National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members are planning a protest at Monash University’s Open Days over the weekend of the 3 and 4 August 2019 as part of their long-running campaign for a new Enterprise Agreement.
The NTEU has placed an Industrial Ban on staff participation in Open Day events and will be holding speak-outs and picket activity on the days.
The Union has also mounted a counter-advertising campaign releasing a satirical short video promoting some of the reasons for its Ban on Open Day, which can be viewed here.
It is a reworking of a controversial marketing video published by Monash University last year in which the key message is “If you don’t like it, change it”. Monash’s video shows a series of global issues threatening society, followed by people taking action to make positive change.
NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Dr Melissa Slee said, “Monash’s marketing video infers that you should ‘come to Monash and become part of the fight against injustice’ but the current negotiations in bargaining infer that you would actually ‘come to work at Monash and experience the injustice of insecure work and wage disparity’.”
“The message of their video is undermined by the fact that just 23 Senior Executives at Monash take home $11.2 million each year. What’s more, they have given themselves an 8% pay rise in one year whilst offering staff just 2% payrises,” Dr Slee said.
“Seventy three per cent (73%) of Monash staff are in insecure work. That’s 11,500 people who are on fixed term or casual contracts. This is scandalous and yet at the bargaining table, Monash has shown no desire to correct this injustice.”
“Monash’s video says: If you don’t like it, change it. Yes, thank you, I think we will! At Open Day this year, the NTEU is taking a stand for an education system built on fair jobs.”
