Pssst! That's our lecturer! In the Susso queue!
March 16th, 2010 by Paul Norton | Published in Authoritarianism, Education, Government, Howardia, Indigenous, Policy, Politics, Poverty, Uncategorized | 98 Comments
This morning’s media reports that the Opposition now intends to support the Federal Government’s intention to bring back the Susso for several categories of welfare recipient including those on Newstart Allowance.
The use of the term “Susso” is not mere hyperbole as the percentage of the recipient’s income which is quarantined will only be able to be accessed using a special smart card (which will, over time, become generally recognised as the quarantinee’s smart card) at designated retail outlets which have the necessary hardware to read the cards. Further, in some towns in the Northern Territory where the scheme is in place for indigenous people, stores are reportedly establishing special checkouts for holders of the card in order to minimise delays in the other checkout queues. Anyone spending their quarantined income is thus “outed” as a welfare recipient – and exposed to all the prejudices which many in our society hold towards such people – whenever they co shopping.
The mooted national extension of the income quarantining scheme could have some interesting but unpleasant consequences for university staff and the Australian university sector as a whole.
The major change in University employment practices over the past two decades has been the growth in the use of casual and sessional staff, particularly for teaching. At the University of NSW, one of the “Big 8″ universities, the percentage of casual teaching staff is 50 per cent.
However, university teaching semesters only last 13 weeks, and assessment-related work associated with teaching usually only extends another 3 weeks past the end of semester, so casual academic staff are only engaged by the University for 32 weeks of the year, unless other work can be found. The amount of money that a casual academic can earn in this way is often not enough to tide them over the whole year, and in some cases has to be supplemented by receipt of a government benefit such as Newstart Allowance. In the first couple of months of the year this may be their only source of cashflow. The inflexibility of university payroll systems sometimes means that casuals don’t get their first pay until four week or even six weeks into the first semester and must rely on the welfare payment during this period. Sometimes, some casual academics don’t have the fortune to score enough casual teaching to be able to earn enough during the semester to get by without the welfare payment.
This is the dirty secret of Australia’s university system – a significant minority of academic teaching staff must rely on the dole for part of the year, and some must rely on it for long enough to fall into the categories of people who will be liable to have their income managed under the government’s proposed policy. It is, needless to say, not something that either the universities or their casual employees in this predicament are keen to advertise. The fact that when casual academics go shopping they have cash to spend means that their privacy is largely secure.
What happens, however, if casual academics find themselves having part of their incomes quarantined and managed? We could find the students doing their weekly shopping at their local Woolies, lining up in the ordinary checkout queue and seeing one of their lecturers or tutors standing in the Centrelink smart card queue. Such sightings would inevitably be reported by the students to their peers, and judgments formed.
The more reflective judgments would be about the university’s employment practices, and hopefully would see the students support staff union attempts to secure better conditions for casuals and limitations on the use of this form of employment. The less reflective judgments, unfortunately, would reflect societal prejudices against welfare recipients with adverse consequences for the academics’ professional relationships with students. Another consequence could be that students, prospective students, and their parents could decide that “university X is no good because its staff are dole bludgers” and choose to study elsewhere in the mistaken belief that that university would not have such people on their payroll.
There is another possible consequence. The international student market is a major export earner for Australia and a major source of funds for Australian universities. What will happen if it becomes widely known that a precentage of Australian academics have to augment their academic pay with government benefits? The more reflective prospective students and their parents will wonder about the employment practices of Australian universities, and perhaps ask questions about their managerial competence in other areas and the morale of their teaching staff. The less reflective will form judgments which reflect whatever prejudices prevail in their respective national cultures, and in national cultures which are big on the values of hard work, self-reliance and the like, such judgments will probably be very negative, and will have consequences for students’ eventual decision about where to study.
Have Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Jenny Macklin considered these possible consequences of their policy?
To nitpick, Paul: these are two contradictory aims, and everything I’ve ever seen of the NTEU’s organising and negotiating practice tells me they’re very much into the latter at the expense of the former.
Was under the impressiom the legislation is for the moment being restricted to NT. I suppose they could net academics at Darwin uni. But right now I would be a bit concerned about disadvantaged people, black and white, being even further discriminated against. Guess the philodsophy is, to avoid being called racist, we’ll bash everybody who is poor.
Now, re tutors, lecturers, etc. WTF is your union for?
@ 2.
Should read ‘bit more concerned’.
It can only be a good thing if academics are caught up in this major social embarrassment, at the pseudomarket checkout, along with their less educated and more disadvantaged brothers and sisters.
They will take this matter to the top, man/women the barricades, form a committee,
sign a petition, steal eggs for throwing and more. Maybe even sneakily organise others to pick up their tim tam supplies.
“so casual academic staff are only engaged by the University for 32 weeks of the year, unless other work can be found.”
Paul, I know academics are very highly educated, which can be a terrible barrier when seeking employment, but why can’t other work be found? If you say it can’t be, I believe you, but if I was a sessional academic in such circumstances, I’d look to find something else to do for a living, something that pays 52 weeks of the year.
Just sayin’.
Sam, other work can be found and often is, but this still doesn’t solve the problem in every case.
Paul “We could find the students doing their weekly shopping at their local Woolies, lining up in the ordinary checkout queue and seeing one of their lecturers or tutors standing in the Centrelink smart card queue.”
Except for the fact that it seems that at least 20% of the supermarket employees in our shopping centre are students from either of Monash or Deakin Uni. It is not going to be “there is my lecture”, it is going to be “hello Miss/sir/doc/Prof/ . . . “
What Liam said and I’m pleased someone else feels the same way I do. I resigned from the NTEU for that very reason – that one of the measures they were pushing most strongly was to make it harder for people like me to get work. Like a good market rationalist, donating $500 a year to an organisation to use against my interests didn’t seem like a sensible act.
On the broader issue, I doubt that special pleading for academics will cut any ice. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people depend on a mixture of casual work and income support and the consequences of being outed will be unpleasant for all of them. No doubt conservatives (which of course includes many on the government front bench) will say that it’s a good thing, because it will provide extra incentive to find work and avoid the stigma.
joe2 @ 4 – yes the more affected the greater the change that the government will backdown on this. Though I had thought that it wasn’t going to be automatically applied to all those on welfare.
On the other hand if lots of people end up on it the social stigma will be reduced too.
Ken #8, I didn’t intend the post to be special pleading for academics. I think the policy is reprehensible regardless of which groups are affected. What I was pointing to is that the range of people who could be adversely affected by it is wider than is commonly supposed, and that the policy will have consequences which the government has probably not thought much about.
Sam serving an extended period as a casual is the only path to a permanent position for many academics. They’ve sunk a considerable amount of capital into perhaps seven years of full-time study and they would naturally like to get some return on it, instead of going off to be a taxi driver or whatever.
Moreover, in my experience, even if you’re not being paid you’re expected to act as a good organisational citizen, by attending meetings and doing odd jobs in your own time. If you drop out of sight, you tend not to get offered any work the following semester.
I hasten to add that the situation reflects the dominance of management and the NTEU in employment practices and it is not the preferred position of many academics, some of whom go out of their way to try to get casual staff treated fairly.
lol… why wouldn’t they just get a job over Christmas? Or would stacking supermarket shelves be embarrassing for them as well?
Fleeced are you aware of the conditions an applicant has to satisfy before getting income support? If casual work was available, they would be required to apply for it. However, they would be competing with a bunch of schoolkids and school-leavers on junior wages; plus employers, understandably, are often reluctant to employ people who will quit in a couple of months.
“Sam serving an extended period as a casual is the only path to a permanent position for many academics”.
No, completely wrong headed and years out of touch imho. Most casuals remain casuals. The right have hacked Uni funds to pieces over decades. Permanent positions go to those who have significant research outputs and can earn money for the Uni. Casuals stay casual.
“
said Kevin Andrews.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/abbott-backs-alp-welfare-management-bill/story-e6frgczf-1225841111611
Here’s hoping he is on the money this once. As well, that the plan is watered down in N.T., if not abandoned as it should be.
Aw Eric @ 14 don’t discredit the argument by over-stating it. Of course some casuals remain casuals but others succeed in getting permanent appointments following the path I mentioned, usually in conjunction with completing a research higher degree. I could name you a dozen I’ve known do it without even having to stop and think hard.
Ken, you can add me to that dozen as well. After five years of casual teaching following completion of my PhD, the Head of our Department invited me to apply for a teaching-focused position which the Department had got funding for, and I was one of two long-serving casuals appointed.
Its going to be extended to everybody except disalbled and old age pensioners I think. Eventually. And, eventually, when we get a PM nasty enough, (guess which party?) it’ll be extended to the disabled. After they’ve unsuccessfully prayed to Jesus for a miracle.
Well I didn’t mean to fire up an argument about the Taylorisation of universities, reprehensible though the last twenty years of higher ed management has been, and cynically self-interested the union’s position has (with exceptions) been. (Laura wrote more on casualisation and teaching-only here).
I thoroughly agree with the main thrust of Paul’s post; that income management if it’s applied to Newstart recipients under 25 is going to catch a lot of research assistants and casual tutors at universities. Who also already have, it should be noted, in almost every case, significant HECS/HELP/PELS debt to the Commonwealth.
HEY!! Why doesn’t somebody in the Labor Cabinet or the Party room, in fact a whole heap of somebodies, get up and say, “Wait on! We’re the Labor Party.This is NOT ON!”
I won’t hold my breath.
Yes Eric my partner was a casual all the while doing the PhD (although the APA helped enormously), then for six months a casual lecturer, then secured a fixed-term, full-time, contract position at another University. This was renewed several times until finally getting this upgraded to a “continuing appointment” (i.e. tenure, if some other hurdles are met, e.g. favorable reviews). As far as I know, it is fairly rare for a fixed-term contract position to be upgraded to a continuing. It was helped by a soon-to-be-retiring aspro and the school used ‘succession planning’ as well as the overall fabulousness of my partner’s research and teaching efforts as reason to get the funding for another FTE for a couple of years.
Oh BTW, 5 years as an Associate Lecturer, because whilst on contract, no promotion allowable. Despite by now having all the qualifications bar one (a book contract) to be a Senior Lecturer.
Even among those who aren’t casuals, the employment situation in Academia can still be very tenuous.
Not disputing your fundamental point here, Paul – I think the rise of sessionals is both tragedy and farce – but I think you’re being a little disingenuous here.
How many academics? Where? How long are they on Newstart? I appreciate the NTEU is shite, but where are these stories of academics on the dole? Surely, it would provoke a couple, at least (I might add that many casual school teachers could be in the same boat).
As I say, I’m not disagreeing with you per se, but your post is remarkably thin on evidence; just because it could happen, doesn’t mean it is.
Great post Paul. Without implying that this would apply to most academics, this situation is potentially creating an “outcome” for some lecturers that mirrors police and officials in developing countries, or countries where such occupations are chronically underpaid. The usual equation as I understand it is, a drastically underpaid policeman or bureaucrat = corruption and under the table dealing. Add to that heavy pressure from increasingly entitled fee-paying parents from the Leafy Suburbs, plus the same from fee-paying international students, and you could see some very questionable marks being awarded. This doesn’t enhance my trust in the tertiary system as a whole.
Also, it could apply to secondary teachers too – lots of them are sacked over the holidays. What a morale builder, for the unruly kids in Year 9 to witness you working at the local carwash over the summer. Maybe even washing their dad’s car. “Hurry it up there, Mr S! Get a move on!” The scope for abuse and ridicule would be huge.
It would be great if (Kevin and Julia are you listening) that we could adopt the “asian” value of holding teachers in higher esteem than we currently do and also paying them accordingly.
I spoke to a guy working for a faith based charity and he was paid in a smart card that could not be used for drinking, gambling, etc. Only for non addictive activities and substances.
More employers could use the same method of paying staff, perhaps on a voluntary basis. Then the numbers wold be so great that welfare recipients would be swamped in the sea of smart card users at the check-outs. The only ones to suffer would be the gaming and alcohol industries. Families would be better off.
Nana Levu, do you seriously imagine that addicts will kick their habits because you make the collection of general goods and services more difficult for their whole family? Ever heard of “barter”, for instance?
Those who have a need to get around this will and their family will be left all the more shamed.
Nana, I think there are laws against employers doing that: see the Truck Acts in each State
Heh. The NSW Corps were condemned for doing that in reverse (paying convicts in rum). I wouldn’t suggest it to some of the casual tutors I’ve worked with though—bunch of jolly pissheads that they are.
Actually, under WorkChoices I think you could cash out half your annual leave for a nice bottle of red
With regards, “staff union attempts to secure better conditions for casuals and limitations on the use of this form of employment”. Ken, I think you’re wrong in saying that “that one of the measures they were pushing most strongly was to make it harder for people like me to get work”. This is an unfair reading of what my union’s trying to do (ObDisc – I’m continuing, but not an academic). The union tries to do two things; increase the casual loading to benefit casuals over and above those of us who aren’t, and limiting casual employment to try to drive institutions into appointing continuing staff. The union has no objection to casuals per se, but does object to casualisation as a systematic way to ensure staff are paid less. This is why the NTEU tries to get options for casuals to become continuing.
A statement that you’re paying $500 per year is odd, given that the maximum fee for a casual to join the NTEU is $110/year if you earn over $20,000.
I agree with Paul. It is a disgrace and while the NTEU might be making up a bit of lost ground this year and last in general the casualisation of the tertiary sector workforce is something they let go through to the keeper over the last decade and more. I had six years of that nonsense and a couple of contracts before accepting that it was a bad joke and moving on. My teaching surveys were always excellent and I enjoyed the work immensely but what galled me was the medieval status culture among so called colleagues some of whom could not bring themselves to address me by my name because, well, I guess it was because I was a casual and contract teacher and therefore not of much significance to them. As for finding other work over summer breaks to tide you over – try telling a warehouse manager that the other 32 weeks of the year that you’re a uni teacher and see how far you get. I also got the sack three years in a row in blue collar “summer jobs” for agitating over issues like OH+S, pay and conditions and generalised arseholery by employers. Clever country indeed.
Susso aside, the prospects faced by the sessionals says to me that there a lot more people wanting academic careers than there are positions for me, hence the Grapes of Wrath employment arrangements.
It’s a pity people don’t work this out before putting in the years of investment in a higher degree.
Or, they could get a job in industry or government, where the pay is a lot better.
But PB @ 18, if their prayers for a miracle cure have been turned down, surely that means they are not the Deserving Poor, and hence can be taken off any form of income support.
Fuck ‘em, I say! Crips who can’t even rustle up a decent miracle.
I’m one casual lecturer who actually enjoys the casual nature of it, but that’s because I also have other sources of income. And I can manage to save enough to tide me over during the fallow times. I also like being able stand back from academic politics, which seem poisonous. In truth, I get offered so many casual hours from so many different unis and TAFEs, that I knock quite a lot back. Of course, this view may change if the casual work drys up. And don’t start me on how terrible TAFSs are for everyone, particularly in Victoria.
Like others, I view the NTEU with suspicion because I haven’t seen anything coming from them which actually supports my interests.
But the whole susso thing is disgusting.
1% of salary was the advice given to me Alister @ 29 – but if I was overcharged, a refund would be very welcome :).
The problem with a stated aim of ‘limiting casual employment to try to drive institutions into appointing continuing staff’ is that one can succeed in the former without achieving the latter, which is exactly what is happening. The limiting of casual employment simply means that any one individual finds it harder to obtain enough casual work to earn a decent living, while the aggregate amount of casual work is unaffected.
For example, the NTEU wants to create an entitlement for casuals to convert to permanent employment if they have had continuous work for more than x years. Only the most naive innocent would imagine that this will create more permanent jobs. All that happens is that management is forced to churn casual work to avoid the new obligation. Thus someone is deliberately not given any work for a semester just to establish a clear break in service. Casual staff are driven to engage in all kinds of dirty tricks to poach work off each other and many permanent academics revel in the patronage that comes with controlling the gift of sessional work.
Not really a climate in which student-centred academic excellence flourishes, but at least it’s efficient, within the contemporary managerialist meaning of that expression.
“many permanent academics revel in the patronage that comes with controlling the gift of sessional work.”
I’m surprised that the patronage isn’t exercised in the form “I’ll give you work if you give me sex”.
Sure, but don’t blame the union for that! Why is it the union’s fault that management are seeking to drive down costs? The problem with the union-bashing in this thread is that there’s nowhere for them to go. The NTEU has tried to engage with casual issues for well over the decade I’ve worked in the sector. In no way has this been a recent thing.
Ken, 1% of salary is for continuing staff. If you were getting $50,000 per year, then you’d be up for $500. Casual rates differ, and they have for longer than I’ve been a member (which is over seven years now). So you can rejoin at your leisure :-)
I hold no position within the NTEU; not as a staffer, not as an elected representative. I’m just a member. But I also run a cost centre in which I employ casuals.
I hope, though, that I’m not derailing the thread, which I’d have to say I don’t understand – why are we singling out casual University staff? One presumes lots of the working poor will be caught in this particularly nasty net…
This is just plain wrong – an example of going off half-cocked without bothering to find out what the government’s plans really are. If you’re on Newstart and you have some kind of work history you will be exempt from quarantining.
As I’ve said at LP at least twice before, single parents will only be asked to show evidence that their kids are attending school and they’ll be exempt.
Under Abbott’s draconian return to the Victorian era, every welfare recipient will be subject to quarantining, which will be horribly expensive and wasteful.
But who needs Tories when our own side spreads disinformation so well?
“Under Abbott’s draconian return to the Victorian era, every welfare recipient will be subject to quarantining, which will be horribly expensive and wasteful.”
So you are quite happy that Labor is setting up the legislation that will enable him to do just that, if god forbid, he manages to get the top job, are you Ginja?
Ken, can you suggest what you think the NTEU bargaining strategy should be?
My impression is that over the last round of bargaining the NTEU has made a conscious decision to bargain around the terms and conditions of their precarious and marginal workers rather than soley concentrate on the terms and conditions of the core (ie, tenured) workforce. This strikes me as worthy of comment, and worthy of comment not just as regards Australian trade unions, but also as regards overseas unions. But if they’ve got it wrong, please suggest how they could get it right
Does anyone else get the feeling that tertiary education policy and intersecting governmental decisions are payback for all those bare passes and “you failed to maintain a credit average so you shall not be proceeding to post-grad” moments in our politicians’ lives?
Though I’m still wondering how RMIT explains one Steve Fielding appearing among the Engineering alumni from 1983. The MBA from Monash is, of course, self explanatory.
Anthony the NTEU, quite properly, represents the interests of its mainstream members, most of whom from my observations have permanent jobs in universities. Permanent workers in all industries have historically perceived casuals as a threat to their interests – often with good reason – and there is no reason to think permanent academics are any different. I don’t see any point in fantasising about what the NTEU’s bargaining strategy ‘should be’ – it’s not my business. Its strategy is what it is.
If I were still a member and it was my business, I would certainly not regard this as an appropriate forum to discuss the issues; we’ve disrupted Paul’s thread quite enough already.
“This is an unfair reading of what my union’s trying to do (ObDisc – I’m continuing, but not an academic).”
Sounds like you’re in the wrong Union to me. (ObDisc – I’m a Clerk).
;^)
(PS I’ve let my emotions get the better of me about the NTEU a couple of times here in the past, and I apologise to my comrades for my intemperate outbursts. I love youse all, even if you do drive me up the wall sometimes.)
d
Ken, my point was that the NTEU is also looking after casual employees and, even more explicitly, fixed-term employees (another growing aspect of university employment, although nobody on this thread has chosen to mention it). But OK, you’re not a member of the NTEU so you reserve the right to criticise their strategy but, quite rightly, not to “fantasize” about what should happen next. Thanks, we can do without your fantasy. But damn it, they get me a pay rise every year or so, so I feel guilty if I take the pay rise and not acknowledge them by way of a membership fee.
Well Anthony the restraints on trade imposed by agreements between the NTEU and universities prevent me negotiating a deal that would be in my interests, and I find attempts to deter universities from hiring fixed term employees a funny way to look after them. Maybe I’m a little sensitive having been told last week that my current fixed term contract is unlikely to be renewed explicitly because of the penalties on fixed term contracts that the NTEU is trying to impose.
Consequently I don’t see any reason to be a member. That’s just the way things are and it’s poor material for a thread on welfare income management.
joe2, I don’t see too much wrong with someone on a single parent’s payment being asked to occasionally provide evidence that they performing one of the basic tasks of raising kids – making sure they attend school. No doubt many parents will find it insulting, but that’s what they’re being paid to do. I think all parents should be asked to explain themselves if their children aren’t attending school. It doesn’t have to be done in a punitive way, but social service agencies should ensure that children receive the basic right of an education. Serious truancy is pretty good indicator that something is going wrong in a child’s life.
The motives for this are pretty decent – so that the Government complies with the Racial Discrimination Act.
The reports coming out of NT aboriginal communities are disturbing. This week there was a report that only 21% of children in the community of Wadeye are attending school four days a week. How on earth did we allow things to get this bad? Children on the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder are usually at a significant educational disadvantage to begin with – they don’t have the luxury of missing out on school. We should be cramming them with as much education as possible to catch up.
Abbott’s plan, on the other hand, is a big waste of money and too intrusive.
…missed an “are” in there somewhere….
Much said but the question not answered, Ginja.
What’s to stop Abbott, or whoever comes next, from using this legislation that Labor has drafted to intrude and make life even more abysmal for the most vulnerable in our community?
joe2,
The ALP is quite good at creating situations the Libs can abuse: workplace agreements, refugee camps, hoop-jumping on welfare, obsessions with tax cuts,sucking up to big business, user pays at universities, etc.,etc., This is nothing new for them. I’m sure other people could think of heaps of examples, if theuy put their minds to it.
Nothing. It’s yet another good reason never to vote for the Coalition.
It’s a novel theory – that one political party should be responsible for the actions of its mortal political foes. The Howard Government turned the screws hard on welfare recipients without much help from the ALP.
I do think it’s a mistake to think you can appease right-wing opinion nowadays. Give an inch and they will always come back for more, pushing things to what were once unthinkable extremes. Keating told trade unionists that his enterprise bargaining changes would put IR beyond the reach of a future Liberal Government. The Libs took changes made under Labor (changes to Newstart, introduction of detention centres) and made them grotesque. However, Tories are going to be as nasty as they can get away with politically – reguardless of what Labor does.
But just maybe Jenny Macklin and others support these changes because they’ll help many children.
…regardless, I should say…..
“But just maybe Jenny Macklin and others support these changes because they’ll help many children.”
Well, clearly, they think they know better than just about all who made submissions before them in a Senate inquiry on the proposed bills. To quote Eva Cox at Crikey…
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/03/16/senators-dont-use-womens-needs-as-an-excuse-for-bad-policy/
(subscriber only, sadly)
It’s absolutely disgraceful that people who are employed in educated skilled positions like lecturers are not paid a living wage. I was one of a number of sessional tutors and lecturers who lined up at Centrelink each fortnight to hand in my forms so that I had income during the semester breaks. It was a searing experience that still rankles more than a decade later. I found sectors of the higher education system were exploitative of their students and their staff.
Actually I don’t see how sessional lecturers can provide effective pastoral care for the students as their position is pretty dire.
Last year I ran into a university group who was camping. Their tutor was employed sessionally and spent term ferrying groups to the location and teaching them how to camp. He was feeling angry and desperate about his prospects as a junior academic and a casual teacher. A clear assessment.
Camping? What course was that in?
“Their tutor was employed sessionally and …teaching them how to camp. He was feeling angry and desperate about his prospects as a junior academic and a casual teacher.”
You never know. If he sticks at it, he might become the Regius Professor of Camping at Oxford. But he’ll to establish himself as a scholar of tents, sleeping bags and primus stoves first.
I think it must be Physical Geography.
When I was at Sydney Uni, I used to sigh when I walked past the boat parked outside the Geography Department Building (was it the Mills Building?). It promised a far more interesting academic life.
Meanwhile, the brains of the Opposition Organ has endorsed the proposed policy.
“In a justified move Tony Abbott this week reversed the Coalition’s rejection of Macklin’s bill.”
Oh yes O.O. @link57
Nothing said that there was a bit of a problem because Income Management was a Tony Abbott idea, in the first place. Coming into line with your own policy ideas is not a bad idea because otherwise people might just notice that you obstruct stuff, just for the sake of it.
Not that I am saying I.M., of a generalised kind, is to be welcomed in any way at all.
Joe2@51: You quoted:
. It is like saying that all Australians support everything our prime minister of the time said. Aboriginal community politics is just as convoluted as that of the LNP so it is always hard to say whether their statements represents a consensus of the whole community, a majority view, the view of the community elite or what they think an inquiry wants to hear.
The problem here is that only compulsory income management directly benefits a limited number of adults and children. Many of these beneficiaries are likely to be in violent relationships where they could expect to receive serious violence if they decided to accept voluntary income management. For the rest of the community compulsory income management is nothing else than an inconvenience, although many may support it because of the benefits to relatives and/or because it is another way of reducing the volume of booze in the community.
The other problem is that there are problems with running a targeted system. Firstly there is the problem of setting the system up in enough shops for it to be workable with mobile people and secondly, “being on the susso line” is a lot more damaging if it really is connected with serious problems. There is also a serious fairness problem if income management is limited to Aborigines and NT residents.
Having said all this it is not clear how many people in Australia are suffering from forms of malnutrition that would benefit from income management.
Perhaps it is worth asking whether there are better ways of dealing with malnutrition, alcohol abuse and domestic violence than a massive income management system that benefits such as small number of people?
All this does is create a ‘spill and fill’ at X minus 2 months. So you have a contract up until x minus two months, then everyone applies for their jobs again which are filled to x minus two months, rinse and repeat. It only really becomes a problem when there is less funding for positions and some people are applying for other people’s jobs because their own have disappeared.
Sorry every one got side tracked about the camping, the course was a teaching specialisation.
The point I was trying to make was that tutors employed on contract are absorbed in getting enough money to live on, getting another contract and really have limited energy to care about their students welfare.
Its unreasonable to expect that people who are badly treated will be able to perform professionally and treat other people well.
Finally having to personally attend your local Centrelink every fortnight to submit an activity statement is demeaning and very stressful if you have to juggle your Centrelink attendance into your teaching schedule especially if you have to travel on public transport.
Philospohically I have a problem with employers who don’t pay their employees a living wage. [Call me old fashioned]
“I have a problem with employers who don’t pay their employees a living wage.”.
These sessional teaching jobs are casual/part time. Like all such jobs, they’re not meant to pay enough to live on.
I know someone who is doing some sessional teaching as a supplement to his full time job (for chrissakes don’t tell the NTEU). His full time employer is supportive.
Sam I have no idea what the source of your authoritative pronouncements is but I’ll be charitable and settle for calling them uninformed. A typical sessional contract calls for giving feedback on and returning 100 assignments to students within two weeks. Even on a normal university scale (which usually under-states the time the work requires), that’s about 50 hours work. Add time for moderation and consultation with the course convenor, answering student “Why haven’t I got my marks yet?” and similar queries, plus associated administrative tasks, and you’re looking at about 70 hours, and this happens three times per course per semester.
One course certainly doesn’t pay an adequate income, unless you fancy living on less than minimum wage, so many sessionals commit to two courses and consequently are looking at having up to 140 hours marking in a two week period, three times a semester. You might call 70 hours a week part-time work but I don’t know many who would share your thinking.
Yes there are plenty of people like your friend who take on sessional work to get a bit of pocket money. Universities are forced to use them and chop up the work into small pcakages because of a chronic shortage of capable, professional academics prepared to accept the arrangements I’ve described. IMHO this is not contributing to a high standard of tertiary education in this country, but AT LEAST IT’S EFFICIENT, which of course is the main consideration.
Ken #63, on top of the figures you mention you need to add the hours spent detecting, documenting and considering cases of suspected plagiarism and cheating, which usually extends the 70 hours to more like 80 hours.
The other point worth mentioning is that in many universities, the 140+ hours of marking in a single fortnight will all be paid in the next fortnightly payroll, meaning it will be taxed at the highest PAYG and HECS/HELP repayment rates, i.e. at effective marginal tax rate of over 50 per cent on the last few hundred dollars earned.
Ken, I’m sure they work very hard during teaching and exam time and are probably underpaid for what they do. But the point of this thread is that there are large chunks of the year when they are not employed. Thus, it is part time work.
Joe2: I’m not in favour of across-the-board income management or even a punitive approach to most of these issues. The hundreds of millions of dollars Abbott is proposing to spend on income management would be better spent helping people get into work in a non-punitive way. I agree with Eva Cox and groups like ACOSS on most issues. But I do think you’ll soon see truancy rates dramatically decline for many children (children who start out with many disadvantages and just can’t afford to fall behind at school). Making sure children get to school is hardly a unreasonable request by the government. Where’s the outrage that less than a fifth of aboriginal children in Wadeye attend school four days a week? That makes my blood boil – that so many have turned a blind eye to this for so long.
And part-time uni lecturers won’t be subject to income management.
“Philosophically I have a problem with employers who don’t pay their employees a living wage. [Call me old fashioned]”
It is for the government to address the issue of casualisation and it’s implication of inadequate every day living funds. After all, they allowed it to happen under the guise of freeing up the workforce. Centrelink just needs to be set up to deal with the new reality.
Ginja, if parents are failing in their duty of care for kids, and individuals work participation is hindered by addictions, it is fine that the government uses whatever bargaining chip they have to bring about a better outcomes.
My objection is best explained by a trip down memory lane. Remember at school when some kid pulled an objectionable stunt that meant everybody was punished till he owned up?
You do not treat everybody the same for the failings of a few. That kind of bullying regime is likely to drive everybody to drink.
Sam your comment @ 62 implied that people do part-time academic work in conjunction with a full time job. My response demonstrated that this was not feasible for professional academics. Trying to score a pedantic point based on semantics totally ignores the substance of the discussion.
It is not part-time work in the sense that the people who do it usually have another, full-time job or could easily get one. Your comments in the thread indicate that you simply disbelieve this, but you are wrong.
Ken,
let me quote from Paul’s post
“casual academic staff are only engaged by the University for 32 weeks of the year”.
This is part time in anyone’s language. I’m not surprised it is insufficient to live on, for many people. If sessional academics aspire to be full time academics while getting paid 32 out of 52 weeks then there is a serious gap between their aspirations and reality. Does the universities, when employing them, tell them that they are full time members of the academic community that makes up the university? I doubt it. They might like to think they are, but it aint so. They are really just like seasonal fruit pickers. It’s ugly, but it’s true.
The last para in my post @62 was an example of someone who teaches sessionally while also earning a “living wage”.
I don’t think thats the only reason universities do it. Some like to get people in from outside who have current industry experience to teach some of their courses. My wife was also one who used to do it for a bit of extra money with the approval of her employer. Used to take a little holiday leave during marking time though.
It sounds to me like people who want to be full time academics need to find research funding to keep them going when not teaching. Is the fundamental problem the lack of this type of funding?
I agee, joe2. As I tried to say, I don’t support wasteful, harsh, across-the-board income management. Clear rules should be combined with sympathy and understanding. But I don’t think it’s asking too much of single parents that they make sure their children get to school. It won’t even be a problem for the vast majority of single parents.
Society should expect a few basic standards from all parents. What about the right of a child to education?
…..before I should have said just over – not under – a fifth of children at Wadeye attend school four days a week.
Goodness me, Sam, whatever makes you think it’s not? Ask any current or former female academic what her experience has been.
at my institution the nteu has indeed managed to do something toward converting some fixed term contracts to continuing – I got an email a few days ago saying that 60 people on contracts will get offer letters this week. Which is fabulous. But it’s only people in research positions, not teaching, which is not valued or highly regarded within universities as has already been pointed out.
The nteu is starting to do some good work, I agree, but I think they need to urgently address the absolute contempt in which teaching is held by almost all tertiary institutions. Unfortunately that contempt is shared by many within the union itself, which isn’t a great help.
Meanwhile back at my institution again, this semester I have heard of four unconnected instances of academics being offered short fixed term contracts, usually to coordinate & teach subjects, at pay rates drastically below the rate specified in the EBA for those duties. I keep thinking things can’t get any worse, and then something like this comes up.
Also, income management is a repulsive notion and I hope it dies in the arse everywhere it’s proposed for and currently administered.
I’ve been observed doing various embarrassing things by students so many times now that I don’t suppose it would bother me much to be spotted in the susso queue. Generally when I’m out and about and see a student it’s usually something like standing around naked in the changing room at the pool, or buying 600 tins of cat food and a two litre bucket of home brand neapolitan ice cream, or hunched over the basin in the ladies at the Mitcham RSL trying to wash spilled red lemonade off of the front of my dress, etc
recipes for cat food, Laura?
Please share :-)
laura,
In what proportion do you mix the cat food and the neopolitan ice cream. And, most importantly, does it taste nice? :)
PC at 74, you missed the irony. Some of the worst offenders in my observation are men who profess the strongest support for feminist ideals.
On the broader question, the complaints about universities’ Scrooge McDuck approach to spending money on casual lecturers would be more convincing if they didn’t come from many of the same people who trenchantly oppose tuition fees in any and all forms. The government should pay, they say. But governments have been screwing down on university funding for 30 years. I think that is long enough to detect a trend.
Oh, right. Apologies. Should have known.
Oh, yes.
Cat food recipe:
1. Buy most expensive cat food
2. tip it into a bowl
3. Watch cat scoff it
4. Enjoy being loved by cat
Good with an icecream chaser.
Alternative cat food recipe:
1. Buy most expensive cat food
2. tip it into a bowl
3. Watch cat sniff at if
4. Attempt to enjoy fish and chips which cat has decided is preferable to most expensive cat food
Requires a couple of bottles of home brewed stout as a chaser.
Cat food recipe:
a) Live in So. Cal. canyon house in rural area traditionally plagued by rodents;
b) Obtain house-cats;
c) Watch in awe as number of house-rodents mysteriously declines;
d). Be at least mildly astounded as the form of feline “tribute” to you (i.e. the numerous severed heads of unlucky rodents) increases;
e). Allow things to continue in a state of mild but semi-impotent unease;
f) Notice with dismay that the cats, having strictly speaking no further business to conduct, have lately been in turn carried away by, well, coyotes;
g) slap own forehead, as in “what did you expect?”
h) flow chart a la Ashbery: if a: you’re annoyed by rodents, buy more cats; if b: you’re indifferent, praise Darwin; if c) it’s just bloody time to move back to West LA, then do that.
For the record, we chose c).
– j_p_z, who likes cats conditionally, but only in their natural habitats (and don’t ask me about what I saw in rural Nevada…)
Cats are an imported pest who kill native fauna.
While that’s true, Sam, they’re awfully cute and they also kill mice, rats and (in the case of my son’s cat Mr Saveloy) rabbits.
So it’s not all bad.
Cat food recipe.
Ran out of cat food. Slice and dice some really red tomatoes. Put in cat food bowl. Cat thinks they’re meat, squaffs them down, wants more.
One is never able to have tomatoes in salad in peace again.
So are people, and we are far less beautiful and lovable than cats.
I’d be careful there if I were you, Sam; there are a lot of ailurophiles in these parts and most of us are responsible pet owners who know perfectly well how to keep the moggies away from the Eastern Barred Bandicoot and all its fragile ilk.
Or were you being ironic again?
(Sigh), ironic again.
While I prefer dogs, I have had cats.
Not just that, Catwoman is my favourite Batman villain.
But I did not like Cats.
That’s interesting about the tomatoes, Paul.
Mr Snuggles has developed a liking for them in his dotage – he demands the remnants of my grilled-with-sumac-on-top breakfast tomatoes all the time. I don’t think it’s just the accompanying bacon fat and egg yolk.
And yes, I am fat, before anyone asks.
I think my cats would love some ice cream topping with their cat food!
And just for the cat owners who aren’t already aware, whilst fully ripe tomatoes are ok, unripe ones and any other part of the tomato plant are quite poisonous to cats. Luckily cats seem to know that.
David @ 90 – my cats have been quite good at rejecting bits of food they don’t like. Feed them left over stew and I end up with small pile of peas in their bowl with not a bit of gravy left on them.
OT it’s quite likely that income quarantining will mean that people won’t be able to use their smart card to buy cat food or ice cream, which is another reaon why it’s a deplorable idea.
Paul @ 92 – happy to be corrected if its not the case, but that doesn’t currently seem to be the case. Rather than restricting certain types of food, clothing etc its about limiting spending on alcohol, cigarettes, pornography etc. Some details here.
This thread needs to get back on track.
Will the susso paid to sessional academics allow them to buy cat food for personal use?
Chris #93, it looks like you’re right, at least for now. The problem is that once the principle of income management and its associated paternalism is set in place, the temptation is there for paternalist policymakers to want to extend the proscription on spending to other items such as chocolate, sweets, fast food, etc., in the supposed interests of those whose income is being managed.
Sorry, Sam; unless you’re someone familiar who has a new nom de blog, I don’t ‘know’ you well enough to be able to discern irony in brief deadpan statements. Irony is contextual and all that.
PC,
NWF
I want to know too, Sam. Will penurious academics be permitted to buy the cat food they require to keep body and soul together?