Around 2,000 members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of Sydney walked off the job on Wednesday, demanding stronger protections around the use of artificial intelligence, fairer workloads, and job security. The 24-hour strike follows stalled enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) negotiations and comes after an internal survey found that in the faculty of arts and social sciences, 0% of staff agreed with the statement: “I trust the university of Sydney to act in the best interests of staff, students and the broader community”.
Picket lines and class disruptions
From 7am, some 500 staff were stationed at picket lines at each of the inner Sydney campus entrances, armed with flags, banners and megaphones. The University of Sydney advised students that “almost all” scheduled classes would move online as a result of the strike, while others were rescheduled or cancelled.
Peter Chen, branch president of the NTEU at Sydney University, said management had rebuffed the union “at every opportunity” to enforce appropriate protections around the use of AI. “Higher education is the canary in the coal mine,” he said. “Where we go on AI … will travel through the rest of the economy.”
Union demands and management response
NSW division secretary of the NTEU, Vince Caughley, said Sydney University’s own green paper advised AI was the most “fundamental transformation” education had seen, pointing to AI chatbots that were already being used to help teach online-only classes at other universities. “We are asking for best practice, we are asking for due diligence,” he said. “Not their own commercialisation aims and certainly not the interest of venture capital.”
The union is confident it will reach an agreement with management within the year but has concerns over the lack of senior leadership at the table, including the provost, Prof. Annamarie Jagose. The last bargaining process represented the longest running industrial action at an Australian university, and the prospect of future strikes remains active.
A spokesperson for Sydney University said it was “continuing to engage” with the union and maintained industrial action was “premature”. “We agree using AI ethically requires a human-centred approach, and our … principles and guardrails that govern use have been developed in consultation with our community,” they said. “We support many of the objectives of the unions’ claims, but believe it’s more appropriate to implement many of these through relevant policies, instead of in the Enterprise Agreement.”
Broader concerns and solidarity
There are broader concerns, some interlinked and widespread in the sector, including growing class sizes, reduced student satisfaction, and a new proposal for teaching-only roles with no research component or scope for future growth. Prof. Laura Shepherd in the school of social and political sciences is part of the bargaining team and said students often sacrificed a “huge amount” to come to the university, including spending $50k on degrees. “They come here … for quality and access to research leaders,” she said. “I think we should be very ashamed if we allow anything in the enterprise agreement that threatens that.”
The University of Sydney’s NTEU branch is the largest in Australia, and the university has long been a hotbed for activism. As management approaches its fifth month of bargaining, it is also grappling with continued opposition to its response to Gaza and restrictions on protest. New restrictions were brought in as a result of the university’s pro-Palestine encampment in 2024, which received intense scrutiny during this year’s royal commission. On Wednesday, keffiyehs and pro-Palestine banners stood out among purple NTEU flags and signage.
The Student Representative Council was also striking in solidarity with staff and picketing online classes. Its education officer, Dana Kafina, said the university’s “draconian” protest restrictions were a motivation. “In the wake of … suppressions of free speech and activism, and some of the lowest rates of student and graduate satisfaction in the country — we have had enough,” she said.
Despite the presence of campus security and police, the picket lines had a jovial atmosphere, with some blasting music on speakers, others banging drums and chanting. Prof. of geography Kurt Iveson was among them, running a quiz on his megaphone as students sold baked goods to raise funds for lost income of strikers. He has been with the university for 20 years and wants “meaningful protections” that didn’t outlaw AI but ensured “the tech is serving our purpose, rather than us serving the tech”. “All of us on the picket line today are here because we care so much about the education and research we do,” he said.
