The NTEU UQ Branch Newsletter Issue 12

23 July 2026

WELCOME!

23 July 2026

In this newsletter:

• an update on bargaining

• reminder: VOTE YES in the PABO next week!

• Casual organising - free pizza lunch 30 July

• New joint statement for the protection of civil liberties on campus

• A call from the Jewish Council of Australia - write to Debbie Terry and ask her to reject the UA definition of antisemitism!

Join us!

To find out more, visit our website: www.uqsolidarity.com

Email us your story: uqactivists@nteu.org.au

To join your union: nteu.au/join

Bargaining Update (meeting on 22 July)

Bargaining Update: Management tables major changes – union pushes back

Today’s bargaining meeting saw management finally put most of its claims on the table. These proposals would make significant changes across the Enterprise Agreement, including casual employment, professional staff hours, flexible work, shiftwork, overtime and allowances. While there are some positive proposals, many changes would reduce existing protections or hand management greater discretion over working conditions. Your bargaining team challenged management throughout the day, identified problems with the proposals, and will now work through the detailed clauses before providing a comprehensive response.

Management also made its first salary offer: 12.5% over a proposed four-and-a-half year agreement (inclusive of the one-off 2% administrative payment that came in today). We made it clear that this offer falls well short of members' expectations and that further movement from management will be required if we are to reach agreement.

The coming weeks will be critical. While your bargaining team continues to challenge management at the bargaining table, we also need to increase the pressure outside the room.

That's why we're moving to a Protected Action Ballot (PABO - opens on Monday! See below!). A successful YES vote will give union members the legal right to take industrial action if needed and strengthen our bargaining position as we fight for better pay, secure jobs and stronger workplace rights. Make sure you VOTE YES to all 7 proposed actions in the PABO—it is the strongest message we can send management that staff are united and ready to act.

Want to know more about what’s happening in bargaining?

The UQ Solidarity website has all the information you need!

Wanna read the Log of Claims (the things union members want in this round of bargaining)? Go to https://www.uqsolidarity.com/bargaining-claims

Wanna see where we’re at on each of those claims? Go to https://www.uqsolidarity.com/bargaining

Wanna understand more about collective bargaining? Go to our ‘union essentials’ page: https://www.uqsolidarity.com/union-essentials

Reminder: VOTE YES in next week’s PABO!

On 15 July, more than 200 UQ staff voted to move to protected industrial action. The next step is for all NTEU members to VOTE in a ‘Protected Action Ballot’.

Next week, all UQ NTEU members will be sent a link for an electronic ballot from a company called TrueVote.

We are asking all members to Vote YES to ALL 7 PROPOSED ACTIONS in the ballot.

The ballot will be open from midday, Monday 27 July through to midday, Monday 3 August.

Remember: voting ‘Yes’ does not obligate you to take the action, but it will enable any union member to do it!

Refresher - The 7 bans that will go to members for vote are:

(1) Stoppages of work of between 5 minutes and 24 hours in duration.

This means that workers in a particular work unit (or the whole university) can hold a stop-work (a strike) for a specified period.

(2) Indefinite stoppages of work.

This does not mean workers go on strike until management agrees to all our claims. It means members can stop work and they decide when they go back to work.

(3) Interrupting work periodically, over an indefinite period or for specified periods, in order to make statements while working explaining why members of the National Tertiary Education Union are taking industrial action?

This enables union members to tell others why we’re taking industrial action.

(4) A ban on participation in staff appraisal processes.

Union members can elect to not participate in appraisal processes - meaning, you can skip your APD! Huzzah!

(5) A ban on the use of online systems.

The particular online system/s will be specified when the NTEU notifies management. For example, members may decide to stop using Teams for 24hrs, or maybe decide to stop using Blackboard for a week. Work units can decide how/when to use this one :)

(6) A ban on meeting with supervisors, managers and/or deans.

Always very popular - union members can enact this one at their own discretion!

(7) A ban on attending any physical campus or site of UQ or UQ College.

Members will be able to offer to continue to do their work, just from home/not on campus.

Vote YES for all 7 in the PABO!

Casual Staff - Free Pizza Lunch next week!

Casual staff – come to a free pizza lunch on Thursday 30 July, 12pm, on the Michie side of the Great Court, to meet other casuals and hear about what we’re fighting for!

Management have refused our claim for 17% superannuation, even though it would put casuals in line with every other worker at UQ.

Management is also pushing to water down the casual academic conversion clause, opening the Teaching Associate position to external hires, rather than simply providing the entitlement we secured for current casuals. 

We deserve to be treated the same as the rest of UQ staff and given the entitlements we’ve fought for. 

Come to lunch, hear the stories of your fellow casuals, and plan for our next actions to secure casual rights. 

You don’t have to be an NTEU member to attend, so bring your fellow casuals and build solidarity!

New joint statement for the protection of civil liberties on campus

Read the Statement to Protect Protest and Dissent at Australian Universities (16 July 2026), which sets out the measures by university managements across Australia to restrict protest and related instances of political speech. The statement was formulated by a broad coalition of civil society groups, including the Human Rights Law Centre, Amnesty International Australia, the NTEU, the National Union of Students, and the Australian Democracy Network (amongst many others).

You can show your support for the proposed measures to protect protest on campuses by signing the form via this site.

To read more on the recent infringements on academic freedom and other civil liberties by UQ management, go to the civil liberties campaigns page.

A call from the Jewish Council of Australia - write to Debbie Terry and ask her to reject the UA definition of antisemitism!

A crucial window has opened to influence how Australian universities respond to the Federal Government's new requirements on antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism. The definition our university adopts will have profound implications for academic freedom and free expression.

We are spreading the call made by the Jewish Council of Australia, asking all members to act now by writing to Debbie Terry (our Vice-Chancellor, vc@uq.edu.au) and urging her not to adopt the IHRA or Universities Australia definitions of antisemitism, or any definition that conflates legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Individual emails from staff, students and graduates make a real difference—previous campaigns helped shift university responses.

Please take a few minutes to write to Debbie this week, in your own words, and help defend academic freedom on our campuses. You can find the letter sent by the UQ Branch of the NTEU, as well as an example letter (that you can use to model your own), on the UQ Solidarity page at: https://www.uqsolidarity.com/campaign/academic-freedom

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