BLUESTOCKINGS
Bluestocking Week Holding the Line
In a tumultuous period for gender politics in Australia and when public resistance to sexism in public life is clearly needed, ‘Holding the Line’ seemed an apt theme for NTEU’s Bluestocking Week 12-16 August 2013. Holding the Line also complemented the National Union of Students (NUS) theme for their April Bluestocking Week – ‘Our blue stockings are on the line’. It also allowed for some excellent imagery in our poster artwork. And that was taken even further in the national launch event on Monday 12 August when National Office staff and others, in blue stockings literally held the line in University Arcade (next to Victoria University), draping a clothes line of cardboard cut-outs of stockings and clothes (reproduced from the poster) across the laneway drawing many interested queries from staff and students, tourists, city workers and shoppers who were all taking photos.
General staff and pay equity This year the focus was on general staff women and exposing the gender pay gap in general staff salaries in universities. NTEU’s research found that the averaged equal pay gap in universities at 8.7% was much less than the 17% across the Australian workforce. This attests to the success of industrial and political campaigns in the sector, but any gap is inexcusable. See p.3 for the winner of the Bluestocking Week ‘Guess the gender pay gap at your university’ competition. The Deakin NTEU Branch responded by holding a Bluestocking Week ‘Lunch and Learn’ for general staff entitled, ‘Getting Reclassified, Writing your PD’ at the Burwood Campus. They plan training on other campuses later this year.
Women’s Walk on Country Western Australia’s Murdoch University Branch initiative of the ‘Women’s Walk on Country’ with Nyungar elder Aunty Marie Taylor was a highlight of this year’s Bluestocking Week. Aunty Marie took a group of women around showing them the significance of her land on which the university now sits. Scheduled for one hour, apparently the event went closer to three.
More Bluestocking Week round up In Brisbane, the focus was on domestic and family violence (DFV). Division Secretary Margaret Lee spoke at the QUT event where members raised hundreds of dollars at a cake stall and whip around to assist a DFV shelter. Zoe Rathus, from the Law School spoke at Griffith University and members collected and donated a lot of new items for the Murri Sisters Shelter. USQ Branch also talked about the NTEU enterprise bargaining claim in support of staff dealing with domestic violence at their morning tea event. This focus has energised the enterprise bargaining campaign at these sites particularly in prosecuting the domestic violence claim, which has been vigorously opposed by university managements, unlike in some other universities interstate. At James Cook University in northern Queensland, the Branch held a videoconference between Cairns and Townsville campuses, featuring 5 minute speaker spots that showcased women’s activism on both campuses and further afield. ParticiVOLUME 21 SEPTEMBER 2013
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