Adelaide University has introduced a blanket hiring freeze. Prioritising financial interests over student and staff concerns, this freeze means no new staff recruitment except in ill-defined “exceptional cases”. Casual academics who would usually continue work in Semester Two will not be given new contracts. Adelaide University’s slash-and-burn approach means increased workloads for existing staff and amounts to a dramatic cut in staff numbers. We demand that Adelaide University overturn the staff hiring freeze!

UNSW is currently using the crisis of COVID-19 as cover to cut courses and subjects and sack staff. We have already seen the mass sacking of casual staff who have been left within a source of income. We know that UNSW management have used these cuts to casual staff to justify cutting 10% of Term 2 Arts courses. These cuts are attacks on the quality of our education and massively reduce student’s choice in their education. The recent implementation of the trimester system at UNSW has demonstrated that students’ choice was never the motivation of Ian Jacobs and UNSW management, rather they are purely motivated by generating profits from our education. Management is attempting to shift the cost of the lost revenue onto staff and students, by cutting courses and subjects, allowing for the sacking of staff and undermining of their wages, whilst continuing to charge students the same for a lower quality education.

A pay cut is a slap in the face to staff who have doubled or tripled their workloads to deliver online learning and services to students. The changes to redundancy packages, however, are disturbing. Job losses would become easier and cheaper to make, incentivising the University to lay off more staff. With workers already laid off in student services, libraries, schools and galleries, we cannot afford more cuts. As more of these redundancies take place, our quality of education will lessen. This would mean fewer students, less funding, and the devaluation of University of Melbourne degrees. Those who need University support the most, and benefit the most from tertiary education, would be hit the hardest. Worst of all, hundreds of thousands of workers could be left without a livelihood, all because the university refuses to dig a little deeper. With your help these jobs can be saved, but only by encouraging staff to vote No. Students and staff are counting on your support.

The motive is clear; university managements around the country want to shift the burden of a loss of revenue onto staff and students. They want to cut costs and shore up their profits, and to do that they will cut courses, sack staff, undermine their wages and conditions and charge students the same for a lower quality of education. Schmidt has offered to take a pay cut himself, but this is token given he will still be paid hundreds of thousands per annum. Management making token sacrifices while making workers and students pay is no justification for cuts! We, the undersigned, are opposed to any measures that push the costs for this crisis onto staff and students. We believe that staff and students should be the people who determine what their learning and work environments look like, not university management. The government should be made to pay for the impacts of this crisis on universities, not staff and students.

Over the past decades universities have come to rely upon casual and fixed-term staff to perform essential teaching, research and service roles. At La Trobe University over 70% of staff are not on ongoing contracts. University workers on casual, sessional and fixed-term contracts are bearing the brunt of cuts universities are making in response to COVID19-related revenue deficits. On 16 April 2020 La Trobe University communicated to all staff that due to from 1 May 2020, casuals will only be retained if they are deemed “essential”. This has led to significant job losses and loss of hours for causal staff, with many more still waiting in limbo to be informed about the future of their positions. We condemn the sacking of casual staff. Casual redundancies are projected to potentially save LTU around $1 million, less than 1% of the projected revenue deficit of $120-150 million. Casual redundancies will therefore have only a marginal impact on addressing overall revenue deficit, but the loss of these positions will have a number of significant impacts including on: • the mental health & financial wellbeing of LTU casuals who have lost their jobs and who face the uncertainty of potentially losing their jobs. Many casuals will face considerable financial hardship, especially given the ineligibility of university workers to access JobKeeper. • the student experience and the quality of teaching and learning at La Trobe University, given that the loss of causal jobs necessarily will translate to larger class sizes, the cutting of subjects, especially electives and the reduction of student services; • the workload of remaining staff at La Trobe University who will invariably be asked to pick up additional work to compensate for cuts; We, the undersigned, condemn the sacking of casual staff at La Trobe University and call on La Trobe University to recognise all the work casuals do is essential and protect their hours and conditions during this difficult time. Those of us who have ongoing roles commit to not taking on work that would otherwise be allocated to casual or fixed term staff – recognising that doing so harms the quality of our teaching and/or research as well as enabling the University to take work from our most precarious colleagues.

Importantly, online learning does not favour the majority of students for a number of reasons. Our zooms have been crashing, many of our seminars and tutorials are reduced to online forums, attendance is low, and pracs and labs can't take place. Simply, we aren't receiving the same level of education - how can we be expected to receive the same grades? Although no one could have foreseen COVID-19 occurring, La Trobe University need to account for the difficult circumstances we now find ourselves in. We need fair policies regarding WAM and grading - and we need them now!

The loss of these skills will be detrimental to the future of the Deakin as the COVID - 19 pandemic subsides. This is a once in a lifetime event and requires a once in a generation level courage and imagination to support those who make Deakin Worldly .

These software programs require students to download external software onto their computers, and films students undertaking the exam. This presents a serious breach of privacy, and of the civil liberties of university students. The security measures in place to protect these recordings are also unknown. As the largest youth political group in the country, NSW Young Labor and the NSW Labor Students Network believe that we should take a stand against this unacceptable invasion of privacy. That's why we are asking for your support, to send a message to universities across the state that this is unacceptable.

Special consideration measures, as implemented at other universities throughout Melbourne, help to ensure students feel supported during this unsettling time. All students deserve the right to have their interests looked after, and ensure they do not suffer academically as a result of the altered educational environment.

The decision by universities such as MONASH, LATROBE, MELBOURNE and DEAKIN to defund cleaning contracts at this time has resulted in many cleaners being stood down without pay and, as many are international students, without any financial means upon which to survive. Universities receive large amounts of public money and rely on fees from international students such as those who have been stood down, this gives them a social responsibility for the conditions of these workers. Also, there is a continuing need for extra cleaning work to protect university staff from COVID-19. It is shameful that Australian Universities such as MONASH, DEAKIN and LATROBE who rely so heavily on the income they receive from international students have now left those students without any financial resources upon which to survive in this time of crisis.

UMSU has endorsed the system put in place at Adelaide University where students can see their results and then elect to have a passing grade converted to a non-graded pass which will not count for their WAM. Fails will become withdrawals – again not included in WAM calculations, and results pending can be used when components of courses are postponed to subsequent teaching period. This means that students have a safety net to prevent fails due to extreme circumstances, while maintaining the option of counting good results to their WAM.

Amid the current COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Australians are facing the very real prospect of losing their job and they need the government to act – this is especially true for those in who work in the language colleges, the training sector and universities.   The recent JobKeeper wage subsidy announced by the government excludes casuals and their families in language colleges, private training providers, and universities across Australia. This is serious.  Language colleges bring billions of dollars into the economy and private training providers enrol around 80% of the 4.1 million students in vocational education and training.   Trainers and assessors do the heavy lifting in delivering the quality education and training that makes people job ready, and our universities are involved in cutting-edge research that shapes Australia’s future. Let the federal government know that it is only by keeping people in jobs that the future of Australian workers, their families, their communities and the nation’s economy can be secured. If we guarantee wages now, we will keep people in jobs and ensure that the economy can recover once this crisis has passed.   Sign the petition for a guaranteed wage subsidy for workers in post-secondary education and let the government know it needs to put workers first.