University strikes turn acidic

Last week two major staff unions went on strike at the University of Sydney for 48 hours, sparking aggressive scenes on campus.

There were several controversial incidents last Tuesday and Wednesday, with five arrested on the first day. A group of protestors formed a “roving picket” attending lectures that were still on and attempted to shut them down. Associate Professor Timothy Schmidt accidentally spilt acid on himself amid the chaos when the roving picket entered his chemistry lecture.

A University of Sydney spokesperson said Mr Schmidt was able to get immediate treatment and was not harmed.  Mr Schmidt himself characterised the incident as “very minor” and joked about it on Twitter, saying “reports of me dropping acid in a lecture are grossly exaggerated”.

In another lecture visited by the roving picket, a lecturer claimed that one of the protestors had stolen his USB stick. In the last lecture visited by the picket, students repeatedly chanted “get out” at the protestors and cheered when police forcibly ejected them from the room.

On the second day protestors formed picket lines at two road entrances to the university and turned back several vehicles. As police broke one of these lines, a protestor attempted to place himself in front of the truck attempting to enter the grounds. The truck did not brake and the protestor was pushed back around 10 metres but fortunately was not run over.

The staff strikes is the result of deteriorating negotiations between the unions and university administration over the terms of a new enterprise agreement. The university has proposed a two per cent per year wage rise, which effectively equates to a pay cut as inflation is currently at 2.2 per cent. The unions have instead proposed a rise of seven per cent per year, after the previous enterprise agreement contained wage rises of around five per cent per year.

Other issues that the unions objected to are the proposed abolition of the Workload Allocation Principles. The principles stipulate 40 per cent of an academic’s time should be spent on research, 40 per cent on teaching, and 20 per cent on community involvement and administration. Concerns have also arisen over the increasing number of casual and fixed-term positions.

In an email sent to all students prior to the strike in week one, Sydney University Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence said that a wage rise of seven per cent was untenable. “We believe that staff deserve a pay increase, but we simply can’t afford that much,” he said.

“Government funding of higher education is not going to increase, and so our only options would be to increase revenue by enrolling many more students or to reduce costs radically. Both options would harm the quality of your education.”

Michael Thomson, President of the Sydney University National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch, said pay was only one of the issues raised by the unions. “As with all enterprise agreements, we’ll look at everything when it comes down to whether we’re prepared to agree or not,” he said.

Mr Thomson said the NTEU were not involved with the roving picket, but that the anger of the student protestors was understandable.

Both sides accused the other of failing to compromise in negotiations.

Student reaction to the strike and protest was mixed. The roving picket was generally unpopular with the students whose lectures were interrupted. “I’m trying to get an education, and these guys fucking come in here and ruin it,” said one student.

Another student, Max, said he supported the strike but thought the roving picket was ultimately not a good idea. “The way it was done was chaotic and frenzied … students were either confused or angered,” he said.

“I saw quite a few students have genuine conversations with activists … but I have to admit generally the tactic appears to have been counter-productive.”

After striking for 24 hours in the first week of semester, the NTEU and the Community and Public Sector Union voted to strike again in week four. The strikes were supported by students and various political groups.