NTEU Fightback Sydney Uni

My name is Alma, I’m a long-time union activist and socialist. I believe workers deserve a bigger slice of USYD’s billion-dollar pie. 

I have led strikes and campaigns for higher pay, fought to save people’s jobs, WFH rights and protect conditions. As a professional staff member, I’ve led the fight against job cuts including the PSR.

In 2026, life has gotten harder for workers. The housing crisis and cost of living are eating away at living standards. Our pay has gone backwards: a HEO6.4 staff member has lost over $30k to inflation since 2021. Most people cannot afford to live near work. Unions have a responsibility to reverse this trend. 

We need to urgently organise strike action to win pay rises above inflation, address workloads and job-security. I have consistently argued for this at each bargaining-round. 

It is unacceptable that the current union leadership is willing to trade away precious conditions and settle for below-inflation pay rises. That is not what unionism is about.

I am running for Branch Committee and National Council with NTEU Fightback. I’ll fight to overturn the NTEU’s 20% national wage-claim cap which blocked our 25% pay claim.  

In our 2026 agreement, we need a significant pay rise to address rising living costs, we need to stop conditions and workloads from being degraded further – and we need serious strike action to win. 

I’ve pushed for higher pay claims and more strikes, and led successful staff pushbacks against burnout and WHS issues at the Student Centre. I believe we have to demand more from the University and the NTEU, not settle for scraps.

This hasn’t been the NTEU leadership’s approach.

Trading away hard-won conditions (like priority redeployment and internal advertising), moderating pay claims and minimising strikes has set us back. HEO5 Step 5 staff have lost $30,031 to inflation since 2021. Conditions and workloads keep worsening while management makes massive surpluses. Redundancies under the PSR are not off the table.

We need a different strategy focused on fighting for the pay and conditions staff need, not appeasing the University in negotiations. We need to apply maximum pressure through strikes, not pull our punches.

If elected to National Council, I’ll push to overturn the NTEU’s 20% national wage claim cap which blocked our 25% pay claim.

I’m Katja Heath. I have worked across a range of casual and fixed-term roles in the History and Art History departments since 2010. I know what it means to be forced to build an academic career without security. I’m running because our union must be willing to fight management, and fight for every member. If elected, I will put the needs of casual and insecure workers at the heart of every union decision. 

As a leading member of the Casuals Network, I have helped organise and argue for strike action to win genuine conversion clauses and pay for all hours worked. 

Strikes are our most powerful tool. The University Executive has never been moved by words. They respond to staff exercising collective power and shutting the university down. We need sustained, disruptive strike action early in Semester 2 to win our demands. 

Our union’s resources should go toward mobilising members, building strike capacity, and recruiting new members to make our action impossible to ignore.

I have campaigned for higher pay, and to remove the 20% national wage cap imposed by our national leadership. 

Hi, I’m Jennifer Huch-Hoogvliet, a professional staff member working in technical support services and union activist. I’m active with the Cases Committee where I work with members experiencing workplace issues. Procedural fairness and advocating for worker’s rights is important to me. We deserve dignity at work.

I helped lead the last strike campaign, as an activist, member of the Branch Committee and Picket Captain. I am determined to continue the fight for better pay and conditions in this bargaining round.

If elected, a pay rise above inflation is a priority that I would help our branch work towards. I’m also driven to advance professional staff claims, such as equal redundancy pay to our academic colleagues. The constant restructures professional staff are subjected to are driven by us being cheaper to make redundant and they can’t continue. 

We need branch leadership that truly represents the members of our branch and is willing to use all of the industrial and campaign tools we have to win an agreement that brings us forward. It’s our responsibility to fight for an improved agreement, for staff now and in the future.

Our union must not continue down the path of selling off our hard-won wage and conditions as has happened in the previous rounds of bargaining. If we give management an inch, they will take a mile, as has been demonstrated by the expansion of education focussed roles and attacks on professional staff rights. We must organise a serious strike campaign to shut down campus, disrupt business as usual and push back against management’s attacks. We need maximum union democracy and that means regular and engaging members’ meetings where members have a real say on what happens to their pay and conditions. 

I’m Lawrence and I work in the School of Physics. If elected, I will push to overturn the NTEU’s 20% national wage claim cap so that NTEU branches can increase our own pay claims. We should be in control of our own bargaining parameters, and this short-sighted wage cap only serves to help management deliver another set of wage cuts. 20% over 4 years (5% per year) is simply not enough when inflation is already projected to hit 7% by the end of the year. 

We need serious strike action to win our claims, something I have consistently argued for.

If you want candidates who will tirelessly fight for your rights and conditions in the workplace vote for me and NTEU Fightback. If you’re feeling the burden of the skyrocketing cost-of-living, vote for the people who have been working to overturn the NTEU’s national wage claim cap, NTEU Fightback.

If you’re sick of hearing phrases like “it’s all about give and take” while management continues to take, take, take; and you want candidates who genuinely believe in the union membership and will not accept concessions on your conditions, vote NTEU Fightback.