Casualised, Unemployed, and Precarious University Workers

The 2021 National Council must go ahead.

"There is a growing concern among the membership about a general lack of transparency and meaningful consultation within the NTEU. The unilateral decision by leadership to delay the substantive debates set to take place in just three weeks time at National Council, without setting a new date for the meeting, has only served to reinforce these concerns."

Sign the open letter here:

Open letter: Support union democracy, call for the 2021 NTEU National Council to go ahead As rank and file members of the NTEU we strongly oppose the plan put forward by the NTEU leadership to indefinitely postpone the major substance of the 2021 meeting of the National Council. We believe this proposal represents both an unnecessary and undemocratic attempt to delay vital debates within...

This week in the place of our regular meeting we'll be holding a skill share with our comrades TEAGA - Tertiary Education Action Group Aotearoa. We're not creating a public event for this one as it's going to be an opportunity for both orgs to talk about our strengths, weaknesses and challenges, but all CUPUWers are welcome - DM for link

CUPUW stands in solidarity with hospitality workers who deserve full access to and control of their union. The introduction of a tiered membership model to Hospo Voice, in which workers must pay $79 a month to access an organiser or industrial officer, is severely detrimental to the organising of hospitality workers in Australia. In the NTEU, a worker would need to be earning $94,800 to pay $79 a month. Given Hospo Voice seeks to represent some of the most vulnerable and lowest paid workers in Australia, such a fee is absurd.

This model demonstrates one of the most egregious forms of servicing/advocacy unionism, wherein a small number of people are employed to do communications and marketing for campaigns and members are encouraged to see union membership as job insurance - rather than big, inclusive solidarity building and member recruitment that we so desperately need.

As casual, precarious and unemployed university workers, we've seen first-hand what happens when a union fails to centre the needs of the most vulnerable and lowest paid workers. This experience has taught us that we have more in common with a barista on campus than a permanently employed professor.

Unions need better approaches to organise transient, insecure and low paid workers. This starts with the meaningful inclusion of those workers into the core of union business. All workers need unions that are rank-and-file controlled, that facilitate member organising, and that are democratic, transparent, and materially inclusive.

You can access the member petition here:

This is not what solidarity looks like! We reject the tiered membership model. A few days ago Hospo Voice launched a new, tiered membership system, in which members pay different fees to access different services. We -- as members of Hospo Voice, hospitality workers and proud unionists -- condemn this new model of membership as anti-union and an all-round s**t idea. We stand b...

Psssst... PSA from the good folk at the RMIT casuals network. Share this around, submissions due 25th of June! http://nteu.info/rmitwagetheft

Motion text: on the "Journal of Controversial Ideas"

CUPUW urges the NTEU President, Alison Barnes, to publicly revoke her support for Peter Singer’s “Journal of Controversial Ideas”. This was a reckless and damaging decision which threatens to further reduce worker trust in the union, especially for those unionists from the marginalized communities who are particularly likely to be targeted by a publication of this kind. We urge NTEU leadership to be more thoughtful and responsible in their engagement with issues of academic freedom in future, and to act in accordance with the memberships’ desire for informed, progressive political leadership.

The Journal of Controversial Ideas provides a space for work which cannot get published through regular, rigorous, accepted peer-reviewed means. Academic members of the editorial board are well-known for their public discriminatory commentary, and Peter Singer has recently publicly expressed his support for using trans lives as an intellectual debating exercise and his contempt for scholarship by academics of colour. A journal of this kind is quite obviously going to be used by racists, transphobes and eugenicists to make offensive and violent arguments without accountability.

We call on the NTEU to issue a public statement retracting support for the journal, affirming the NTEU’s support for staff and students from marginalised groups, such as trans and gender diverse people, black, Indigenous, people of colour disabled people, and clarifying the union’s position on hate speech and academic freedom.

Comrades! Nomination forms, candidate statements and photos are due to AEC at 12pm this Friday

In the past year, CUPUW has built a national network of casual activists in ways our union only dreamed were possible. Find out the CUPUW secret on Day One of the CUPUW Casuals Summit. Full program here-https://sites.google.com/view/cupuw/summit-2021?authuser=0 - Get onto the registrations comrades - only a few spots left!! Register here: http://bit.ly/CUPUW (Artwork by the Sam Wallman) ✊✊👇👇

If you missed our 'NTEU Elections 101' event yesterday, catch up on it here at your leisure. Bottom line: get yourself a-nominatin'.

Occupy your Branch: NTEU Elections 101 – with CUPUW How can casualised and other precarious university workers build power within the National Tertiary Education Union? With elections just around the corner, t...

Check out the action next Thursday by our comrades at RMIT casuals network!

University casuals are fighting back against wage theft. All unionists welcome to come to a protest organised by the RMIT NTEU Casuals Network.

Thursday 25th March, 12.30pm, Building 80, 445 Swanston St Melbourne.

Campaigning by NTEU casuals is seeing RMIT management beginning to buckle - paying out $10,000's to individual staff for marking underpayments back to 2014.

We are now pushing for a more collective and active response.
Most casuals and sessionals have been underpaid $19 per hour for years. We are demanding RMIT conducts a comprehensive audit - and pays out the millions they already know they owe.

Come along to show your solidarity.