The EY report demands the end of universities as they currently exist, to be replaced by corporate vocational and research services, tailored to the dictates of the corporate elite.
Australian pseudo-left groups try to shore up university unions’ enterprise bargaining straitjacket
Under conditions in which university workers and students face historic and intensifying cuts to jobs and conditions, two pseudo-left groups are trying to help the trade unions to divert widespread opposition back into the same industrial framework that has facilitated the assault.
“NTEU Fightback,” organised by Socialist Alternative, is urging National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members to seek supposedly better clauses in enterprise agreements with individual university managements, while Solidarity is calling on university workers to “work with” NTEU officials to “strengthen” the union.
University of Melbourne (Image credit: Flickr/Travis)
Young worker’s death in rural Australian hospital highlights public healthcare crisis
The long-standing crisis of public healthcare in rural Australia has been brought to light by the coronial inquest into the tragic death of Alex Braes. In September 2017, the 18-year-old fitter and turner presented to the emergency department of Broken Hill Hospital, in far-western New South Wales (NSW), with sepsis from Streptococcus, a blood-stream infection that is fatal if not treated urgently.
Despite worsening leg pain from an ingrown toenail, where the infection originated, Braes was sent home three times. Once admitted, he needed to be transferred to a larger hospital, but a lack of beds in Adelaide led to his evacuation being delayed for several hours. Though finally transported to Sydney, it was too late to save his life.
Australian university trade union backs “education business”
University of Sydney s Main Quadrangle. (Image credit: Jason Tong/Wikipedia)
Despite widespread hostility to this unprecedented assault, reflected in protest rallies by staff and students at many campuses, these attacks are continually deepening, as the NTEU isolates each struggle and opposes any unified political and industrial fight.
Ever more nakedly, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal-National government and the university managements are exploiting the pandemic, just as all employers are, to restructure their operations to boost profits at the expense of workers.
Last December, in her annual report message, NTEU president Alison Barnes said it had been a successful year for the union, despite the loss of so many jobs. “Indeed, the union has grown even stronger,” she insisted, “building our workplace structures, increasing our workplace density, and strengthening our power.”
A CUPUW “summit” attempted to create a rift between casual and permanent university workers, and seek posts within the National Tertiary Education Union.