Australia’s university system is in deep crisis. For decades, job security, intellectual freedoms, and teaching quality have been eroded, largely due to the neoliberal policy framework imposed by successive Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Liberal-National Coalition governments. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit this already faltering sector, the impact was severe. The sector had adapted to dwindling government funding by raising revenue through international student fees. When this income was abruptly curtailed, budgetary crises hit hard.

In response, senior National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) leadership negotiated the controversial Jobs Protection Framework (JPF) with a selection of vice chancellors, represented by the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association. The JPF proposed to trade cuts to pay and conditions in return for the nominal commitment from management to retain jobs. With no membership consultation involved in the process of drawing up the agreement, the framework has been met with widespread resistance from the rank and file. Indeed, at the few universities where it has been instituted, multiple restructures and widespread job losses are already underway. While the majority of institutions have rejected the JPF, university executives at most campuses are pursuing a similar agenda, justifying cuts with a — usually unenforceable — commitment to protecting jobs.

The advocates of the JPF championed it on the basis that there is no alternative to making concessions. Among other factors, they cited low union density in the tertiary sector. While this is a real problem, activist members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) disagree that cuts are the solution. For those who are working to rebuild union militancy on the ground, there is an alternative, both for the union and for the sector. It involves rebuilding a united, fighting union that can not only resist attacks, but go further to reimagine our universities, relegating market-based governance and casualization to the archives. To discuss this ambitious, worker-oriented deep organizing model, Anastasia Kanjere met with two leading NTEU rank-and-file activists, Annette Herrera of University of Melbourne and Helen Masterman-Smith of Charles Sturt University.