NTEU ELECTION VICTORIA ENDORSEMENTS
Vote for pro-Palestine candidates in the NTEU elections!
NTEU for Palestine Naarm and Victoria is a group of rank and file NTEU members organising in solidarity with Palestine. We have officially endorsed the below election candidates because they have made three important commitments:
I support NTEU becoming a pro-BDS union and I will act in my position to bring this about;
I will use my position to encourage and organise members to become involved in the pro-Palestine movement; and
I will use my position to encourage NTEU to take official positions in support of Palestine.
The count of votes will begin on August 30 so make sure you return your ballot to the AEC via post before then!
VIC DIVISION
I’m standing for re-election as Victorian Assistant Secretary (Professional Staff) to keep fighting for the issues that are important to us – respect at work, safety, fair pay, and a union that stands up for justice. After working more than a decade in curriculum design, student equity and communications across three universities, I bring a wealth of experience to the Assistant Secretary role. I will continue to ensure that the Victorian Division works for all our branches, no matter how big or small.
Since being elected Assistant Secretary in 2022, I have been part of the team that led the biggest state-wide strike in NTEU history. Our strategic bargaining campaign secured new EBAs at 6 universities, with pay rises of 3.43%–4.25%. I have also led the charge on workplace safety by campaigning against the Victorian Government’s cuts to WorkCover entitlements.
Now is the time to turn our bargaining wins into real outcomes that benefit members. I will ensure that our enforcement campaign places professional staff at the centre, and utilises our EBAs and also the powers of Health and Safety Representatives (HSRs) to improve working conditions.
Let’s keep building a strong, united union that fights for respect, wellbeing and recognition of professional staff.
Ruth Jelley
As president of NTEU UniMelb I’ve been consistent in demonstrating my commitment to lead a branch that makes social justice an important part of the work we do as a union and I will do the same at the statewide level. I am proud to have:
stood up to our Vice Chancellor on transphobia and won sector leading gender affirmation leave for our members
supported the Palestine solidarity student encampment at UniMelb before, during and after the actions by providing branch resources, expertise and visibility to the organisers
organised, attended and spoken at Palestine solidarity events
introduced a BDS-type motion at our branch
secured the endorsements of staunch pro-Palestine NTEU leaders like Emily Kaji, Brandy Cochrane and Mat Abbot.
In addition, I have consistently used my position on the division council, division executive and national executive to push the NTEU to take clear and bold stands in supporting Palestine. If you have any doubt which candidate in this contested election has a clear track record in supporting Palestine, I encourage you to reach out to me or one of my supporters.
David Gonzalez
RMIT
My employment in the university sector for the last 15 years reflects the certainty as an undergraduate that I wanted to work in a flourishing academic and creative environment. Initially working as a sessional lecturer, then a studio technician, and HDR candidate, I’ve experienced first-hand the nuanced concerns of each.
A unionist since the age of 15, I’ve been an NTEU delegate (intermittently) since 2013. I’ll always be strongly committed to my values of upholding workers’ rights and dignity, every day. During a time of accelerated technological change and societal upheavals, a revitalised humanism is urgent.
Hopefully, it’s not too radical to suggest that tertiary education as a life-changing and intellectually stimulating force for good has been gradually eroded. There are many contributing factors, some outside our control. There is, however, one issue where I believe inaction would challenge our principles.
As a pacifist, I aim to progress conversations on demilitarising universities. I did not endeavour to be part of a vocation with ties, direct or indirect, to the destruction of people and the environment. I know many in our community share this view. We deserve representation, and to be a positive voice for broader societal change through our profession.
Dani Andree
Our sector continues a long trend of neo-liberalisation and of being starved of adequate funding. We all face increasing workloads, decreasing continuing positions, underpayments of casuals and so on.
The only way to resist this many-layered assault on our conditions is to build a large, member-led, strike-ready union. As a delegate and Branch Committee member I have contributed to that project at RMIT over some years where we have run a serious enterprise bargaining campaign including strikes, bans and protests to win better pay and conditions. I would like to contribute to this project by continuing to be a delegate in my area and as a Branch Committee member.
I have worked as an academic in the sector for nearly two decades. Beyond the union, I’m also a member of Socialist Alternative, as a broader commitment to political activism against oppression and inequality. As well as the core work of member-led campaigns for pay and conditions, and the local disputes I’ve helped run to fight for better workloads, I think it’s vital that unions take up important social questions, such as we see now with the devastating war on Gaza.
The Branch Committee's most important role is to encourage and support organising efforts by members to strengthen the branch as a whole. Whatever we win in the next Enterprise Agreement, we’ll need a strong union on the ground to ensure this new EA is implemented as intended. I hope to contribute on the Branch Committee to this project.
Robin Laycock
I’ve been an NTEU delegate at RMIT since I started working there in 2004, and I’ve been elected to RMIT Branch Committee and National Council every election since 2010. In that time, my commitment to pushing the NTEU into a stronger pro-Palestine position has never wavered.
In 2011, I seconded a pro-BDS motion at NTEU National Council in the face of deep and aggressive opposition, including from members of the union’s national leadership who argued on conference floor that we were comparable to Nazi brownshirts. I seconded another BDS motion three years later at the 2014 National Council, and argued forcefully to support a BDS motion moved by Sydney delegates at the 2022 National Council.
Over the years I have also moved or supported Palestine solidarity motions at the Branch level, and most recently I played a central role in organising for active solidarity between NTEU members at RMIT and the RMIT Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
On 5th November 2023, at Free Palestine Melbourne’s massive rally, I spoke on the platform as an NTEU activist and RMIT academic, outlining the complicity of Australian universities in Israel’s genocidal war, and drawing some important conclusions from our 2022-2023 campaign for RMIT to break ties with Elbit Systems.T
his year I’m re-nominating only for RMIT Branch Committee, not for National Council.
Liam Ward
I am a Lecturer and NTEU delegate at RMIT University. History shows that union organising is necessary not only for the pursuit of decent pay and conditions, but for informing and affecting wider political matters. Among the most pressing of these today is the genocidal war on Palestinians by Israel, with the unwavering support of the Australian Government. At the same time, the upsurge of demonstrations and encampments have revived the legacy of universities as sites of dissent.
Workers choose this sector based on a belief in the transformative potentials of education and research. Instead, most juggle impossible workloads, cannot keep up with living costs, and observe their workplaces becoming increasingly militarised. External funding, which researchers are compelled to seek to sustain careers, comes from partnerships with the military and adjacent government departments, as well as with companies that produce weapons and technologies used in warfare and human rights violations—including those in Palestine.
As unionised workers, we can use industrial power to fight not only for better wages but for collective refusal to participate in destructive wars and oppression. I have been unrelenting and visible in Palestine solidarity and anti-war organising in and out of work since October, including helping to build the staff-led group Demilitarise RMIT, speaking at rallies and organising forums as a proud unionist and anti-Zionist Jew, seeking branch endorsement for pro-Palestine action, and participating in NTEU 4 Palestine (Victoria and national). For these reasons, I ask for your vote to the RMIT NTEU Branch Committee.
Tami Gadir
I am an experienced NTEU representative and workplace activist committed to building a fighting union. I have been an active unionist in the Melbourne Uni and RMIT NTEU branches over the last 18 years.
During my time at the University of Melbourne I was Vice President (General Staff) and lead the campaign against mass sackings under the notorious “Business Improvement Plan”.
At RMIT I have been active as a Branch Committee member and a delegate for the Research & Innovation portfolio. I have advocated for R&I members through multiple restructures and played a key role in branch campaigns against job cuts and for a new EBA.
Beyond the workplace, I have been a lifelong activist – from protesting the Iraq war as a student to bringing my kids along to the rallies against the ongoing bombing of Gaza – and campaigned for greater public investment into Melbourne’s working-class suburbs as a Victorian Socialist candidate during the state elections.
If re-elected to the Branch Committee I will be advocating for the union to hold fast to our key claims in enterprise bargaining (to address cost of living, job security, workloads, and flexible work arrangements) and to build member lead campaigns to enforce our agreement.
Alex McAulay
Also endorsed:
Aishwarya Ramji
Sophie Rigney
SWINBURNE
Dr. Armita Zarnegar is a lecturer in Computer Science at Swinburne University of Technology. After completion of her PhD in 2011, she worked in the IT industry for about 10 years before joining academia full time in 2022. She is currently a NTEU committee member at Swinburne University of Technology. Armita has a passion for social justice and devoted her time in the past to advocate and help vulnerable people.
Armita Zarnegar
FEDERATION UNIVERSITY
I have been part of Unionists for Palestine since October, established NTEU 4 Palestine in Victoria, and facilitated the establishment of counterpart rank and file groups across Australia. As President of the NTEU Branch at FedUni, NTEU National Councillor, an ordinary member of NTEU’s National Executive, NTEU Victorian Division Councillor, and an ordinary member of Victorian Division Executive, I have advocated for Palestine at every level in our union.
I have successfully moved motions setting up a Victorian Division event on the IHRA definition and academic freedom, committing the Division to respond affirmatively to a call for solidarity from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, to defend union members facing pressure for expressing solidarity with Palestine, to endorse Unionists for Palestine’s Day of Action at Port Melbourne, and to host and promote forums on the Palestinian struggle at Branches across Victoria. As a member of the Coordinating Committee of Unionists for Palestine and a rep for NTEU for Palestine I have led or contributed to organising many actions and events called in solidarity with Palestine.
I do not regard this internationalist work as separate from my activities as a class struggle unionist seeking to prioritise grassroots organising across NTEU. In my own Branch I have spent the past five years effecting a shift toward member-led militancy, including by leading a Bargaining campaign which featured several strikes and a campaign against job cuts which has made our Branch one of the fastest growing in NTEU this year.
Mathew Abbott
I have worked on Palestine liberation in my union branch and national council since the brutal repression of the Palestinian general strikes by Israel in 2021 and helping lead our branch membership in a 2023 by seconding and speaking to a motion supporting the demonstrations against Israel's apartheid in the wake of October 2023. I have felt certain that issues like Palestine are union business as they have before my time as a unionist. I currently work with helping community and student activism for Palestine in Ballarat organise and develop mutual support between activists inside and outside the NTEU. I would be grateful for any support in my re-election as national councillor in 2024. If re-elected, this would mark my third term.
Ben Nunquam
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
I’m a casual tutor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University. I’ve been organising in Maths & Stats for just over a year now. Last year, we managed to get over 50 tutors to strike during our second weeklong strike. This knocked out classes for over 1,500 students in Maths & Stats that week. More recently, I’ve been involved in running a campaign to stop 9 fixed-term teaching associates from losing their jobs. This has involved lots of flyering, posters, open letters and marches on the bosses. I’ve also been involved in the UniMelb Palestine working group and have helped to build the rallies to support the student Palestine campaigns, and have also been working on making BDS core union business.
Ultimately, I’d like to see our branch become a majority union. I think this is our biggest weakness and our power against management will always be limited until we can convince a majority of workers at UniMelb to join the union and strike. If we want universities to take strong action on Palestine (i.e. divestment), it will almost certainly take this level of (unprotected) industrial action. Obviously we have a long way to go to get to this position, but I think we can get there if we all start organising our co-workers.
I would use my position on the Branch Committee to enable these goals, as well as to continue the fight to free Palestine through the NTEU.
Jake Brown
I am a lecturer in politics at the University of Melbourne, an NTEU delegate in my school, and a Health & Safety Rep for my Faculty. I was one of the organisers in my school for Melbourne’s historic strikes in 2023, and helped build the branch’s organising strategy and tactics through the strike committee.
I am running for the UniMelb branch committee because I want to grow the organising work that went into last year’s industrial action. Our organising model, based on direct conversations and snowflake organisation, was incredibly effective. It drew more people into more sustained and intense action that ever before. But we did not have the time to build to a scale that could win us really massive breakthroughs at the table. To do that next round, we need to start building now.
The same model can support the union’s activism on Palestine. I am a firm believer in political unionism generally and union action for Palestine in particular. I have supported the UniMelb branch’s campaign on Palestine, signing onto open letters and petitions, attending rallies and pickets in defence of the student encampments. I want to see that campaign continue and grow, and for more of the NTEU to sign up to a BDS campaign.
James Murphy
I’m a professional staff member in Student Enrolments at Melbourne Uni.
I’ve been part of growing the union to record levels in Student Services, building our historic industrial action in 2023, opposing the plan to get rid of our deserved pay rise in 2021, helping members stand up for their rights at work, and more. One of my proudest days as a member was organising our census day rally outside Stop 1 during the August 2023 strike.
Outside of work I’ve participated in campaigns and protests in support of Palestine, for refugee rights, and against attacks on women's rights. I want to see our union continue to take up these questions - including supporting and organising towards BDS.
It’s obvious that management of this multi-billion dollar institution aren’t on our side and on BC I’ll keep fighting to hold them to account. I’m also not afraid to speak up against our union leaders when they aren’t acting in our interests. I argued against reducing our log of claims last year, and against accepting things like a below inflation pay rise in our final agreement. I believe we can win decent pay rises, an end to out of control workloads, job security, and a University run in our interests - I’ll keep organising towards this on BC.
Danica Cheesley
I have been an archivist (professional staff) in the library at UniMelb for 16 years.
I’ve been a library delegate and member of the Branch Committee for many years. In my time I have campaigned against job cuts in areas such as the grounds team, research computing services and the libraries; helped organise the successful vote against the university’s proposal to abolish our pay rise in 2021; was strike committee co-chair in our historic 2023 industrial campaign, and was part of a team that successfully fought the NTEU leadership’s disastrous Jobs Protection Framework, which proposed salary cuts of 5-15% in 2020.
I’m running again for branch committee because I want to continue to keep university management, and our union leadership, to account.
The branch should combine a demonstrable commitment to improving working conditions for members with support for social justice. The best traditions of unionism sees the two as utterly connected. Our university should be taking a lead in divesting from Israel, in protest at the genocide in Gaza. I've been a long-term activist for Palestine, building solidarity on campus since the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. I have and will continue to oppose anti-democratic measures to suppress protest on campus. It is more important than ever to uphold the rights of staff and students to demand a say in what happens at our institution.
Katie Wood
Also endorsed: