2 March 2023

Twelve University of Melbourne colleagues who have currently or recently been insecurely employed by the University shared their stories about what it’s like to be at the coalface of casualisation at a meeting with the University’s enterprise bargaining negotiation team yesterday. 

The testimony in the room was powerful and at times heart-wrenching. 

One casual staff member spoke about her experience ensuring the mental health of students they work with, while at the same time, dealing with their own mental health challenges because she can’t count on any income one month in the future. Another talked about being employed at Melbourne for eight years as a casual, but being turned down for a mortgage and a car loan because of the precarity of their work. 

Their stories are not isolated to one or even a handful of faculties or divisions.

The attendees asked the NTEU bargaining team to send a copy of their presentation directly to Vice Chancellor Duncan Maskell, Provost Nicola Phillips and Deputy Vice Chancellor Pip Nicholson as they were frustrated that more senior staff did not attend the meeting, which we’ve done.

Click the Presentations Tab Above to See What They Had to Say

Their presentation includes an appendix containing survey results from Faculty of Arts fixed-term and periodic staff and a University commissioned report on the mental wellbeing of early and mid-career researchers in MDHS.

The attendees have offered to meet again if the VC, Provost or DVC wanted to meet face to face and not through emissaries.