Tertiary Education Union Strikes At University Of Auckland

The University of Auckland (UoA) staff is an extremely diverse community of people who hail from all over the world and are from all different backgrounds. They perform a wide range of different roles for the university that allow for teaching and research operations in several different faculties, each encompassing a suite of schools that have very different needs. It is an enormous structure of employees that extends beyond the public perception of wealthy academics. There are academics of all levels of career progression, from postgraduate students to professors, who research and teach. There are people who work in management, finance and administration. There are teaching specialists, technicians and other support staff. All of the schools and faculties are serviced by people who work in health and counselling services, the graduate school, student services, security and maintenance. The university operations and culture rely on retaining highly diverse, highly motivated professionals.

The University of Auckland promotes itself as the number one university in the Pacific region: internationally recognised for research and teaching excellence and boasting a $133 million surplus for 2021, all made while contributing to fair, equitable and sustainable societies. It promotes itself as an institution that is honouring the principles of Manaakitanga – Caring for those around us in the way we relate to each other and Whanaungatanga – Recognising the importance of kinship and lasting relationships with a priority of supporting people and communities over profit. “He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata - What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people” Taumata Teitei

The above-and-beyond service and duty of care that is the core-value of staff at UoA was intensified under the emergency of a global pandemic. The University implemented a voluntary leaving scheme, put a freeze on hiring and rallied its staff to give their best under the strain, we were all in it together. The entirety of tertiary education had to rapidly be moved online and there were fewer staff to implement the changes. The Academic and teaching staff continued their dedicated support of students, providing pastoral care for distraught people going through their own pandemic-induced traumas. Graduate Teaching Assistants were repurposed as course content creators - the role of professors - and teaching teams rallied in overtime to continue providing tertiary education to a generation of thinkers. Some of the lowest paid colleagues on campus assumed personal risk to continue critical operations on-site; PhD students, technicians, animal caretakers, maintenance workers and security staff risked their lives to ensure that all students remained supported and research operations continued. These people (many on casual or fixed-term contracts) all worked enormous amounts of unpaid overtime to keep it all going. It is still commonplace for staff to willingly work unpaid overtime to maintain the business-as-usual operations of the university. It has become the norm, it is expected of us. It is so expected of us that the UoA has implemented a multiplier for professional staff that ties their performance review to what they will receive in the cost-of-living adjustment. If we do not perform our above-and-beyond service, we may receive 50% or 0% of this negotiated pay rise.

The actions of the UoA during this pay dispute have revealed that the ideology and sentiment that the university promotes itself as fostering is indeed present in the hearts of its staff. It is exemplified in their actions, but it is not upheld by university management or financial decision makers. Upon the announcement of the first strike action, the employer was very quick with an unnecessary yet effective countermeasure. It pressured its workers with the promise of blanket suspensions & wage deductions should they voice their concerns via a legal strike. Many struggling employees were forced to settle for a smaller pay-check rather than fight for a fair one.

With the continued stonewalling in negotiations TEU actions escalated to withholding student grades and work-to-rule actions – no more unpaid overtime from us until you actually look at the key concerns around workers rights and offer a pay increase that matched inflation for all staff. The response from the university was a smear campaign to its students (those naughty union staff are with holding your grades – sorry nothing we can do)

In the new year the Employer returned to negotiations with an offer that would allow us to keep long- service leave and retirement benefits, with no other movement on the 6 key concerns of the TEU. In order to retain those two benefits for future staff TEU member would have to accept a deal that would see us paid significantly less salary compared to if we were not in the union.

I’m honestly kind of impressed at the calculated union busting moves that have occurred from senior management since we returned to bargaining in 2023. It is clearly a war on unions that this university intends on winning.

Some examples of this union busting behaviour:

1. Currently union members are paid less than they would receive if they were not in the union. This encourages new staff to opt out of the union immediately (because we are all struggling and need the money). This also encourages union member to leave the union for more pay.

2. The University has stated that they will not back pay the union members after the deal is ratified. This is encouraging members to leave the union as we a losing money every single day that we stand here trying to hold the university to account.

3. The employer has been stonewalling negotiations since they began last year and drag their heels as much as possible. The longer this takes the more money union members lose and the more money the uni saves AND more people will be forced to leave the union because they can’t afford the necessities in life.

4. The current offer to the TEU is retaining of the long service and retirement benefits for union members but we will need to agree to a lower pay increase than we could receive if we left the union. This offer does not address the concerns with the TUPU modifiers and would create 2 tiers of pay where union member are paid less for being in the union. This will encourage people to leave the union or not sign up in the first place.

5. Strike action is being responded to with unnecessary pay docking. We are struggling to make ends meet so this tactic is used to ensure that we don’t respond with extended striking that will stall business as usual operations for the university. This means that short strikes and partial strikes are our only tool and the university will absorb small impacts and so can drag this on until the staff cannot absorb the lost income anymore.

A far more sinister consequence of folding to the university offer here is the message it sends about unions. UoA is a thinking centre of NZ – allowing the dismantling of our unions is like telling the country that unions have no place in NZ society. For collective progression everywhere we stand together, in solidarity.

Across this period of negotiations (more than 6 months!), staff have been trying to communicate with Andrew Phipps, Head of HR. 100s of emails have been sent in reply all chains and not a single response from Andrew Phipps has been received. I’m sure he has not read a single one of the concerns of his staff. Each of these emails has been shared to all TEU members and they have built upon each other, with authors validating the sentiments expressed by their colleagues who spoke before them and adding their own story and perspective to the discussion. Reading and contributing to these email chains has been the most empowering experience I have had in my 15 years of studying and working at UoA. It has provided us all with a profound sense of community; I am not alone in how I feel about this workplace.

The emails encompass a range of toxic workplace issues that are articulated beautifully by the authors. Our stories are compelling. Each point raised should be investigated and expanded upon in-order for the emergence of a sustainable and equitable workplace culture. Andrew Phipps should read them, respond to them and investigate the complaints. Many members wrote to the employer pointing out that good faith did not require docking of pay for legal strike action. They communicated that such a move reflected a lack of respect for our members, given the free labour and above-and-beyond service that the employer readily receives from staff. From there, staff questioned the nature of the Employer’s offer and the decisions to ignore their staff’s struggles amid a cost-of-living crisis in New Zealand’s most expensive city. Many of the authors vulnerably shared their stories and feelings of exploitation, anger, fear, desperation and utter dismay at the simple fact that the Employer does not appear to value its own staff in the way that they claim.

Leaving academia for a better paying and less exploitative positions elsewhere is tempting but, like most of the staff, I feel a sense of community with the people who work at the University of Auckland. We support each other. We care for our students and their places in the world, we know the value of our labour to society and voluntarily drive ourselves to burnout in order to keep it all going. All we want is for the employer to uphold the vision of Taumata Teitei and honour their people.

If we accept the current offer, that means accepting that it is not our government or the university that will absorb the cost of global inflation in the university sector. It is its citizens, the university staff, who will bear the burden. Those same staff who have been providing free labour, compromising their health and well-being and sacrificing their time with their whānau for the love of their jobs and the good of society. The government is the largest investor in the tertiary sector and because of this, and the function of universities for our communities, we all have a stake in this. Is this a publicly funded institution or is it the largest corporation in NZ??

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