HAU TAKI HAERE Tertiary Update No 9, 2026.

Mahi Tika for TEU Tuesdays

Mahi Tika | Good Work is the campaign that sits behind our work this year – it’s the overarching aspiration for our mahi and our working lives. No matter the role we have in tertiary education, we all want work that is fair, just and principled, we all want Good Work.

We all have a critical role to play in the success of our collective agreement bargaining this year. Times are tough, people are tired. Getting together over a cuppa and talking about what you need in your work can help.

Attend TEU Tuesday cuppas or hui. Talk to your branch presidents, delegates or organiser. Find out what your worksite is doing for TEU Tuesdays next week and the week after that. The way we get the change we need at work is through building our solidarity and strength together.

Mahi Tika videos have started rolling out on social media. Follow TEU on Instagram or Facebook.

New Mahi Tika posters are being put up across worksites. We’ll soon have some postcards so that you can write to your employers telling them what you need to make your work Mahi Tika.

MERCH!

You can now order a Mahi Tika or Good Work tee or a hoody through the new TEU store.

TEU Annual Conference report back – Ti Lamusse and Garrick Cooper

Te Uepū and our Annual Conference were held online 13-15 May. Initial feedback is positive and constructive, and from our point of view as chairs, it felt fluid and member engagement was excellent. We fully appreciate that staying online in front of a screen for long hours is difficult, and we thank everyone who participated.

This Annual Conference really was about us taking our next steps as an organising union. Conference proved a robust show of that in action – with great democratic debate and process demonstrated. This is an exciting time for our union, we have the capacity to get some massive wins across the table, but it’s also a daunting time because of the political context.

However, we’ve been here before, and we have the people power to change things. We know we’ve got challenges ahead with bargaining across the university and polytechnic spaces. The delegate and postgraduate membership remits will broaden our reach as a union and strengthen our ability to organise and respond to these challenges as we work towards our key goals and aspirations for our union.  

We want to acknowledge Marilyn Waring. Our National Women’s Committee nominated Marilyn, who was awarded the TEU Lifetime Membership Award at Conference.  Ngā mihi nui ki a koe Marilyn, me ngā mahi kua tutuki i a koe i roto i ngā tau.

Delegates go viral!

At conference this year a remit was passed formalising the role of delegates within the TEU. This is an incredibly exciting step as it provides for delegates to be recognised in workplaces.

Being formally recognised as part of our democratic structure is important in terms of the mana that brings to the role and, critically, the ability to advocate for paid time release for delegates to undertake important union work. At the delegate fora in Auckland and Palmerston North this year the voices of delegates were clear – what is needed to succeed in the role is clarity, mana and time release.

We now have the structure to begin to provide this. We will complete work on a delegate job description, updated nomination forms and delegate merch. We aim to have an official celebratory launch in July. Keep a look out for your invitation!

Meeting the Minister for Tertiary Education

Last week Amy Ross and Ti Lamusse met with Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds. Here’s Amy’s report from the meeting:

It took us some time to get a meeting with Minister Simmonds, but we finally got there!

We provided Minister Simmonds with a briefing to the incoming minister (BIM). The Tertiary Education Portfolio was recently allocated to Penny Simmonds by the Prime Minister, moving from Dr Shane Reti in a Cabinet shakeup. In our briefing, we emphasised our deep concern about ongoing underfunding of the whole tertiary sector and the impacts this has on staff, students and our broader communities.

In the meeting we raised that we had initiated for a multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) with polytechnics (raising this with the Minister was something TEU leadership committed to at our TEU conference, to ensure the Minister knew this process was underway). Before we had even finished conveying this information, the Minster indicated she did not support MECAs. When we asked further about this, she said that in her view MECA’s provided the “best of everything” and that the ‘terms and conditions were too good.”

We were shocked that the Minister would openly oppose something that so clearly benefits the terms and conditions of working New Zealanders.

It’ll be interesting to find out what communications the Minister may have had with Polytech leaders on this issue. Watch this space – it's more important than ever that we stand together for our MECA!