Queensland Division www.nteu.org.au/qld Division Officers Qld Division Secretary: Michael McNally Division Asst Secretary: Brad Astbury (to Feb 2020) Division President: Andrea Lamont-Mills Division Vice-Presidents: Leonie Barnett (Academic) (to Aug 2020), Garry McSweeney (General)
Division Staff Division Industrial Officers: Noeline Rudland, Rohan Hilton, Rob Rule, Kyla Johnstone, Alex Cousner Senior State Organiser: Michael Oliver Division Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Organiser: Phil Mairu (to Feb 2020) Division Training & Recruitment Organiser: David Szumer Branch Industrial Organisers: Peter Whalley-Thompson, Angela Scheers Branch Organisers: Erin Campbell, Kate Warner, Stewart de Lacy-Leacey, Patsy O’Brien, Melissa Webster.
Image (this page): Griffith Branch Vote No zoom party, September 2020. Images (opposite page): Adam Stodden (GU) #SaveHigherEd National Day of Action selfie, 21 May 2020; Ramsay Centre protests at UQ.
40
The Queensland Division represents more than 4,100 members at the seven Queensland public universities. The Division also has members at the Brisbane (Banyo) Campus of the Australian Catholic University, Bond University, and various higher education private providers across the state. Pre-COVID-19 It’s hard to believe that there was a time before COVID-19. The second half of 2019 was very positive for the Queensland Division. Our priorities of Agreement implementation through collective campaigns, member training and development and an improved communications strategy were bearing fruit. Membership continued to grow, so much so that we avoided the usual dip in membership that occurs each year in February/March. The final Agreement in Round 7 Enterprise Bargaining was achieved at the University of the Sunshine Coast in September. Industrial action taken by members was key to the improvements gained in the Agreement. One of the key development strategies that we planned for 2020 was to use the ‘EBfree’ year to build our organising capacity through our elected leaders. The first stage of this was a planned workshop with all of the Branch Committee members from across the state in Brisbane in early April. This was the first thing that we cancelled as a Division due to COVID-19.
COVID-19 The impact of the global pandemic has been terrible on the Division’s members and staff. Key challenges for the Division have been: • Initial uncertainty of members in their workplaces about health and safety due to the possibility of coronavirus infections on campus. • Massive workload increases with the transition of student services and teaching and learning to on-line delivery in very short time frames. • The loss of insecure employment and its impact on casual and fixed-term staff and members. • Large scale redundancies and severances that have decimated many work places. • The complete abandonment of the sector by the Federal Government. On the other hand, there have been many positives: • The ability to connect to large numbers of members (and non-members) via Zoom. • Member engagement in collective campaigns around Health and Safety, Workloads, Insecure Work, University Funding and Right to Information. • Demonstrations of solidarity by members showing a willingness to sacrifice their pay and leave entitlements to save the livelihoods of colleagues. The staff of the NTEU Queensland Division have done a fabulous job during this time with Division Council passing the following motion in July:
NTEU ANNUAL REPORT 2020 ◆ Queensland Division
