Silencing university workers’ voices: the use of non-union ballots in enterprise bargaining at Australian universities, 2022–2023

Purpose Borrowing the concept of depoliticisation from O’Brien (2015), Giroux (2002, 2014) and others to unpack the relationship between the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), the state and university management, my analysis draws on news coverage and other primary artefacts, including Fair Work case decisions, to document the fight to secure new enterprise agreements (EAs) at these seven universities, unveiling a fundamental power imbalance. Design/methodology/approach This paper documents the industrial campaigns of the NTEU at universities in the bargaining period spanning 2022–2023. Specifically, it examines the campaigns of seven Australian universities at which management attempted to thwart and circumvent the good faith bargaining practice undermining enterprise bargaining by putting a non-union ballot to its workers. It situates the events of this period through a critical reflection of the history of industrial action by workers within the sector. I chart the history of trade unionism in Australia, specifically looking at enterprise bargaining (EB). This allows me to contextualise the use of non-union ballots by these universities, arguing that this move is symbolic of greater systemic problems for university workers. Findings Management's crafting of the bargaining narrative projected a false message of shared interest and just process. While the power to dictate the terms of workers' conditions and control the public narrative resides disproportionately with management, universities' social license has been lost by aggressive anti-worker actions such as these efforts to quash worker consultation and silence negotiations. The erosion of civic literacy follows decades of neoliberal attacks on unions and the collusion of monopolistic corporate media helps to make sense of this power chasm. Such conditions make genuine dialogue in Freirean terms almost impossible, with oppression of the university workforce the apparent objective illustrated by this recent history. Originality/value This article documents the bargaining process used by Australian universities and provides rare personal insight into the power imbalance inherent in enterprise bargaining in the industrial context. The author notes an autoethnographic and reflexive positionality that invokes the right of intellectual and academic freedom to critically discuss issues in both the higher education sector and insitution at which she is currently employed.