Secure work hui.

By Brandon Johnstone, Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka | University of Otago

Since the anti-worker reforms of the late 80s and early 90s, casualisation and precarity have become commonplace in Aotearoa New Zealand’s tertiary education sector. Structurally, this has manifested as a growing academic precariat – a phenomenon that is observed under neoliberalism across the globe. This internationalism of precarity doesn’t mean that it is inevitable. As a union, we see this shared experience as a site of solidarity and learning, from our sibling unions in other countries.

These precarious conditions are not limited to academics, of course. We are not a craft union, but an industrial one – our members are tertiary education workers, whether they produce knowledge or whether they drive the infrastructure that makes knowledge production possible. As well as the questionable fixed-term contracts that our union organisers scrutinise and, where possible, build more secure permanent contracts, the underfunding of our sector by successive governments leaves us all to fear the cuts induced by constant belt-tightening.

Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union has built its reputation as the leading voice of tertiary education workers – but we know all too well that our general/professional/allied staff are dangerously underrepresented in our membership. This lower density flows through to our collective voice, and our collective defence against precarity. But every single member has the power to build the density of the TEU. While our union leadership oversees an ever-strengthening structure, we can also advocate from the grassroots for those within our membership particularly at risk. When we act to strengthen those whose precarity compounds with the broader structural issues of immigration precarity, accessibility, gender discrimination, and racism, we simultaneously repel the isolation of those workers. With solidarity comes confidence, and so often our unionism is only as strong as our relationships and networks.

The goal of our upcoming Secure Work Conference is not only to articulate the scope of this problem – but to develop tools and a plan for a collective response to this precarity. There is no single issue that we can eliminate in our drive for secure work, and the rest, peace of mind, and stability of whānau that comes with it. But collectively, we can map our sites of worsening conditions and tackle them together.

Please invite other members – and non-members – to our open Secure Work Conference. Collectively we can turn anger to hope, and hope to action.

The conference will take place online from 10am-4pm on Friday 7 November. Please register here using the password PRECARIOUS25.

It’s also not too late to register for our online conference on Artificial Intelligence and its implications for tertiary education, taking place on Friday 31 October from 9:00am to 3:00pm.

Please register here using the password TEUAI25.