Over a hundred students and staff gathered at Kambri lawns earlier today to protest the University’s staff cuts. The ACT National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) called the rally after 50 jobs cuts and academic college re-structuring was announced earlier this term.
The rally comes after the Vice-Chancellor Genevive Bell urged staff in an email sent to on the 15th of October to, “consider forgoing the upcoming 2.5 per cent December pay increase under the ANU Enterprise Agreement (EA). If approved by a majority vote of our community, staff would still receive a 16 per cent pay increase over the life of the current Enterprise Agreement.”
The 2023-2026 ANU Enterprise Agreement (EA) came after months of negotiation between the University and the NTEU.
ACT Division Secretary of the Union, Lachlan Clohesy, told Woroni, “ANU agreed to [the EA] with the union with its employees less than a year ago. So we think it’s really disappointing to try to unwind that agreement so soon.”
“Last time in 2020, the then Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt asked staff to defer pay rises to save jobs. Months later, they turned around and announced the ANU recovery plan with 465 redundancies.”
He maintains, “Staff won’t be fooled again this time, when they’re being asked to forego their pay rise in order to save jobs, they know it doesn’t save jobs, and they know management will just turn around exactly anyway.”
Union members and staff held “Vote No” cards and maintained that staff should vote against declining the pay increase in the upcoming. Many speakers cited cost of living pressures on staff and the need for pay to be protected against inflation.
In the email, the Vice-Chancellor also announced she would be taking a 10 percent pay cut.
Clohesy argued, “Our members don’t see the Vice Chancellor’s pay cut as significant. We can’t see a situation where we think it’s a significant sacrifice, if you’re if you cut your pay down to $1 million. We think if you’re still getting a million dollars a year you haven’t cut enough.”
The Renew ANU plan announced that around 50 jobs would be laid-off. This includes at least 12 academic roles and 38 non-academic roles. However, staff and union-members at the protest allege more job losses are soon to come.
Speakers at the protest argued, “The people at the top should be sacked.”
When asked how the announcements will impact working conditions, NTEU casual representative Sinead Wilson told Woroni, “Well, first of all, our wages will go backwards. [Casuals] are some of the lowest paid staff in the University. We are some of the lowest paid staff in the country. We cannot afford to lose pay.”
An ANU student attending the protest told Woroni, “The very same people who are cutting staff, conditions, also investing and spending our money in defence institutes, AUKUS degrees, a new physics building that’s going to house the new AUKUS majors.”
We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Woroni, Woroni Radio and Woroni TV are created, edited, published, printed and distributed. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.