On Valentine’s Day, twenty-nine maintenance workers walked in the gate of a coal mine in Collie, WA. What made that entrance to work so special was that those workers were returning after 6 months on strike: 184 days of industrial action, 184 days without pay. More...
15 mars 2018
Finding a way ‘Through the Labyrinth’: Women, unions, education & leadership (Advocate 25 01)
Leadership was the theme of the 3rd women’s conference of Education International (EI) held in Marrakesh in January this year. EI President Susan Hopgood explained the conference title, “Through the Labyrinth” in her opening address. Any scan of the data confirms that while there are improvements in some parts the world, women are still under-represented in political, business and even trade union leadership. Without radical interventions, at the current rates it would still take at least a century to achieve gender parity. There is some evidence that quotas help, and targets can also assist. More...
Breaking the culture of overwork (Advocate 25 01)
While excessive working hours is an acute characteristic of academic employment in Australia, it is one hardly unique to this part of the world – nor to academic work.
Commentary on the practices that lead to academic burnout have a growing home on the internet with the phrase academic “overwork” bandied about for years. However, it has surged in early 2018. More...
HELP in need of help (Advocate 25 01)
Even though the Coalition Government has effectively abandoned its higher education ‘reform package’ (see p. 22) the aspects of this package that Education Minister, Simon Birmingham, is continuing to pursue the changes to the Higher Education Loans Program (HELP) proposed in the last Federal Budget. More...
Review of Religious Freedom (Advocate 25 01)
NTEU’s submission rejects and opposes any further legislative changes to protect religious freedoms at the expense of human rights. The Union has also called for any further questions about balance in the protection of human rights to be depoliticised, and framed by the introduction of a National Human Rights Bill. More...
What do a university and a coal mine have in common? (Advocate 25 01)
Advocate vol. 25 no. 1 out now
The first issue of NTEU Advocate for 2018, vol. 25, no. 1, is now available. Members will begin receiving copies in the mail this week (or will receive notification by email if signed up for 'soft delivery'). More...
‘The Time is Now’: Education unions celebrate women’s activism on International Women’s Day 2018
March 8th 2018 may go down in the history books as the first International Women’s Day celebration after the ‘global uprising for women’s rights’ that started in 2017.
On January 21st 2017, six million people in more than six hundred cities on all of the world’s continents took to the streets in coordinated ‘women’s marches’. The rise of conservatism and right wing political leadership in many countries and a regression of hard-won human rights across the world, were key factors that spurred women to organise, protest and resist. In the latter half of 2017, mobilisation coalesced around the viral #MeToo social media campaign, which shone a glaring light on the high prevalence of sexual abuse, harassment and violence that countless women and girls face in all spheres and walks of life. More...
Education is too important to be left to the market (Editorial, Advocate 25 01)
NTEU supports the ALP’s announcement to conduct a thorough investigation into post-secondary education and training in Australia within 100 days of being elected. We endorsed the strong emphasis on developing a cohesive and coherent post-secondary public education system rather than seeing vocational education and training (VET) and higher education as separate and competing endeavours. More...
UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Advocate 25 01)
The General Assembly brings together ministers and ambassadors from all UN member states and is responsible for fixing key elements of UNESCO’s worldwide work plan and priorities. EI was one of only two non-State actors (the other being the Global Campaign for Education – a key EI partner) to be given speaking rights for the duration of the General Assembly meeting. Ministers were given time limits of three minutes for their contributions and EI was given a two minute limit. More...
Improving union democracy with better support for delegates (Advocate 25 01)
NTEU turns 25 this year. As many of us know from our own experience, 25 years is a pretty significant milestone.
It is the time of life when as individuals we are starting to mature into fully functioning adults and make decisions that impact on the rest of our lives. It is the time we start the serious planning for our future. More...
