This week's industrial action
Branch members will be carrying out the following targeted actions, starting this week:
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Action at Lincoln
Staff at Lincoln protest outside their university as part of the last round of strike action.
Image from Judi Miller/Harvey Perkins.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Emailing in support of members
Students who support the AUS members' campaign can click here to send an email to the VC.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Ten images of industrial action, 4 August 2005
Getting ready to rally, 9:30am
Chalking the plaza: MECA!
More chalk and talk
Members arrive on level six of the Registry
Assembling in the council chambers
The VC responds to a question from Jack Heinemann; the rear of a placard reads "Bring Back Bert"
Stephanie Mitchell of the PSA with the notice of auction
ASTE members from CPIT join the riverside rally
The auction begins!
Marching members enter Cathedral Square
(Photos by Megan Clayton)
An address to members by John Freeman-Moir
from today's rally and industrial action:
Everyone knows that salary levels for staff cannot be addressed with the current model of university funding.
We know this, which is why we are here today.
Students know this.
Our Vice-Chancellor knows this: he said as much in his email to us on the twenty-seventh of July.
Roy and his deputy Ian Town, who is an AUS member, should be down here with us, instead of up there on the sixth floor where the air is thin and political thinking is clouded.
Over fifteen long years the current model of funding, a little tinkering to one side, has proved to be decisively incapable of meeting the needs of staff and students. Its defects are as glaring as they are debilitating.
The model is unjust and clumsy and has compromised the development of our universities for more than a decade, weakening that sense of community that brings us together around the goals of education and research.
As an educationist, I deplore a process that continuously undermines teaching, that puts profit before everything else, that so single-mindedly pursues debt reduction that the real purpose of the institution is jeopardised, that has us all, more and more, working for an administration shaped by the chronic over-regulation of chronic under-funding.
The position of our Vice-Chancellor would have us all whimpering that we must accept the regime imposed on universities by successive National and Labour governments.
There are times that call for educational leaders to think intelligently and to display cool determination.
The time is now, for each Vice-Chancellor, for our Vice-Chancellor, for the Vice-Chancellors’ Committee to show what has scarcely been in evidence over the past decade and a half.
In respect of the issues before us, this is the time for them to demonstrate educational imagination, political initiative and administrative creativity: to act as a critic and conscience of university education.
Roy has said that his hands are tied in the matter of salaries.
He writes, “I know that academic staff salaries have fallen behind those in other countries.” He also knows but did not write that the salaries of general staff are falling far behind acceptable levels.
He goes on to say: “I have to be realistic about what this University can afford to pay staff. This is limited by both the level of resourcing that Governments are prepared to commit and also by the ability of students to pay more.”
To which I reply, “bugger realism.”
If universities know one thing it is this: Creativity, initiative, imagination mean being doggedly unrealistic.
Roy must say to government as we say to government, the resources you provide us with are inadequate; the indifference with which you regard the staff of our universities compromises the education of students.
Roy says he has to be realistic. In fact this means caving in, accepting the status quo as if it is a given.
It means adopting the pessimistic position that there is no alternative. We do not believe this; we do not accept this. And neither should Roy.
The consequences of not acting will be to support a future that further weakens the university sector. To enter a MECA, to engage seriously in the Universities Salaries Group, to push the Government hard are the means by which the universities can confront the failure of the current system. The system must go.
Our Vice-Chancellor and his Vice-Chancellor colleagues have an opportunity:
To speak to a vision of resources, funding and remuneration that will strengthen the universities.
This is a historic moment for our Vice Chancellor and for the Vice-Chancellors Committee.
They can choose to pick up the ball and race for the line. Or they can allow themselves to be swamped by short-term pragmatism and wasteful competition.
Roy, as a Vice-Chancellor you are well placed to play a key role in the changes that need to be made. We are well placed to support you in this.
Untie your hands and persuade the other VCs to untie their hands. Give up the idea that nothing can be done; that all is limited.
Drop the defeatist image of the Government defined status quo. Instead, join hands and voice with your staff, and with other Vice-Chancellors, in working for a national solution to salaries. The ball is yours to carry.
For if nothing is done the universities will continue to decline.
And all we will be left with is a share in the common educational unhappiness, and the knowledge that we have betrayed the very people we are here to serve, our students.
It’s time to sharpen up Roy.
Strike, 4 August
The day began with a rally on campus, outside the library.
Members were addressed by David Small, John Freeman-Moir, Jack Heinemann, Green MP Keith Locke and by representatives from fellow tertiary sector union ASTE.
An impromptu procession then marched to the sixth floor of the Registry, where striking members were met in the UC Council Chambers by the Vice-Chancellor, HR Director and Registrar.
The Vice-Chancellor continued to refuse to express support for MECA bargaining. He also refused to donate to a fund for students money saved by the university due to members' industrial action.
Departing the university, members formed a vehicular cavalcade through Fendalton into the central city, circling the Arts Centre (the university's former site) before rallying outside UC at Bellamy's, near the corner of Gloucester Street and Oxford Terrace. They were joined by members from Lincoln University and by ASTE members from CPIT.
Here, an auction was staged, in which the right to sell UC at Bellamy's as a symbol of corporate-style wastefulness was bid for in units of member hours.
Bidding closed at 24 000 hours--the equivalent of three days' industrial action by members of AUS at Canterbury.
The rally was also addressed by Jeff Rowe, AUS's lead advocate in the current bargaining round.
Following the riverside rally, members processed around the central city, stopping in Cathedral Square to present their concerns to the interested public.
Planning for further industrial action continues.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Planning for further action
Canterbury members met today to vote on national remits concerning further action and to discuss what form future local action might take.
Under pressure of time, the discussion revealed a variety of opinions, but the vote indicated a strong mandate for future industrial action.
Members with ideas and opinions concerning future local action are encouraged to contact a member of the MECA action group.
While vice-chancellors nationally begin to indicate their acceptance of the idea of a national collective agreement, the Canterbury VC has yet to show sufficient commitment in the eyes of the union.
Images and narratives from tomorrow's day of national action will be posted here as soon as they are available.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Images from the strike, July 20, 2005
Here comes the cavalcade!
Getting ready for the rally
Placard of the day!
A message for the Vice-Chancellor
Maureen Montgomery talks to the media
Jack Heinemann addresses the rally
Neville Blampied speaks to TV3.
Photos came from Trevor Berry, Adrian White and Maureen Montgomery.
University staff want strike deductions paid to students
From today's AUS media release: The thousands of university staff not paid on those two days want their accumulated wage savings to go to the students. “It is time that the vice-chancellors acknowledged the human cost of their competition with one another, and paid some of it back to students. Their competition is driving up costs unnecessarily, putting pressure on student fees and is eroding working conditions, driving down staff numbers and wages” said Associate Professor Heinemann. University staff will again be on strike on Thursday this week.Members of the Association of University Staff (AUS) are asking vice-chancellors from six of the seven major universities to invest salary savings from strike action taken on 20 July and 4 August into merit and needs-based scholarships for students.
[...]
Members of AUS argue that it is the employer who benefits from the financial savings following strikes, but the students were the ones who missed classes. “Although we take this action to protect the education of students in the future, I'd like to see something tangible be returned to our students today” said Associate Professor Jack Heinemann, an AUS member on strike at the University of Canterbury .
[...]
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