Hundreds of RMIT staff joined the NTEU rally outside Building 1 yesterday (Thursday 13 June), heralding the start of the latest 36-hour strike for a new enterprise agreement with improved pay and working conditions.
Braving the cold and wet, crowds cheered as speakers decried the mean-spirited and intransigent management approach to bargaining that has unnecessarily and cruelly dragged out the process, leaving staff without an enterprise agreement for years, while watching their pay and conditions fall behind colleagues across the country and with a cost of living crisis adding to financial stress.
Not that RMIT VC Alec Cameron has shared the pain, enjoying a huge salary increase to well over $1 million in 2022-23, while RMIT saw a large financial deficit and while allowing his staff’s pay and conditions to languish.
It’s no surprise then that so many staff have lost faith in both him and his executive, with the NTEU RMIT branch’s Vote of No Confidence yielding hundreds of signatures, which was duly delivered to Building 1 during the rally.
If you missed the rally, check out some of the photos and reaction below.