About 8000 university and polytechnic staff walked off the job on Wednesday afternoon in what the Tertiary Education Union says is the first time members at both kinds of institution have struck together. Lecturers, tutors, researchers, librarians and professional staff stopped work from 1.15pm to 5pm at campuses around the country, holding rallies and pickets over pay offers the union says fall short of the cost of living and over the spread of fixed-term and casual contracts.
The action followed strike ballots that closed on 2 October, in which the union said around 9500 members in current bargaining voted in favour of striking during October. Staff at six universities took part, at Otago, Canterbury, Victoria University of Wellington, Massey, Waikato and Auckland. On the polytechnic side the union listed members at Ara, Otago Polytechnic, the Southern Institute of Technology, Wintec, Toi Ohomai, the Eastern Institute of Technology, UCOL, the Open Polytechnic, Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, MIT and Unitec, and the remaining NZIST institutions including Northtec, WITT, Weltec, Whitireia and Tai Poutini.
Union national secretary Amy Ross told RNZ in a written statement that none of the pay offers across the sector went anywhere towards meeting the cost of living crisis. “If we want to live in a country that supports us all with enough quality nurses, builders, teachers, doctors, engineers and other skilled professionals, then we need to value the people who teach them,” she said.
Job security was the other theme of the day. “At universities just over half (54.8 percent) of the workforce are on fixed-term or casual employment agreements,” Ross said. “This is insecure work, which creates huge job uncertainty for people who are relied on to tutor, teach and do the research that a university’s reputation rests on.” She said negotiations with some polytechnics had dragged on for 10 months, and in the union’s strike-day release she said some polytechnic employers were still refusing to engage in the sector’s multi-employer collective agreement and instead wanted to change its structure and conditions.
Union national president Ti Lamusse said none of the offers currently on the table matched inflation. “Employers are offering a real pay cut at every institution,” he told RNZ. “On top of that no employer has offered to do anything about the ongoing abuse of fixed-term contracts by universities in particular.” He said tertiary funding had fallen in real terms every year under the current government, but argued university leaders could still pay more. “They absolutely can afford it, it’s about choices, and the decision-makers are making choices not to prioritise staff.”
Lamusse described the toll of rolling short contracts on individual staff. “One of my colleagues has spent more than eight years on fixed-term contracts, despite the fact he’s been doing the same job all that time,” he said. “This guy is a leading volcanologist, he’s doing really important work. He’s bringing in lots of research funding, and yet he’s not given a secure job.” A Victoria University of Wellington senior research fellow, Finn Illsley-Kemp, made a similar point in the union’s release. “The university should not be making bank by keeping my work insecure.”
At the University of Auckland, Associate Professor Sean Sturm from the Arts and Education Faculty said staff felt overworked. “Everybody is kind of pushing a heavier load and being asked to do more with less and to be happy with pay rises that are less than inflation,” he said. He said casual contracts made it hard for colleagues to get mortgages or even rentals, which often require a stable work history. At the University of Canterbury, law professor Annick Masselot said management had poured money into new buildings and software while staff had been offered what she called a pitiful pay rise.
In the polytechnic sector, Manukau Institute of Technology senior lecturer David Kukutai Jones said staff were leaving and not being replaced. “Some staff are being asked to cover the work of 4-5 people because staff are leaving and not being replaced,” he said, pointing to the nursing department and to carpentry and trades. In Masterton, UCOL early childhood education lecturer Maryann Corrigan said the multi-employer agreement was a critical part of parity for regional polytechnics and that staff were angry at moves to erode hard-won terms and conditions.
Employers said teaching would continue. A University of Auckland spokesperson acknowledged staff had a right to strike but noted most staff were not union members and would not be taking part. “The University remains committed to bargaining in good faith and is hopeful that it will be able to find a constructive solution to address any issues through the bargaining process,” they said, adding that the university would run business as usual and minimise disruption to students at a crucial time of the academic year. UCOL chief executive Jasmine Groves said the polytechnic had recently met the union and had scheduled more bargaining dates it would attend in good faith.
MIT and Unitec chief executive Christina Hong said classes would carry on through Wednesday afternoon and that learners had been told how. She told Te Ao MΔori News the two institutions had met union representatives last Friday and were scheduled to meet again on Thursday 29 October to continue presenting their claims.
Minister for Tertiary Education Penny Simmonds defended the government’s investment in the sector, telling Te Ao MΔori News it was committed to quality education while ensuring value for taxpayers. She said the government had taken steps to ease financial pressure on institutions, including additional funding provisions and allowing providers to lift tuition fees by up to six percent next year. “Ultimately, it is the responsibility of individual providers to manage their staffing arrangements and ensure they are operating sustainably,” she said. The Tertiary Education Commission likewise said staffing decisions rested with each institution’s leadership, and that it monitored their long-term sustainability and advised the minister of any risks.
The stoppage landed 17 days before the 7 November general election, and the union has asked every party to commit to a long-term investment plan for the sector. Labour’s tertiary education spokesperson Shanan Halbert said the current government had left the sector “high and dry financially”. The union’s previous nationwide stoppage, in October 2022, covered the eight universities only. When the ballots closed this month the union said further action could include full-day strikes, withholding student grades or withholding new enrolments, and it has not yet said what comes next.
Were you on a picket line on Wednesday, or a student whose class was affected? Tell us what the strike looked like on your campus in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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