Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji 2003 1 (5)

BECOMING ‘UNIONATE’? FROM STAFF
ASSOCIATION TO NATIONAL UNION:
THE ‘INDUSTRIALISATION’ OF
UNIVERSITY STAFF 1983–1993
JOHN O’BRIEN

T

his paper traces the history of the major unions that covered Australian academic
staff––from the registration of the Federation of Australian University Staff and
the Union of Australian College Academics in the federal industrial jurisdiction in the
mid-1980s to the formation of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) as an
‘industry’ union incorporating general staff in 1983. It builds on work done on the
collective organisation of academic staff from 1949 to 1983. The paper discusses the
notion of ‘unionateness’ and argues that the emergence of the NTEU is a product
of changes in state policy, both in terms of industrial relations and in the structural
adjustment of higher education. It contests the view that its emergence is a product of
simplistic notion of the ‘industrialisation’ of the higher education sector.

INTRODUCTION
This paper is an account of the collective organisation of academic staff in the

Australian higher education sector––the earlier instalment of which ended in 1983
when the High Court overturned the State School Teachers’ decision of
1929 and opened the way for teachers and university staff to gain access to the
federal industrial relations jurisdiction. It was argued that the formal industrial
regulation of academic staff begun at least in the 1950s, but many university staff,
particularly in the pre-1987 universities, did not see themselves as employees.1
The present paper then maps the narrowing of the gap between that consciousness and the reality of ‘industrialised’ life. This process is discussed in relation
to the registration of organisations representing college and university staff; the
response of those organisations to the ‘unified national system’; their experience
as part of the federal industrial relations system and the processes leading to the
formation of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). The paper is
based on an examination of the archives of the two principal academic unions,
key policy documents and interviews with leading participants in these
processes.

School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour, University of New South Wales.
Email: john.obrien@unsw.edu.au

THE JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, VOL. 45, NO. 1, MARCH 2003, 35–47

36

FEDERAL

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

March 2003

REGISTRATION

By early 1987, three organisations representing academic staff had been registered in the federal industrial relations jurisdiction: the Federation of Australian
University Staff Associations (FAUSA); the Union of Australian College
Academics (UACA) and the Australian Teachers’ Union (ATU). The first two
represented staff in universities and colleges respectively. The ATU had significant coverage of the college sector in New South Wales and some residual coverage of university academics. Registration enabled the three organisations to
use the federal Industrial Relations Commission for the purposes of seeking wage
adjustments and regulating other aspects of the working conditions of academics.

Both the UACA and ATU were well versed in using state industrial jurisdictions
to protect working conditions, while FAUSA had little experience in actively
using these jurisdictions. In New South Wales, however, university staff formed
a state-registered union. For most members of the three organisations, the
reality of industrial regulation probably only had any great significance when
salary increases were being sought. Indeed, FAUSA members were told that
federal registration was simply a defensive action to preserve university
academics being ‘poached’ by organisations covering professional engineers
and salaried medical practitioners.2 For the UACA, federal registration provided
an opportunity for its state branches to convert state-based arrangements into
federal awards, and to use the federal jurisdiction as a defence against hostile state
governments.3 While federal registration opened up opportunities that had been
hitherto unavailable to the academic unions, for FAUSA, at least, there was a
view that its method of work would not change fundamentally. Federal registration reinforced UACA’s ‘unionate’ consciousness; for FAUSA, formal registered status was uncharted territory for most of its membership and some of its
leadership. It was not the changed industrial status of the academic unions that
provided the immediate challenge; rather, it was the emerging changes in the
structure of the higher education system itself.
Efficiency and effectiveness in higher education
In 1985, the federal Labor government established an enquiry into the efficiency
and effectiveness of the Australian higher education system. The report of the

enquiry made a number of significant recommendations concerning the employment conditions of academic staff. It recommended that a review of the terms
and conditions of academic staff be undertaken as the basis for a ‘general
agreement on academic staffing arrangements between institutions, staff associations and the Commonwealth government . . .’4 At no time; however, did it
suggest that the federal industrial jurisdiction was the appropriate place for
the determination of employment conditions in the sector. The report, however,
did not recommend the dissolution of the binary divide between universities
and colleges of advanced education that had become increasingly under
challenge.5

DISSOLVING

BINARY DIVIDE

Despite the report’s endorsement of the binary divide, the system was threatened by actions taken by state governments. In 1986, the government of Western

U N I V E R S I T Y S TA F F : B E C O M I N G ‘U N I O N AT E ’?

37

Australia redesignated the Western Australian Institute of Technology as a

university. This decision placed the UACA and FAUSA on a collision course over
the coverage of academic staff. As a college of advanced education there was a
long-standing constituent staff association affiliated to the Federal Council of
Academics (FCA––the unregistered identity of UACA). FAUSA’s rules enabled
it to represent academic staff in all universities. FAUSA gained federal registration
in December 1986 while UACA was not registered until February 1987. During
that ‘window of opportunity’ FAUSA served a log of claims on the new Curtin
University of Technology, seeking to have academic salary scales at the institution
regulated in a federal industrial award. The problem was that FAUSA had
neither members nor a branch infrastructure at the institution. It sought to recruit
members, but with limited success.6 Most academics stayed with FCA/UACA.
The Curtin Academic Staff Association argued that FAUSA and FCA/UACA
should amalgamate.7 The Staff Association regarded FAUSA’s response on this
issue as equivocal.8 The administration of Curtin University chose to deal with
FAUSA rather than the staff association.9 UACA sought to have Curtin
academic staff included in its coverage rules. This was refused initially by the
industrial registrar, but subsequently granted by the Commission in July 1987.10
The vice chancellors’ industrial body, the Australian Universities Industrial
Association, appealed against the decision. It was upheld by a full bench in October
1988.11 In the meantime, UACA and FAUSA agreed to share coverage at Curtin

University, with FAUSA agreeing not to recruit existing UACA members on the
campus.12 The general secretary of UACA, Grahame McCulloch, proclaimed this
decision as paving the way for amalgamation between UACA and FAUSA.13

‘UNIFIED

NATIONAL SYSTEM’ OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The appointment of JS Dawkins as Minister for Education in 1988, however,
presented a much greater challenge to the academic unions. The Green Paper on
higher education issued in December 1987 and the subsequent White Paper in
July 1989 set out proposals for fundamental changes in the organisation and
funding of universities and significant changes in the working conditions of
university staff. The two principal academic unions had to decide how best to
respond to these changes. For FAUSA, the emergence of the unified national
system and the amalgamation of institutions designed to facilitate that process,
threatened to dilute the distinctiveness of research-based university work.
Nevertheless, FAUSA had uncontested industrial coverage of academic staff in
all institutions designated as ‘universities’. While UACA had been able to maintain its coverage at Curtin University, its future in a unified system was not secure
in the long term. Moreover, UACA could see benefits for its members in the

unified system. They could have access to the same salary scales as their
university counterparts, as well as the opportunity to share in the research
funds hitherto allocated to universities. There was a strong incentive for UACA
to amalgamate with FAUSA, particularly after the government set a minimum
10 000 membership for continued registration within the federal jurisdiction.
The emerging issue was addressed by FAUSA at its council meeting in February
1987. The discussion took place in the knowledge that UACA had already voted
at its September 1986 annual general meeting to seek amalgamation with

38

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

March 2003

FAUSA. The FAUSA executive thought that the organisation had three

options: reject amalgamation altogether; move for it immediately; or initiate a
widespread discussion within its membership.14 A considerable diversity of
views about amalgamation was apparent in the meeting. The executive and staff
concentrated on the industrial aspects of relations between the unions, while
council members were more concerned with the implications of the dissolution
of the binary division. One member expressed concern about the inferior qualifications of college staff. It was acknowledged, he said, ‘that persons who obtained
high level appointments in colleges would not get a tutorial appointment in
universities’.15 Another member predicted a significant loss of membership at
his university if amalgamation took place.16 Other members, however, argued
that the binary divide was breaking down; some institutes of technology were
being upgraded to university status and ‘traditional universities’ would be left
behind these institutions in the quest for funds.17 An executive member argued
that the binary divide was not the main issue, rather, it was the existence of two
federal unions covering academics. In the current environment, FAUSA was in
a strong position: UACA was ‘shrinking’ and there was the ‘snob appeal’ of
belonging to FAUSA.18 At its August 1987 council meeting, FAUSA endorsed
the amalgamation concept. At its 1988 council meeting, it endorsed a structure
for an amalgamated union and instructed the executive to draw up a set of rules
for the new organisation that would be subject to the endorsement of two-thirds
of all the branches.19 While these issues remained unresolved, the unions had to

respond to the plans for a unified system of higher education––both in policy
and industrial terms.

POLICY

RESPONSE:

‘THINKING AHEAD’

The unions crafted a carefully worded document designed to be critical of some
of the government’s proposals, while not rejecting its basic assumptions. Thinking
Ahead defended the multiplicity of functions of higher education including
training, certification, research, advice and critical public comment within a
framework of the ‘creation and transmission of knowledge’. The role of social
critic and the vocational and utilitarian roles were said to be parts of an inseparable whole. The unions argued that economic and social innovation, with direct
utility to society, was often the product of general and abstract thought that may
have seemed ‘far fetched’ at the time its formulation.20 The objection to the
Green Paper then was not to its instrumentalism per se, but the narrowness of its
instrumentalism. The unions argued that the socially critical role of universities
was a superior form of instrumentalism to that espoused by the government. In

doing so, the unions were attempting to turn the government’s assumptions on
their head, in order to reassert a less overtly instrumental conception of higher
education.21
In formulating the response in this manner, the unions were implicitly
accepting the reality of the shift in character of the system. FAUSA represented
members who had enjoyed a funding advantage for research purposes. It was
necessary, therefore, to assert the value of the preservation of basic research in
the new system. UACA had no difficulty in signing on to that agenda. On the

U N I V E R S I T Y S TA F F : B E C O M I N G ‘U N I O N AT E ’?

39

other hand, it could not be a party to an all-out assault on vocationally-oriented
instrumentalism when most of its members worked in such institutions. The
claim that general and social critical education and pure research constituted a
superior form of instrumentalism enabled the differing interests of the members
of the two organisations to coexist, if not be entirely reconciled. Indeed, the
subsequent White Paper on higher education claimed that the objections of the
academic unions were more about matters of ‘priority and balance’ rather than

fundamental disagreement with the government’s assumptions and objectives.22

STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT
THE ‘SECOND TIER’

OF UNIVERSITY EMPLOYMENT:

One of the crucial aspects of the Dawkins agenda was to bring the employment
conditions of university staff into the mainstream of industrial regulation. This
was achieved through the application of the broader structural adjustment agenda
of the government to university employment. This was to be achieved through
the mechanisms of the ‘second tier’ and structural efficiency processes of the
Australian Industrial Relations Commission which had themselves emerged from
the Accord processes of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and
the Labor government. These processes became the means whereby the government could promote the changes in the nature of university employment.23
Moreover, the ACTU thought that academics could not stand aloof from the
structural adjustment of the education and training sector.24
For the two principal academic unions, this process presented somewhat
different challenges. For FAUSA, it was important to preserve the centrality
of the research and general education said to be characteristic of university life.
For UACA, the task was to ensure that college academic staff members were
not submerged by that culture as many college staff members were being drawn
into amalgamations with ‘traditional’ universities,25 in some cases amidst considerable controversy.26 For FAUSA, moreover, these processes represented the
first significant regulation of employment conditions of university staff, whereas
for UACA such regulation was a common reality for much of its membership.
For many FAUSA members, this presented a threat to their conditions, rather
than a means of protecting them.27 For university employers, it was an opportunity to embed in university employment conditions a greater measure of
managerial authority. These processes represented the first system-wide regulation of university employment, whereas for many other sectors, these processes
represented a significant reduction of regulation by the state and an enhanced
regulation of working conditions by market forces and managerial authority.28
The FAUSA leadership was placed in a difficult position. It made an early
decision to support the concept of unified salary structure. It was thought that
amalgamation between the two national academic unions would occur eventually. To maintain two separate structures would have caused considerable difficulty in a merged organisation. This approach was not always welcome among
parts of the FAUSA membership, particularly where institutional amalgamations
were being resisted. Some of the strongest opposition to these changes came from
branches that regarded themselves as having a radical approach to society and

40

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

March 2003

politics in general.29 On the other hand, UACA was strongly committed to the
combined salary scale.
Although academics received a second tier wage adjustment in June 1988, the
negotiations over changes in working conditions continued into 1989 and involved
two separate rounds of arbitrated proceedings. At the end of this process, redundancy and dismissal procedures were introduced across the system, as well as
processes to assess staff performance, and some compensatory staff development
programs. For some members in the traditional university sector these, developments undermined the notion of academic tenure and, as such, constituted a threat
to academic freedom.30 The leadership of the unions, however, argued that regulation of the processes leading to the declaration of unsatisfactory performance
and eventual dismissal, constituted a protection of employment conditions.31 The
feeling of betrayal on the part of some members had been compounded by the
intervention of the Commonwealth in its capacity as ‘paymaster’ supporting
the employers’ agenda. This, in their view, demonstrated the malevolence of
the government amidst the difficult process of restructuring the sector.32 The
four per cent wage adjustment was regarded as insufficient recompense for the
significant trade-offs that had been made by the unions. FAUSA, in particular,
had a problem of politically managing significant sections of its membership.33
There were differences in the industrial approach taken by the two unions.
FAUSA relied on political intervention and cogent argument rather than industrial action. This partly reflected tradition within the organisation as well as its
decentralised structure. FAUSA still largely operated as a federation of staff
associations whose members placed great store on their operational autonomy.
This was suitable when the activities of the associations were largely confined to
representing individual members of their institutions. It was not a structure conducive to mobilisation on a national scale. UACA had developed in a different
way that reflected its location within the college sector. State governments
exercised close supervision over colleges. As a consequence, UACA developed a
state-based structure, at least in the larger states, that was more accustomed to
confronting external bodies that exercised considerable influence over employment conditions in colleges. Nevertheless, there was no tradition of mobilisation
of FCA members on a national basis. The decision of UACA to call nation-wide
stop meetings of its members (together with college-based members of the ATU
in NSW) in October 1988 was an indication that there was greater willingness
to use the tactics of ‘real’ unions: it did not, however, constitute the adoption of
militancy that characterised school teachers in the 1960s and 1970s. For the time
being, however, FCA/UACA was more ‘unionate’ than FAUSA.

STRUCTURAL

ADJUSTMENT OF UNIVERSITY EMPLOYMENT:
RESTRUCTURING

AWARD

The second tier episode received a mixed reception in the trade union movement. Many unions thought that they had been forced to trade conditions in
exchange for a wage increase. The structural efficiency principle adopted by
the Industrial Relations Commission in 1988 was an attempt to meet these
objections without necessarily abandoning the cost cutting approach to

U N I V E R S I T Y S TA F F : B E C O M I N G ‘U N I O N AT E ’?

41

enhancing efficiency. The effect of this general direction in workplace reform
represented for many unions, especially the weaker ones, a lessening of the
external regulation and the operation of flexibility in the workplace that was
likely to increase managerial prerogative.34 In the university sector, however, a
different model emerged. Award restructuring became a means of regulating
academic work in a way that had not been possible on a national basis before the
availability of the federal industrial jurisdiction. The ‘positive’ side of the award
restructuring for many unions was that they were able to use the discourse of
multi-skilling and training required to achieve that objective, to argue for a model
of work flexibility that would benefit workers. Academic work was already
multi-skilled and it required the exercise of a significant degree of autonomy for
those carrying out the work. Thus, the task for the academic unions was not to
enhance multi-skilling as such, but to regulate it such a way as to provide a career
structure that incorporated the differing, but overlapping, skills of the university
and college academics. For employers, on the other hand, there was a somewhat
more contradictory task. Vice chancellors wanted to reinforce their prerogative
to discipline, redeploy and dismiss staff. This could be achieved through national
regulation of academic work. On the other hand, it wanted those regulations to
be sufficiently flexible to allow the maximum degree of movement at the institutional level. The discourse of collegiality was mobilised to resist the intensive
regulation of academic work.35 More concretely, vice chancellors resisted, for
instance, tighter regulation of the proportion of employees that could be employed
on a casual basis.36
Not all differences were between the employers and unions. There were
different approaches by the two unions to the creation of a combined classification system. All parties agreed to a five level classification structure ranging
from the bottom of the structure (level A) to the top (level E). The unions wanted
level A to be the beginning of a career structure. While the employers did not
claim that the level A position would often be the first step to an academic career,
it resisted the formalisation of that principle in the structure. Eventually, it was
agreed that about 30 per cent of people occupying those positions would have
continuing appointments. In contrast, there was serious disagreement between
the unions about the nomenclature of the new classifications. UACA wanted the
level A position to be called ‘lecturer’. This reflected the position in the former
college structure where those at the bottom were referred to as lecturers, although
differentiated as lecturers 1, 2 and 3.37 FAUSA, however, favoured the nomenclature of ‘associate lecturer’.
The other party in the negotiations was the federal government both in its
role as ‘paymaster’ and policy driver of the structural adjustment of the education
and training sector. It tended to put pressure on both sides to accept parts of
its agenda. The government was credited with persuading the employers’ acceptance of the position classification standards agreed by the unions, while at
the same time supporting the vice chancellors in their pursuit of a system of
performance appraisal for academics.38 Nevertheless, there was a perception
among the employers that the government was more in tune with the unions’
position, particularly when a UACA industrial officer was appointed by Dawkins

42

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

March 2003

to act as a consultant on award restructuring. This apparent advantage, however,
was not sufficient to prevent the unions taking industrial action in support of
outstanding claims in October 1990. National stop work meetings were held and
decisions were taken to place bans on the transmission of final results in universities.39 The purpose of this action was twofold: to demonstrate to the government that academics were capable of taking and sustaining industrial action, while
putting pressure on the employers to take a more acceptable position on
matters in dispute.
The action was historic. It was the first time that academics from both higher
education sectors took industrial action in concert. For FAUSA, this was a significant development and it focussed on it in its subsequent submissions to the
Industrial Relations Commission.40 For UACA and ATU members, the action
was not novel, but it was stronger with the participation of members of the largest
academic union. Nevertheless, behind this united front were some significant
tactical differences. To the FAUSA leadership, industrial action should only
take place after a long period of build up among the membership designed to
generate widespread support when it did take place. In that context, the unions
were more likely to gain maximum advantage in the Commission.41 On the
other hand, the UACA leadership, that saw itself as leading a more industrially
disciplined organisation.42 FAUSA thought UACA was more inclined to take
symbolic action and then cut a deal with the employers. UACA had less faith in
the Commission to produce an acceptable outcome.43 For UACA, this different
approach was a reflection of its being an ‘explicitly industrial’ organisation. Most
of the debates within UACA were tactical, whereas FAUSA was still debating
whether it should act like a union.44 For the FAUSA leadership, however, the
FAUSA model of extensive debate about both policy and tactics was vital in
the process of engendering support among its membership.45

CRAFT

UNION OR INDUSTRY UNION?

The redesignation of institutes of technology in the mid-1980s and subsequent
emergence of the unified national system of higher education rendered an amalgamation between the two academic unions as almost inevitable. It took, however,
nearly five years for it to occur and when it did, it was in a form that had not
been envisaged in 1987. What were the issues at stake and what do they tell us
about the issue of ‘unionateness’?
Union amalgamations involve organisational issues that may not be related
directly to the particular styles or cultures of organisations. They include issues
such as the relative power of the organisations in the new entity, the distribution
of paid offices (particularly within the leadership) and the relative power of the
central and peripheral entities within the new organisation. FAUSA clearly had
an advantage. It had coverage rules that included all academic staff in universities, whereas UACA’s rules largely confined it to the disappearing college
sector. FAUSA consisted of a structure of institution-based branches with a
tradition of strong autonomy, and a national office whose coordination role
was enhanced by the registration of the organisation within the federal industrial jurisdiction. UACA had institutional branches and a national office, but it

U N I V E R S I T Y S TA F F : B E C O M I N G ‘U N I O N AT E ’?

43

had also some strong state level branches. The Victorian members of the UACA
constituted 45 per cent of the total UACA membership. The FAUSA stronghold was in NSW (with about 40 per cent of the membership), but it was
complicated by the fact that it took the form of a state-registered union that
incorporated both FAUSA and UACA members. Nevertheless, the stateregistered union that became the Academics Union of NSW, represented a
model that could be duplicated at the federal level thus facilitating FAUSA
domination of the new entity.
After some argument, it was agreed that FAUSA would fill the office of
President of the organisation at the federal level, while the General Secretary’s
position would be filled by UACA. It was also agreed that state divisions would
be formed with important coordination roles. The full-time state secretaries in
Victoria and South Australia would remain and be filled by the existing UACA
state secretaries, at least in the first instance. This was not a problem in Victoria
where UACA was numerically stronger than FAUSA, but in South Australia it
emerged as a significant issue. The staff associations at the University of Adelaide
and Flinders University were prepared to accept the incumbent UACA secretary as state secretary as long as the focus of power and organisation remained
at the branch level. An overall membership fee that remained low and the use of
only a small proportion of the fees for operating a state office would ensure this
arrangement.46 On the other hand, the UACA state secretary wished to retain
his leading role in the state organisation.47
These arguments about structure took place initially in the context of an
amalgamation model involving the two academic unions. In late 1989, however,
McCulloch produced a model that involved general staff membership in the
union. It was in part, designed to outmanoeuvre FAUSA.48 Discussions had taken
place between the UACA leadership and the leadership of a state-registered union
covering general staff; the Victorian Colleges and Universities Staff Association
(VCUSA). VCUSA had an established relationship with the state body of UACA;
the Council of Academic Staff. VCUSA was concerned about its long-term future,
as were many small unions.49 It needed partners with existing federal registration.
Both UACA and FAUSA were federally registered organisations, but general staff
in colleges and universities outside Victoria were covered by a variety of organisations, principally state-based public service and health sector unions. In the
ACT, however, there was a federally registered union with about 130 members
covering senior general staff at the Australian National University (ANU): the
ANU Administrative and Allied Officers Association (ANUAAOA). It had no
future as a registered organisation within the federal jurisdiction and did not want
to be absorbed into the principal union covering general staff at ANU; the Health
Services Union of Australia. Amalgamating with the two academic unions and a
much larger general staff specialist union in another state was the ideal solution
for the ANUAAOA.50 It was also the optimal solution for UACA. The combined
membership of UACA, VCUSA and ANUAAOA of about 13 000 members would
be sufficient to counter balance the membership of FAUSA with about 9000
members.51 The model, moreover, had the support of the ACTU.52 After considerable argument, and some reluctance from sections of the FAUSA, this

44

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

March 2003

was the model that was presented to the members of the amalgamating parties
in 1993.
This model was largely acceptable to the UACA membership and the members
of the various general staff unions, but there was significant opposition in parts
of the FAUSA membership. The FAUSA leadership in South Australia organised a campaign against the industry model. Most of the general staff members
would be located in Victoria. This, they claimed, would lead to ongoing disputes
about coverage of general staff outside that state. Moreover, the financial arrangements of the new union would give too many resources to the state divisions and
too little to branches.53 Although the FAUSA leadership supported the amalgamation, key figures such as General Secretary, Di Zetlin, declined to repudiate
its dissident members, arguing that they would need to be reconciled to the new
union.54 Opponents of the amalgamation who were interviewed by the author
denied that they were attempting to invoke snobbery among the FAUSA rank
and file who might be uncomfortable being in the same organisation as general
staff.55 On the other hand, supporters of the amalgamation among both the UACA
and FAUSA leaderships argued that this was an important underlying motivation.56 Whatever the rationalisation, there seemed to be a fundamental conflict
about the nature of unionism in the sector. The UACA model (with considerable support among FAUSA activists in NSW) looked more like a union traditionally understood: a strong central strategic direction and leadership, coupled with
a capacity to mobilise members when required. The FAUSA model, as expressed
in South Australia, placed considerable emphasis on branch autonomy and an
individual grievance or service model of unionism, and much less emphasis on
the industrial mobilisation of members. It was thought that the presence of
general staff in the union would strengthen the former model at the expense
of the latter. The reservations within FAUSA are reflected in the final vote in
favour of amalgamation. While over 95 per cent of UACA and ANUAAOA
members supported the proposition, only about 75 per cent of FAUSA
members did so.57 The tensions between local autonomy and central leadership
remain within the NTEU today.

CONCLUSION
Industrial relations and union consciousness did not begin with the registration
of UACA and FAUSA within the federal industrial jurisdiction. Nevertheless,
the shifts of state policy regarding the structure of higher education moved the
unions in a direction whereby they had little choice to become more union conscious or more ‘unionate’. The driving force behind the changes in the nature
of academic and subsequently university unionism was UACA and its General
Secretary, Grahame McCulloch. He led an organisation whose members had more
experience with conflicting relations with institutional managements and closer
supervision by state authorities. The intervention of the state both in the industrial and in the policy arenas moved the more cautious FAUSA members closer
to a model of collective organisation more familiar to college academic staff
and to many general staff. It was not so much that higher education became an
‘industry’ through the agency of the industrial relations system, but that the

U N I V E R S I T Y S TA F F : B E C O M I N G ‘U N I O N AT E ’?

45

structure of the sector changed. There was, however, no inevitability about the
nature of the organisation that emerged in the form of the NTEU. Although
the ACTU and the federal provided the discourse of industry unionism, it did
not follow that such a model would emerge in the higher education sector. The
coincidence of federal registration and the restructuring of the sector provided
an opportunity for more extensive industrial regulation of work in universities,
while the phase of managed decentralism of the industrial relations system was
the beginning of the decline of detailed state regulation of employment conditions
in many other sectors. It can be said that the NTEU is more ‘unionate’ that any
one of its parts, but it remains a product of that mixture of organisational structures and cultures. The contemporary NTEU incorporates the FAUSA tradition of relative branch autonomy with the UACA/ACUSA style of centralised
strategic direction and membership mobilisation. Indeed, to conclude that any
organisation achieves precise ‘unionate’ status is to deny the ever-emergent nature
of unionism. Just as the working class may continue to be made, so are unions.
University staff were not so much ‘industrialised’, but the nature of the industry
itself changed. Industrial relations existed long before the institution of the
unified higher education sector, but the changes in the late 1980s intensified the
industrial consciousness of university staff. The NTEU in its emerging form is
primarily a product of those changes, but it is not in itself a manifestation of the
coming of ‘industrial relations’ to the sector.

NOTES
1. O’Brien, J (1993)The collective organisation of Australian academic staff 1949 – 1983. The
Journal of Industrial Relations 35(2), 195–220.
2. Interviews with Ralph Hall, former President of FAUSA, February 2000; Di Zetlin, former
General Secretary FAUSA, former President NTEU, October 2000; Rod Crewther, University
of Adelaide branch, FAUSA and NTEU and Cathy Harrington former Field Officer FAUSA
and South Australian Division Industrial Officer, July 2000.
3. Interview with Grahame McCulloch, former General Secretary, FCA/UACA, General
Secretary, NTEU, December 1999.
4. ibid, 22.
5. ibid, 195–9.
6. FAUSA, Memorandum to Executive from Philip Elkins, Re: Award Coverage of Curtin
University of Technology, 27 April 1987; FAUSA, Curtin University - Implications, confidential
memo to Executive and Staff, of FAUSA from LB Wallis, General Secretary, 11 February, 1987;
FAUSA, letter to academic staff members, Curtin University of Technology, 27 February, 1987,
NTEU archives.
7. FCA and Academic Staff Association of the Western Australian Institute of Technology,
Demarcation Dispute: The Official FCA and ASA View, nd but 1987; Academic Staff Association
of the Western Australian Institute of Technology, nd but 1987, Why you should not join
AAUS/FAUSA. Letter to members. NTEU archives
8. Interview with McCulloch.
9. Curtin University of Technology 1987, Academic Staff Position, Council – 29 July 1987.
10. ACAC [Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission], s.88F application, Union of
Australian College Academics, C No. of 2159 of 1987, Decision, Print HO289.
11. ACAC, s.35 appeal against order, Australian Universities Industrial Association [C No. 30132
of 1988], Decision, Print H4765.
12. Australian Association of University Staff and Union of Australian Academics, Agreement,
[re; demarcation], 15 June 1987.
13. McCulloch, G (1987) UACA Victory paves the way for amalgamation. Journal of Advanced
Education: 3.

46

THE JOURNAL

OF

I N D U S T R I A L R E L AT I O N S

March 2003

14. FAUSA, Minutes of Representative Council Meeting 1987, Wednesday and Thursday
19 February, 1987: 11–12.
15. ibid, 19.
16. ibid, 22.
17. ibid, 21.
18. ibid, 20.
19. FAUSA News, February 1989.
20. FCA and FAUSA, Thinking Ahead: Planning Growth in Australian Higher Education, Melbourne,
1988.
21. Hinkson, J. Academic Union Conferring with Dawkins. Arena 84, pp 112–32.
22. Dawkins JS, Higher Education: A Policy Statement, AGPS, Canberra, 1988, p 5.
23. Department of Employment Education and Training, National Report on the Australia’s Higher
Education Sector. Canberra: AGPS, 153-5.
24. ACTU (1988) Response to the Federal Government Higher Education Discussion Paper.
Melbourne: ACTU.
25. Interview with Murphy, op cit.
26. On the debate at UNSW see Patrick O’Farrell (1999) UNSW: A Portrait: The University of
New South Wales, 1949–1999. Sydney: UNSW Press.
27. Interviews with Harrington/Crewther; Zetlin.
28. Interview with McCulloch.
29. Interview with Zetlin.
30. Currie J (1992) The emergence of higher education as an industry: The second tier awards
and award restructuring. Australian Universities Review 35(2), 17.
31. Interview with Hall.
32. Currie, op cit, 18.
33. ibid.
34. Richard Curtain and John Mathews, Two models of award restructuring in Australia. Labour
and Indu stry 3 (1),58–75.
35. David Penington (1991), Witness Statement to Industrial Relations Commission, 8 February
1991, AHEIA exhibit, NTEU archives.
36. Currie J (1994) Award restructuring for academics: The negotiating process. Discourse 15(2),
22–4.
37. FCA/UACA (1989) Award Restructuring for the Unified National Higher Education System:
A Proposal from the Federated Council of Academics and the Union of Australian College
Academics, 18 February 1989.
38. Currie, Award Restructuring for Academics, 24–5.
39. FCA, Industrial Action and Award Restructuring, Memorandum to State and Territory Councils,
30 October.
40. ACAC, National Wage Case 1989, Application to Vary Certain Awards. Re: Wage Rates,
C No. 37277 of 1989, Transcript, submission by Di Zetlin, 1779.
41. Interview with Zetlin, op cit.
42. Currie, Award Restructuring.
43. Interview with Zetlin.
44. Currie, Award Restructuring; interview with Murphy.
45. Interview with Zetlin, op cit.
46. Interview with John Summers, July 2000; NTEU in South Australia :Why a Minimal State
Structure Should Occur in S.A. undated document 1994.
47. Paul Acfield, The Role of the South Australian Division in 1994 – A Discussion Paper,
memorandum to NTEU interim executive.
48. Interviews with Murphy, Zetlin and Lewis.
49. Interview with Lewis.
50. This is largely based on the direct experience of the author who was UACA secretary in the
ACT, 1991–1993, and an ex officio member of the UACA Federal Executive.

U N I V E R S I T Y S TA F F : B E C O M I N G ‘U N I O N AT E ’?

47

51. The University of Adelaide General Staff Association also became an amalgamation partner.
52. Confidential Background Paper on Demarcation Matters in Higher Education, produced for
Bill Mansfield by the Australian Colleges and Universities Staff Association, October 1991.
NTEU Archives.
53. Ballot on Union Amalgamation: A Case for FAUSA Members Voting No, leaflet circulated in
South Australia, nd but 1993; interview with Summers.
54. Interview with Zetlin.
55. Interviews with Harrington/Crewther and Summers.
56. Interviews with McCulloch and Hall, op cit; and Carolyn Allport, FAUSA Executive member,
FAUSA and President, NTEU, 2000.
57. FAUSA News, 23 July 1993.