Staff at the University of Newcastle are escalating their industrial campaign this week, with union members planning to travel to Sydney for a protest rally alongside a 24-hour strike.
Industrial action intensifies
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members will board buses to Sydney on Wednesday, November 19, 2025, to rally outside the university's 60th anniversary event at NSW Parliament House. This marks a significant escalation in their seven-month battle for better working conditions.
NTEU University of Newcastle branch president Terry Summers told reporters that members had decided "enough was enough" after prolonged enterprise agreement negotiations failed to produce substantial progress. "We thought it be a good opportunity for us to show up and be visible to management," Mr Summers said. "Hopefully we can make a little bit of noise."
Key demands behind the action
The union is pushing for three main improvements in the new enterprise agreement:
- A 20 per cent pay rise over four years to help staff cope with rising living costs
- Better workload conditions for both academic and professional staff
- Stronger job security provisions amid planned university cuts
Mr Summers explained that current workload systems weren't functioning properly, leaving staff struggling to complete their duties within allocated timeframes. "Both professional staff and academic staff are really feeling the pinch with workloads," he said. "They feel that they can't do their job properly in the amount of time they have allocated."
Broader sector crisis
The industrial action comes as the University of Newcastle management plans to cut jobs and courses to improve its budget position by $20.6 million - a move the union strongly opposes.
This situation reflects a wider crisis across the Australian higher education sector, with nearly 1800 jobs under threat across eight universities in NSW alone. The Newcastle strike follows previous industrial action in October when staff walked off the job for half a day.
University of Newcastle chief people and culture officer Martin Sainsbury responded to the planned action, noting that while the strike was protected industrial action, the Sydney rally was a separate NTEU-organized activity.
Mr Sainsbury said the university would remain open and operational during the strike, with exams expected to proceed as planned since most classes had already ended for the year. He expressed disappointment that the union would target an event meant to celebrate student and staff achievements.
"It is therefore disappointing that the NTEU is intending to undermine the recognition of these students and colleagues, and we remain of the view that such actions will not help us reach an agreement," Mr Sainsbury said.
The university claims only two per cent of staff participated in the October half-day strike, though union representatives dispute this figure as the dispute continues to intensify.
