Staff stood down at UNSW and Macquarie University need your support!
NTEU members at UNSW and Macquarie University are engaged in a major struggle on behalf of the union to achieve an enterprise agreement and improve job security in the university sector. This struggle is a crucial one. The outcomes here will potentially affect everyone across the university sector.
Click here to hear their story and how you can help:
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Branch Contacts
Branch Office
Room E111 E Block Kelvin Grove Campus
Queensland University of Technology
Phone: 07 3138 5452
Fax: 07 3371 7817
qut@nteu.org.au
http://www.nteu.org.au/qut
Phil Heywood
Branch President
p.heywood@qut.edu.au
Holly Kemp
Branch Organiser
hkemp@nteu.org.au
Comments
[ -1 ] "Academics are not overpaid - in fact, graduates in many fields will earn more than their teachers did within a few years of graduating. Schoolteachers earn more than the lowest two grades of academic classification."
Like • Dislike •If you want to get more pays, you should work in the commercial field. If you choose to work in one area and knowing that the pay scale is within that range, why should you made such complaint. A CEO of a company may be a student at that time, but he or she earns more that the lecturers. Can you jealous about this? My goodness.
I am sad that students like us all being used to fight in this saga.
[ +4 ] I believe all these issues will affect students at the end of the day. I can't speak for all. There are good teachers and bad teachers or good teachers can't teach well....
Like • Dislike •My personal experience at MQ is that the quality of teaching is getting worst in some department. I do not want to target on my current study area otherwise I get penalised. However, in my course the tutor is not doing anything to tutor us. This tutor only went through 20% or less of all our tutorial questions. We forwarded the complaints to the "lecturer", and the feedback was we would consider compensating you with a few more marks like a fish market bargaining on price. We got the exam in the last lecture supposd to be our learning time. We were all get ripped off with all the ongoing saga.
As far as my concern, MQ has to do something to rectify this problem both management and teaching staff. You are affecting the innocent students. Several overseas students already posted this issue on their local country websites. Domestic students may decide to drop from this University or change subjects. It is a horrible experience with such teach quality.
[ -3 ] im from unsw and I may have just missed out on a scholarship offer because the graduate research school doesnt have my honours grade which the NTEU is not releasing. I mean seriously, all my marks came out fine on myunsw, how was i supposed to know that my honours mark would not be released? I only just found the exemption form today, after having read the COMMENTS of other students (the form isnt exactly on the unsw front page). I am thousands of kilometers overseas and the form has to be HAND DELIVERED (are you serious?). The uni closing on tuesday for christmas is not much help either.
Like • Dislike •[ +4 ] Shame on all of you, members of NTEU.Kidnapping students, where is the ethics being a teacher, or a lecturer, or an academia? You members, do not deserve any of these titles. You all are no different from those criminals. Teachers do care about students, some even sacrifice themselves just to protect their students. And you all? Betray students. SHAME ON YOU!
Like • Dislike •[ 0 ] "I can't speak for the UNSW Branch, but at MQ, NO student will be disadvantaged in relation to visas, scholarships or further study." - Cathy
Like • Dislike •So you are essentially admitting that students at UNSW are being disadvantaged (which is true because I missed out on scholarships and summer programs and could not go on a planned holiday as I have an over-the-holidays assignment to do, for which I need my marks). So now that you know we are suffering, don't you think you should release our marks and try another method to get your message across. Because clearly it is not working.
[ +6 ] Cathy, you want support however you have opted to not release results to US STUDENTS.
Like • Dislike •How does this in any way help us as students?
This is the same concept as doctors not performing surgery or helping during patients, because they want better conditions. Would you support the doctors in this cause? Even though you are I'll and directly affected?
It seems like you are aiming at students.
[ +1 ] I can't speak for the UNSW Branch, but at MQ, NO student will be disadvantaged in relation to visas, scholarships or further study. All you have to do is apply for an exemption from the ban - go to www.mqstaff.org/students and find the link to the online form.
Like • Dislike •I would like students posting here to stop vilifying students from other universities on this blog, thanks. I will not censor the political views or ideas on this blog, but I will not allow vilification to continue. The only reason I am leaving James's inane posts up is because they are the best demonstration of his stupidity and provide a better condemnation of his views than anything I could say.
There is nothing to be gained from abuse or vilification so please keep your comments within the bounds of civility.
Staff are taking this action as a last resort after 18 months of Management refusing to RESTORE conditions we had in the past and lost due to ideological interference by the previous Government. We are only asking for reasonable parity with the 30 other universities that have already settled agreements with their staff. The conditions we seek are ESSENTIAL for quality teaching and research, for workforce sustainability and for academic freedom and independence of universities and the people who work in them.
Academics are not overpaid - in fact, graduates in many fields will earn more than their teachers did within a few years of graduating. Schoolteachers earn more than the lowest two grades of academic classification. And we don't have a "four-month holiday" - when do you think the research gets done? - it can't be done during teaching periods, so it's done in the breaks. In fact, many academics find it hard to take holidays (we get four weeks a year like everyone else) because their workloads are too high and it's very difficult to find time for a break.
Support quality teaching and research - support your teachers and other university staff in this action that they are taking to defend your learning conditions.
[ +1 ] James you are my hero.
Like • Dislike •[ +3 ] gee what's with all the hate @ unsw students? :( we're just poor buggers waiting anxiously for our results like the mq kids... u guys may not get ur results till dec 17, but us unsw kids have been waiting for almost 2 weeks (with no end in sight) since the official release on dec 2.
Like • Dislike •this strike has stuffed up our enrolling, job/internship applications, visas, and/or graduations - u can't honestly expect us to be happy about it! :(
[ -4 ] Poor James, with an argument so vacuous and brainless that he has to stoop to personal insult based on people's appearance to make a point. Is he Fred Hilmer's son or just an acolyte? I'm sure the UNSW VC is proud to have such brilliant rhetoricists among his students.
Like • Dislike •Here's the news, James: we're not going anywhere - the NTEU is here to stay. We will continue to defend members' working rights and conditions AND the quality of education and research in Universities - yep, even for sad, ignorant little whingers like you. Because we don't discriminate against students on the grounds of their looks, their sex, their political beliefs, their religion, their race (yes, we even hand out information to Asian students - or are you suggesting that we should not provide people of some racial backgrounds with information?), their sexuality or any disability they might have.
We can and sometimes do, however, discriminate against blog posts that vilify people, by removing them. This is not censorship, it is sensitivity to our moral and legal obligations. However, I think we'll leave your post there as a demonstration of the idiocy of some of our opponents. In fact, I might send it to the VC with my congratulations on the quality of supporters he is attracting.