50 signatures reached
To: Brian Schmidt and the Australian Government
Oppose Attacks on Student and Staff Conditions at ANU
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As a response to the crisis that COVID-19 has caused for the university sector, we have seen the beginning of cuts to courses and units, pay cuts and sackings for staff, and the general degradation to students learning at universities around the country.
Now the ANU has announced that it’s facing a $225 million financial shortfall this year. Brian Schmidt has indicated that the university will likely have to cut costs including freezing pay rises for staff and possible redundancies.
We oppose:
- Redundancies and other job losses
- Any pay cuts or freezes to staff
- All course cuts and funding cuts
We demand:
- Government funding to cover the budget shortfall
- Taxing the corporations who have benefited from university-educated workers in order to raise the revenue to do this bailout
- That no jobs, courses, staff or students be sacrificed to pay for this crisis
Why is this important?
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.