I’m a casual tutor in the Department of Philosophy within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Since 2020, I’ve been a leading member of the University of Sydney Casuals Network and the NTEU. I’ve spoken at and helped organise numerous events, all-staff meetings and rallies to advance campaigns to save casual jobs during the pandemic, resist cuts to units of study, and end wage theft and the crisis of exploitative casualisation at the University. In 2020, I co-authored the Casuals Network’s survey report into casual working conditions, Over-worked and Worked Over, which set the stage for our wage theft audit, and I’m currently driving the ongoing wage theft and backpay campaign. I’ve helped organise forums and information sessions to empower casuals to learn and advocate for their rights, including the successful CASUAL1001: Casual Teaching Survival Guide information session in 2021. In November 2021, I spoke at our rally against casualisation, and authored an open letter demanding that we ‘End the Crisis of Casualisation at Sydney Uni’ which received 384 signatures.
On a local level, I co-organised a successful campaign to win meeting pay for casual tutors in my department, setting the stage for tutors to routinely receive admin pay for meetings this year. And I’ve organised local area meetings, written open letters, and worked consistently to increase union membership in my department. Since 2020, I’ve seen a department with limited visible union membership transition to one where many colleagues (casual and permanent) joined us in the recent strikes. And, in the lead-up to our industrial action campaign in Semester 2, I’m committed to taking this university-wide.
My advocacy in recent years has focused on the University’s most precarious workers, the casual and fixed-term staff who comprise over 74% of the workforce. If elected, I’m committed to advancing and deepening this agenda. I will fight to escalate the Casuals Network and NTEU’s joint wage theft campaign and demand that casuals across the University receive backpay for years of unpaid and undervalued work. I will fight for job security for staff kept on precarious short-term contracts, for conversion rights for long-term casuals, and to end the crisis of exploitative casualisation for good.
However, I stand not just for casuals, but for all staff at this university. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a relentless campaign of attacks on staff working conditions and our students’ education. The interests of precariously employed and continuing staff are united in the fight against a management that continually puts profits ahead of people. The fight against wage theft amongst casuals is equally a fight against workload intensification amongst continuing staff, with the same exploitative metrics applied to all workers. And the fight for freedom from precarity is equally a fight for freedom from the looming threat of redundancies and restructures for continuing staff. We need to join together to end exploitative casualisation and wage theft, preserve the 40:40:20 model and resist workload committees, fight for a real pay rise, and resist workload intensification.
If elected, I’m committed to working collaboratively with staff and students across the university to fight ongoing attacks on our working conditions, build union membership, and strengthen our escalating industrial action campaign in Semester 2. And I’m committed to giving a voice to those who frequently remain invisible in the University, including casuals, people with chronic illness and/or disability, First Nations people, and LGBTIQ+, who all deserve ethical and equitable representation and rights within the workforce. Above all, I will fight for justice for all students and staff at this university and for the working conditions, education and future we all deserve.
I’m a casual tutor in the Department of Philosophy within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Since 2020, I’ve been a leading member of the University of Sydney Casuals Network and the NTEU. I’ve spoken at and helped organise numerous events, all-staff meetings and rallies to advance campaigns to save casual jobs during the pandemic, resist cuts to units of study, and end wage theft and the crisis of exploitative casualisation at the University. In 2020, I co-authored the Casuals Network’s survey report into casual working conditions, Over-worked and Worked Over, which set the stage for our wage theft audit, and I’m currently driving the ongoing wage theft and backpay campaign. I’ve helped organise forums and information sessions to empower casuals to learn and advocate for their rights, including the successful CASUAL1001: Casual Teaching Survival Guide information session in 2021. In November 2021, I spoke at our rally against casualisation, and authored an open letter demanding that we ‘End the Crisis of Casualisation at Sydney Uni’ which received 384 signatures.
On a local level, I co-organised a successful campaign to win meeting pay for casual tutors in my department, setting the stage for tutors to routinely receive admin pay for meetings this year. And I’ve organised local area meetings, written open letters, and worked consistently to increase union membership in my department. Since 2020, I’ve seen a department with limited visible union membership transition to one where many colleagues (casual and permanent) joined us in the recent strikes. And, in the lead-up to our industrial action campaign in Semester 2, I’m committed to taking this university-wide.
My advocacy in recent years has focused on the University’s most precarious workers, the casual and fixed-term staff who comprise over 74% of the workforce. If elected, I’m committed to advancing and deepening this agenda. I will fight to escalate the Casuals Network and NTEU’s joint wage theft campaign and demand that casuals across the University receive backpay for years of unpaid and undervalued work. I will fight for job security for staff kept on precarious short-term contracts, for conversion rights for long-term casuals, and to end the crisis of exploitative casualisation for good.
However, I stand not just for casuals, but for all staff at this university. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a relentless campaign of attacks on staff working conditions and our students’ education. The interests of precariously employed and continuing staff are united in the fight against a management that continually puts profits ahead of people. The fight against wage theft amongst casuals is equally a fight against workload intensification amongst continuing staff, with the same exploitative metrics applied to all workers. And the fight for freedom from precarity is equally a fight for freedom from the looming threat of redundancies and restructures for continuing staff. We need to join together to end exploitative casualisation and wage theft, preserve the 40:40:20 model and resist workload committees, fight for a real pay rise, and resist workload intensification.
If elected, I’m committed to working collaboratively with staff and students across the university to fight ongoing attacks on our working conditions, build union membership, and strengthen our escalating industrial action campaign in Semester 2. And I’m committed to giving a voice to those who frequently remain invisible in the University, including casuals, people with chronic illness and/or disability, First Nations people, and LGBTIQ+, who all deserve ethical and equitable representation and rights within the workforce. Above all, I will fight for justice for all students and staff at this university and for the working conditions, education and future we all deserve.
I’m a casual tutor in the Department of Philosophy within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Since 2020, I’ve been a leading member of the University of Sydney Casuals Network and the NTEU. I’ve spoken at and helped organise numerous events, all-staff meetings and rallies to advance campaigns to save casual jobs during the pandemic, resist cuts to units of study, and end wage theft and the crisis of exploitative casualisation at the University. In my own department, I’ve co- organised a successful campaign to win meeting pay for casual tutors, organised local area meetings, written open letters, and worked consistently to increase union membership. Since 2020, I’ve seen a department with limited visible union membership transition to one where many colleagues (casual and permanent) joined us in the recent strikes. I believe this is the kind of concerted work we need to challenge the status quo in Australian higher education.
The issues facing staff at the University of Sydney are reflected across the Australian higher education sector. The liberal government has continually undermined Australian universities, encouraging attacks on staff working conditions and student experience and opportunities. Workload intensification and wage theft are rampant in the sector, with staff overworked and overwhelmed. Among them, PhD candidates and early career researchers – as reported in the USyd Casual Network’s 2020 survey Overworked and Worked-Over, of which I was a co-author – are particularly concerned about their future and that of their students. One participant in our survey expressed a concern that the devaluation of education during the pandemic ‘[will] contribute to the loss of a generation of early career researchers and PhD students who have worked tirelessly for institutions that have failed to recognise their contribution’. Looking around my own workplace, I can see this concern coming to fruition, with many colleagues – excellent and passionate researchers and teachers – feeling forced to leave the sector.
There is no more important time to take a stand, nationally, against the ongoing and progressive corporatisation of higher education and the undermining of staff working conditions in the sector. And this requires concerted organising: that we hold one-on- one conversations with staff on the ground in our local areas and more broadly within our own and other universities. I’ve demonstrated my capacity to undertake this deep, ongoing work to build our union.
If elected, I’m committed to advancing a progressive agenda in National Council. And I’m committed to putting the voices of those who are frequently excluded and alienated within the university structure front and centre—including casuals, people with chronic illness and/or disability, First Nations people, and LGBTIQ+, who all deserve ethical and equitable representation and rights within the workforce. And I’m committed to making the voices of all staff and students heard. Above all, I will fight for justice for all students and staff and for the working conditions, education and future we all deserve.
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