Stop the Cuts at UNSW: No to mass staff sackings!

UNSW is set to push 256 FTE (full time equivalent) staff through forced redundancies this year, after hundreds of staff have agreed to take on voluntary redundancies over the past few months.

The university is trying to shed 500 FTE positions this year - a whopping 7.5% of total staff. Faculties will be merged down from eight to six. Our tutors, lecturers, demonstrators, admin and support staff are being attacked!

Despite boasts from the Public Relations team about a climb in UNSW’s position in international university rankings, the student-to-staff ratio stands at 41:1 according to Times Higher Education. This compares poorly to other Go8 universities and will only get worse with the current massive round of job cuts. Now UNSW management want to cut staff numbers even further!

This is on top of the trimester system which has delivered tens of millions in surplus revenue to the institution, the sacking of a third of casual jobs at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, and the implementing of course cuts in T2, including 10% of all Arts courses. With funding cuts at a federal level, our quality of education will continue to be undermined.

University management is justifying these massive attacks and job cuts by crying poor and citing their inevitability, as always. This is despite simultaneously committing $1 BILLION to building ANOTHER military campus in Canberra just weeks prior! UNSW has $933 million in cash reserves stashed away, overpaid executive salaries like that of Vice Chancellor Ian Jacobs on a bloated $1 million, as well as extensive assets and investments they could borrow against.

Staff are the lifeblood of our education. Throughout this crisis, university staff continue to have bills to pay, families to support, and the need to maintain a roof over their heads.

It’s clear the university is financially capable of providing jobs and courses, but they are refusing to. Instead, they want to force the cost of this crisis onto staff and students!

The future of our university and our education is on the line. We refuse to accept the logic that staff and students should be forced to pay for the crisis in the university’s profitability, and we need to fight back against these attacks!

Shovan Bhattarai,
UNSW SRC Education Officer