UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY STAFF ON STRIKE AS MANAGEMENT FALLS SHORT ON AI PROTECTIONS, WORKLOAD FAIRNESS, JOB SECURITY AND DISABILITY RIGHTS.
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 Wednesday (02/09/26), as management refuse to budge on key issues in negotiation including workload fairness, job security, disability rights, change management protections, professional staff conditions, 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.
Some key issues at stake include:
- Protection of staff consultation rights during organisational change.
- Stronger rights for staff living with disabilities and chronic health conditions.
- Workload models based on the actual time required to perform work to the standards expected by the University.
- Fair treatment and stronger job security for professional staff.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) protections for staff in the Agreement.
- Genuine action on insecure employment and preservation of the research-teaching nexus that underpins a world-class university.
- Pay outcomes that address the loss of purchasing power experienced by staff in recent years.
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 Michael Spence Building (F23) on Eastern Avenue near City Road from 1pm, following a press conference at 12.40pm. Speakers will include NSW NTEU Division Secretary Vince Caughley, USYD NTEU Branch President Peter Chen, Student President Grace Street, and local MP Jenny Leong and staff members on strike.
Quotes attributable to NSW NTEU Division Secretary Vince Caughley:
“Our members have watched secure jobs disappear through years of restructures, casualisation and cost-cutting. Now management is also rushing headlong into AI without the evidence, consultation or due diligence a change of that magnitude demands.
This is happening in a sector with a governance model that is demonstrably dysfunctional. Federal and state inquiries have exposed unaccountable decision-making, repeated management failures and university leadership increasingly disconnected from the staff who actually teach, research and run our institutions.
We’re not giving that management model a blank cheque to use AI to accelerate the hollowing out of university jobs and education.
Our members care deeply about their work. They care about their students, about education and research, and about the public good universities are supposed to serve. This fight is about much more than protecting our own jobs. it’s about protecting what a university is.”
Quotes attributable to USYD NTEU Branch President Peter Chen:
“Management can resolve this dispute with a clear commitment to preserve employment protections, ease workload pressures, and put a fair pay offer on the table.
USYD staff are deeply committed to the mission of higher education, and want as few disruptions as possible.
However, they are willing to continue to campaign and take action to ensure that our storied institution retains its key research-lead approach to education, something at risk in this round of Bargaining.”
