduly disadvantage students.
Today at parliament!
@WellingtonUni
VC Nic Smith joined us and
@VUWSA
to present our open letter on the future of tertiary education to MPs. You can read and sign the open letter here:
I don't know if journalists and papers understand just how much abuse high profile women get? Even just a tweet included in a news article leads to screeds of abuse in our mentions - and nobody ever takes responsibility for exposing us to waves of hateful commentary.
Universities are spending less on wages and salaries as a percentage of total operating expenses than they were in 2008. For some unis it's quite a lot less. This, in spite of staff numbers increasing. We have mahi to do!
We've written to
@NTEUNational
to offer our support and solidarity with the 40,000 people who have lost their jobs in the Australian university sector in the 12 months to May.
Impromptu catch-up with the PM at UoA Clubs Day!
@TeuNicole
asked him if he was cool with public institutions engaging in union busting. He said he expects unis to follow public sector guidelines & would be happy to follow up with the relevant minister. We’ll be in touch…
This COVID-19 crisis should not be used to push a position which has not be properly debated or discussed by staff and students
@MasseyUni
time to just pull back and breathe.
If there were one picture to symbolise the fear and intimidation many feel at
@AucklandUni
this is it. Police were called by campus security despite this public space having been booked in advance for a legitimate event.
We are aware of a survey currently doing the rounds that appears to be designed to gather data that will be used to distort the public’s view of academic freedom... 1/2
“We didn’t ask for Te Pūkenga to be established, and we often disagreed with the direction it was going in and the adequacy of its resourcing, but at least there was a vision behind it. What is Penny Simmonds’ vision for the sector?” -
@GreyNZ
Solidarity from across the ditch to our
@NTEUnion
comrades at
@Sydney_Uni
as they head into day two of their two day strike for more secure jobs, no forced redundancies, controls on workload, protecting academic research and a fair pay rise. Tū kotahi, tū kaha! 💪💪💪
Interesting timing from University of Otago… We won’t be intimidated by this. Staff cuts have led to this situation, threatening more of them will only serve to make it worse.
We recommend that anyone who has received this saves their time for our far more balanced State of the Sector survey, which will cover academic freedom amongst many other issues facing our sector, and goes live on Monday. 2/2
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the university strikes:
"This is obviously something the universities are dealing directly with their unions on.”
Not very well unfortunately. 🙄
“When the University eventually responded to those white supremacists who were complaining about me there was no mention of AF or critic and conscience like there was in the defence of the professors who wrote the letter to the Listener.” -
@taramcallister4
at
#academicfreedom21
[2/3] Despite the end of this particular strike, our bargaining team remains unsatisfied with the employer's offer, and this is not the end of the campaign.
Another strike at University of Auckland got underway this morning! Professional staff will only work their contracted hours in a sector that lives on unpaid overtime...
Bit of a shock. Fair to say we didn’t see eye-to-eye on much but Stuart McCutcheon was a strong defender of academic freedom and he generally accepted robust criticism as coming with the territory of academic leadership at the highest level. RIP.
LATEST 🟠👉🏾 We do not believe the process enabled a proper inquiry into the concerns around the actions of the vice chancellor and senior leadership, or the systemic and institutional racism, for the following reasons...READ MORE👇🏾
#DecolonizeTheAcademy
Aotearoa needs the government and institutional leaders to remain resolute and NOT cut courses and shed staff. Why? Because a post-COVID-19 world is one where we need more education opportunities not less.
More austerity and cuts to programs at the University of Auckland. This will be extremely detrimental to students learning. Wondering what
@nzteu
thinks.
Our heartfelt solidarity goes out to TEU member
@jstiatia
and to the Pasifika and other communities that face this every day. We've all got a role to play in acknowledging the racism in our society and being the change the world needs.
#GiveNothingToRacism
So... In June they put some money in, and in July they effectively took it out again... Only, the unis that didn't need it in the first place get to keep theirs... Have we got that right?
We hope that AUT will now take a step back and allow everyone to get on with enjoying Christmas and New Year. We also hope that the message is very clear that TEU will not tolerate breaches of the collective agreement by AUT.
Earlier today we found out
@AucklandUni
VC Stuart McCutcheon has provided staff with a false account of what happened when the police were called to our teach-in last week. Given he wasn't there, we thought he’d appreciate a true account of what happened
TEU has made an appropriate national contribution to this important mahi on behalf of our members and we encourage others to do the same. We stand with our trans members today and every day. Tātou, tātou e.
Today, InsideOUT Kōaro, Gender Minorities Aotearoa and Auckland Pride filed for judicial review in the High Court.
You can support our cause by donating to help cover our legal fees here:
UPDATE: We withdrew our strike notice @ Waikato University last night. The Vice Chancellor subsequently decided to lift his suspension notice & pay staff for last Friday. Make no mistake - this is due, at least in part, to the pressure Waikato members & you put on him! Thank you!
“This is an aggressive move by the VC, to suspend striking staff for three days with no pay for a strike that would have only seen our members refuse to undertake a small part of their job. Instead they are now forced to withdraw all of their labour."
The
@AucklandUni
VC now admitting
#TEUonSTRIKE
is having an “extraordinarily damaging” impact. She can end it today by withdrawing her attack on the working conditions of future staff.
Our uni branch presidents, together for a hui in Te Whanganui-a-Tara today, wanted to take a few moments to send a message of solidarity to
@NTEUnion
members at Curtin Uni, currently in a tough struggle featuring former Otago Uni VC Harlene Hayne. Kia kaha comrades!
@NTEUWA
Funding, freedom, and fairness. Briefing
@chrishipkins
on the excessive workloads, course and job cuts, attacks on academic freedom and workplace democracy, and racism in tertiary education and imploring him to keep taking action with
@nzteu
"Our proposal to grandparent retirement gratuities & long service leave signals a strategic change. The focus would be rewarding staff when employed rather than at the end of their career" Said the employer proposing an effective pay cut to current staff.
Be kind
@jacindaardern
urges. But staff in tertiary ed aren't feeling kindness: "I so appreciate that message (to the point of tearing up, if I'm honest) and I don't think we've been getting it from our senior leadership." Here's the message that brought tears
#AwhiAtu
#AwhiMai
“To again be ranked as NZ’s top placed university for research impact and international outlook reflects the huge amount of hard work put in by our staff over the past few years…” -
@DamonSalesa
why are you proposing to sack over 200 of them then?
Labour &
@chrishipkins
need to start talking about this policy differently. It should not be allowing its opponents to talk about fees-free in such narrow terms. Fees-free is (and always has been) about making access to tertiary education more equitable.
#keepitpublic