University of Melbourne Vice Chancellor Glyn Davis has announced plans for the biggest single layoff in the history of higher education in Australia: 540 jobs by 2016.

The announcement has the workforce in an uproar. Davis insists that professional (non-academic) staff cuts are necessary to fund teaching and research in the context of reduced public funding. Melbourne University is a $2 billion organisation. Its pre-tax surplus has more than doubled in recent years, growing from $58 million in 2010 to $118 million.

The job cuts are part of a Business Improvement Process (BIP) launched by university management in July 2013. The BIP is a wholesale transformation and corporatisation of the university with administration and other services to be centralised, outsourced or moved online. In spite of the promised redirection of resources to teaching and research the BIP “self service” model will actually shift greater administrative burden onto academics and students.

All-staff meetings at Melbourne University are usually subdued affairs; few workers are confident enough to speak. But this time Davis faced a torrent of hostile questions and interjections. Every speaker from the floor was met with applause. Every response from the front met stony silence or heckling.

This hostility comes after months of growing frustration at management’s obfuscation about the scale of projected job losses under BIP.

It was also a product of months of organising by NTEU activists – including local area meetings, postering and walkarounds – which had raised staff confidence. This campaign work culminated in a rally of 150 staff on campus the day before the announcement. The rally was modest in size but brought together union members from across campus, many of whom pledged to go back to organise in their own areas.

The observable anger within the workforce, together with the isolation of senior management and the level of organisation preceding the announcement means the NTEU branch is in a better position to run a serious campaign than it has been in years. A program of further local and campus wide meetings and protest has already been called.

To date the union’s campaign has focused on management’s failure to consult with staff about the BIP. This was a reasonable approach when the nature and extent of the cuts was unknown and union members’ anger was directed at management for withholding information.

Now that mass layoffs have been announced, the campaign must urgently turn into a “no job cuts” campaign. Such a campaign is not unprecedented in the tertiary sector. In 2012 the Sydney University NTEU branch successfully fought off the bulk of job cuts in a similar restructure. Management was driven back by a series of staff-student rallies.

Here at Melbourne we must use every opportunity to recruit, organise and agitate in our local workplaces, and continue to escalate our mass actions. The union stands or falls on its resistance to this unprecedented attack.

[Alex McAuley is a Melbourne University NTEU branch committee member.]