Members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of Sydney – the largest Branch in Australia – are on strike for 24 hours this Thursday (22/10/26), as management continues to drag their feet on key issues in negotiation including, job security, change management protections, a fair pay rise that keeps up with inflation, and AI protections.
NTEU staff bargaining representatives have negotiated in good faith while seeking an Enterprise Agreement that delivers meaningful and enforceable workplace rights. While industrial action is never a first choice for staff, management remains resistant to many of the proposals that staff have identified as essential.
Management’s approach to AI is emblematic of the corporatised nature of university management at USYD and across the sector, as they rushed to announce a partnership with OpenAI without any meaningful consultation with staff and students. NTEU members are striking for urgent protections while experiencing the workload increase, work quality decrease and student disengagement AI tools are entrenching.
Some key issues at stake include:
- Pay: The University offer is just 3.4% per year. If accepted it would be the lowest pay number at any university that has completed in this bargaining period.
- AI: management refuses to include meaningful protections in the agreement.
- Change: the University wants to reduce employee rights, making it easier to sack people
At the heart of these issues is a simple principle: if the University values its staff, those commitments should be protected through enforceable rights in the Enterprise Agreement, not left to policies that management can change at any time.
Following pickets from 7am, NTEU members will rally outside the quadrangle from 1pm. The rally will be addressed by a number of speakers including Dr Sarah Kaine, NSW Member of the Legislative Council who chaired the recent NSW inquiry into University Governance and Mehreen Faruqi, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and Senator for NSW.
Quotes attributable to USYD NTEU Branch President Professor John Buchanan:
“NTEU members are open to engaging with AI but we’re also concerned about its potentially negative consequences. The downstream impact on the next generation of students will be profound unless we get this right. What post-graduate will want to come to a university where they try to ask a tutor a question and get referred to a chat bot instead?”
“The Union’s demands concerning AI include some very basic issues. We believe that humans should remain in the loop when AI is involved in decision making and that staff should be consulted where AI is planned to change work processes.”
“AI can raise important ethical and not simply technical matters, and we’ve proposed that staff and management should have the capacity to review issues of AI adoption if staff identify significant matters of concern. Why management wants such issues to fester remains unclear.”
“The Union supports a culture of considered AI adoption where lessons positive and negative are widely shared. It is surprising University management is resisting such basic proposals.”
“Researchers and teachers are being told to trust an AI company that has been less than direct in communicating problems associated with their systems to the highest levels of the Australian Government. If these companies keep senior Ministers of State in the dark about problems, what hope do teachers and researchers at the University of Sydney have of being treated any better?”
Quotes attributable to NSW NTEU Division Secretary Vince Caughley:
“This strike shows how serious we are when we say successful adoption of AI requires good governance, sound judgement and the expertise of staff. University management simply doesn’t have the social licence to make decisions of this magnitude without meaningful consultation and enforceable protections.
“The NSW Parliamentary Inquiry exposed a damning record of poor decisions and failures of accountability from university managers. Making major decisions without proper scrutiny or meaningful staff involvement is exactly how the sector got into this mess in the first place. They don’t seem to get that transparency and genuine staff involvement aren’t just principles of good governance, they’re actually how you make good decisions in the public interest. Sydney University has some of the world’s leading experts on AI within its own community and it’s extraordinary that management won’t guarantee them a genuine say and instead want to be free to chase the latest commercial deal or marketing opportunity and expose the institution to unnecessary risk.
“Staff can hardly be blamed for questioning management’s approach to AI when they’re simultaneously being offered a pay rise below inflation, facing continued job insecurity and being denied enforceable consultation rights. Good employers understand that fair pay, job security and genuine consultation are investments in their workforce and their future, and everyone knows Sydney University has the resources to deliver all three.”
