Sentry, Oct 2020
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SENTRY Stop the Bill Fund Uni Fairly Deepfakes Artificial intelligence vs Real Intelligence The jobs apocalypse It's happening now! Published by National Tertiary Education Union • OCT 2020 • vol. 1 no. 5 • nteu.org.au/sentry CONTENTS NEWS & CAMPAIGNS The jobs apocalypse. It's happening now! Since March this year, the NTEU began issuing strong warnings about possible heavy job losses coming to the sector. Thousands of higher education jobs have already been lost or are targeted to go. 03 Cover: Indian entrant in the United Nations Global Call Out To Creatives to help stop the spread of COVID-19. (Sam Varghese) Sentry is a free online news magazine for NTEU members and Australian higher education staff. Sentry will be published during the COVID-19 shutdown in between publication of the Union's regular member magazine, Advocate. Sentry will be published in May, June, August, September, October and December. Advocate will be published as usual in July and 08 10 November. Fund Uni Fairly campaign Deepfakes The fight against Dan Tehan's Do you believe what you see? flawed funding bill is now at the Can you tell real from fake? Can pointy end. anyone? SENTRY ISSN 2652-5992 In case you missed it... 0101 Published by National Tertiary Education Union PO Box 1323, South Melbourne VIC 3205 Australia A flexible &and dynamic dynamic work work culture culture 0 6 06 ABN 38 579 396 344 All text & images ©NTEU 2020 unless stated Current disputes 13 Publisher Matthew McGowan Editor Alison Barnes How are disability practitioners surviving COVID-19 'isolation'?'isolation' 14 14 Production Manager Paul Clifton Editorial Assistance Anastasia Kotaidis RecentAUR special publications issue call 16 for papers 16 Sentry is available online free as a PDF and e-book at www.nteu.org.au/sentry Sentry • OCTOBER 2020 NEWS & CAMPAIGNS In case you missed it... CATCH UP CATCH Jacqui Lambie, Please don't pass the bill! University of Tasmania scientist, Jenny Smith, made a passionate plea to Senator Jacqui Lambie, asking her to block Dan Tehan's university funding bill, pointing out it would result in worse educational outcomes for Tasmanian students. Luckily, Jenny's voice was heard and Jacqui Lambie has said she'll block the bill! Watch the video E Upload your own video message to Senator Sterling Griff Video A message for future students and their families from university staff Staff at the University of Wollongong produced this short video to high- light the many problems, miscalculations and adverse consequences in the Morrison Government's Job-Ready Graduates bill. Watch the video E Rex Patrick asks: Is this just a masked funding cut? Send a message to Sterling Griff! We're struggling to understand too, Rex! In the Senate NTEU President Dr Alison Barnes and ACTU Sec- Education & Employment committee, Senator Rex Patrick retary Sally McManus call on members to send a asked some great questions about the Government's real video message to call on him to reject the Liberal's agenda to cut $1 billion from Australian universities. Job-Ready Graduates package. Watch the video E Watch the video Video more overpage... vol. 1 no. 5 • nteu.org.au/sentry 1 NEWS & CAMPAIGNS In case you missed it... CATCH UP CATCH 'I will be voting NO to the Tehan cuts' We asked Federal MPs to sign our pledge to oppose the Morrison Government's Job-Ready Graduates bill. View the photo gallery Agenda, vol. 28 Connect, vol. 13 no. 1 AUR, vol. 62 no. 2 NTEU's annual women's journal, The 2nd semester issue of NTEU's The 2nd issue this year of NTEU's Agenda, was sent out on 11 Sept. casual magazine, Connect, came refereed academic journal, the It covers Bluestocking Week out on 28 August with features on Australian Universities' Review, was activities, how women are bearing wage theft, COVID as the casual released on 4 September, packed the brunt of COVID pain, the latest pandemic, parenting in lockdown, as ever with interesting articles, gender stats, and what life is like building an inclusive post-COVID opinions and book reviews. in a pandemic for precariously sector and much more. employed women and more. Read online Book-Open Read online Book-Open Read online Book-Open NTEU online meeting backgrounds We've created a range of striking NTEU background images for members to use in those unavoidable online meetings. Download them now and help grow the Union! Download the images Camera Sentry • OCTOBER 2020 POLICY & LOBBYING The jobs apocalypse JOB LOSSES It's happening now! Since March this year, the gaping hole in international student NTEU began issuing strong enrolments. warnings about possible Later, in June, the Government dug heavy job losses coming to the boot in again, announcing the the sector in the wake of lost surprise funding reforms they called It is not too late for the Senate to do international student revenue. the Job-Ready Graduate Package the right thing in the coming weeks These warnings included TV that would be rapidly legislated and and reject this bill – and we continue to and radio appearances, pleas implement for 2021 and beyond. urge members to join us in contacting to the Government, and even This bill has been widely criticised the crossbench senators to achieve this full-page newspaper ads. from all corners of the sector for outcome. its idiosyncratic fee increases, cuts At the time, the NTEU’s own model- to funding per place, and complete ling confirmed Universities Austral- unwillingness to acknowledge the ia’s estimate of at least 20,000 job teaching-research nexus, or indeed losses in 2020 without government even the concept of teaching quality support. (over quantity). Sadly, these warnings went unheed- It is not too late for the Senate to do ed. Instead, the Government moved the right thing in the coming weeks to restrict Universities’ access to Job- and reject this bill – and we con- Keeper and released a disingenuous tinue to urge members to join us in 'support package' on Easter Sunday contacting the crossbench senators that did nothing to address the to achieve this outcome. continued overpage... Kieran McCarron Policy & Research Officer vol. 1 no. 5 • nteu.org.au/sentry 3 POLICY & LOBBYING Getting to the bottom of the job staff and casual staff have not been renewed as a result of cost cutting loss numbers at a handful of universities, but we JOB LOSSES have little official data on most. The NTEU can confirm that there have been at least 12,185 positions If universities are going to the lost in Australian universities since expense of making hundreds of March. This comprises at least 5,300 continuing staff redundant, it is very continuing positions, 6,486 casual likely they are ending fixed term and positions and 399 fixed term posi- casual roles too. After all, we esti- tions that we are aware of. mate that casual staff account for If reductions of these magnitudes are 45% of all university employees by occurring sector-wide then it is not Sadly, the full figure is likely much headcount, and fixed term staff 21%. out of the question to assume that up higher. Universities generally cannot conceal continuing staff redun- Two universities where we are aware to 50,000 of our casual colleagues have dancies – this is because NTEU of the full extent of casual job losses lost work since the COVID-19 disaster negotiated Enterprise Agreements are La Trobe and Deakin, each with a began. have strong redundancy provisions, reduction of over 2400 casual staff. including mandatory consultation. These figures are enormous. These processes reveal the numbers of jobs affected to us. There is currently no requirement for NTEU ad in the Geelong Advertiser for the universities in states other than Vic- Deakin Day of Action in June Notably, however, the 5300 figure toria to report a headcount of casual comprises a mix of headcount and staff (something we have lobbied full time equivalent (FTE) counts. for consistently), however, they do This is because several universities report a FTE figure annually to the have announced FTE redundancy Department of Education. targets, but they have not an- nounced which positions are affect- Based on these figures, it appears ed. The total number of positions that La Trobe has reduced its casual affected will always be higher than staff by almost the full amount these FTE figure targets as not all reported in 2019, while Deakin has positions are full time. lost about two-thirds versus this particular figure. Casual staff losses Overall, NTEU estimates that there are around 100,000 people engaged Beyond continuing staff redundan- on casual contracts in the sector. cies, the true extent of job losses be- If reductions of these magnitudes comes more difficult to quantify. The are occurring sector-wide then it is NTEU has confirmed that fixed term not out of the question to assume 4 Sentry • OCTOBER 2020 POLICY & LOBBYING Continuing staff redundancy targets: forced & voluntary RMIT MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 605 UNSW MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE 493 MALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALEMALE Division between forced Melbourne