More than three years after their last pay agreement expired, vocational education (VE) staff at RMIT University are still fighting for a new one. After a successful strike in October, they started the new academic year with further industrial action. A half-day strike on 23 February forced the university to cancel 20 percent of VE classes for the day.

The VE teachers say that their wages and conditions lag well behind other workers at RMIT. “They’re treating us, the teachers, as second-class citizens”, said Sylwia Greda-Bogusz, VE teacher and NTEU delegate, speaking to Red Flag on the picket line. 

They’re treating us, the teachers, as second-class citizens.

Around 640 teachers deliver RMIT’s vocational education programs to approximately 14,000 students. Their sector was formerly known as TAFE, but the division at RMIT was scrapped in 2013. “While previously it was a dual sector institution – higher education and also TAFE – that model is dead”, explained Zlatko, a VE teacher. “In all RMIT policies and procedures, there is only one university”, he said.

RMIT promotes the VE programs to students as the start of a “seamless” education pathway from diploma to doctorate. According to the union, two-thirds of VE students can articulate into the second or third year of bachelor degrees.

“Technically, I teach the first and the second year of an undergraduate program”, Sylwia said. The university, however, wants VE teachers stuck on wages and conditions that are pegged to the in-crisis TAFE, which has been gutted by funding cuts. Vocational education at RMIT contributes $150 million to RMIT’s annual revenue, the NTEU reports. 

“For many many years we weren’t given a pay rise”, Sylwia said. A single administrative rise of 2.5 percent delivered at the end of last year was the only increase since their agreement ended. “The VE [salary] is well down on being paid in comparison to primary and secondary school teachers”, she said. RMIT also pays a superannuation contribution of only 9.5 percent for VE teachers, while other staff receive nearly double that – 17 percent.

VE teachers are demanding a wage offer that compensates for the two-year freeze on wages after their agreement expired, superannuation parity, an end to rolling fixed term contracts, workload regulation and holiday breaks in line with other RMIT staff. They have already rejected two draft agreements put to ballot by the university. The union says that work bans will stay in place until the university makes a decent offer.

Sylwia says that vocational education is a “fantastic money spinner for the university … but this hasn’t been reflected in the way staff are treated”.