Universities around Australia are suffering a revenue crisis brought about by COVID-19 and the predicted shortfall in high-fee-paying enrollments overseas. In response, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), in collaboration with a number of vice-chancellors, drafted the National Jobs Protection Framework (JPF) that seeks to make up for the dramatic loss in revenue. Rather than simply cut jobs, the logic goes, the framework will ask all employees to take a significant wage cut, as well as a host of other measures that will ultimately allow for academic staff to work longer hours for less.

Seventeen universities have so far rejected the JPF. In some cases, it was rejected from above, as in the case of Deakin University, where the administration declared a preference for cutting a staggering four hundred jobs instead. And in others, such as at the University of Melbourne, an all-staff vote rejected the proposal to vary their enterprise bargaining agreement.

Likewise, an all-staff vote is set to take place at La Trobe University this week, and it is expected that a majority will endorse the framework — as did a union vote at La Trobe last week. If the framework does pass, it is because staff members have swallowed the idea that there is no alternative. But rather than adjusting enterprise bargaining agreements that were hard-fought for, union members could be pushing for adequate, publicly funded higher education instead. We needn’t accept the choice between two bad options. The prospect of developing an alternative solution seems to have faded from view.