A big year of big achievements.

With this being the last substantive issue of Hau Taki Haere | Tertiary Update for 2022, we asked Te Pou Ahurei | National Secretary Sandra Grey for some of her highlights of the year so far.

What a year it’s been! All our years are big years in the TEU, but this one has been off the charts. We have been helping each other through massive change at Te Pūkenga, battling out of control workloads, launching pay equity claims, negotiating collective agreements, re-imagining our union’s rules, getting people into secure employment, supporting members through disciplinary processes and most high profile of all, we have taken on the government and all eight university employers with a coordinated national campaign of strike action.

But for me, the big highlight underpinning all of this is we have done it all together, in-person and face-to-face.

We got together in February to plan our university bargaining campaign, we came together for tea breaks that highlighted workload issues, and for pay equity events. We came together for National Conference, for Te Toi Ahurangi, for our U35 hui, for our rainbow hui, for the Branch Presidents’ Hui and we came together in huge numbers for rallies and pickets that attracted unprecedented media coverage where we spoke with one national voice and said: enough is enough! Our sector is being neglected, we are being neglected, and it has to stop.

It's been wonderful for me to be able to share so many of these moments with you and I can’t wait to do some of those things and a few new things with you all over again next year!