As enterprise bargaining ramps up at universities across the country, peak union leader Damian Cahill has announced his exit.
Dr Cahill will announce today he will not seek re-election as General Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and intends to stand down in October. He is expected to return to the University of Sydney, where he taught political economy prior to becoming NSW State Secretary.
The surprise announcement comes as the NTEU ramps up for a new round of enterprise bargaining across the country, with the union capitalising on its successful strategy of branding university managements as indifferent to the interests of the staff.
The NTEU has long campaigned on underpayment cases at universities across the country and during Dr Cahill’s term, intensified its argument that university councils are indifferent to the interests of staff and students.
The result is multiple interventions by the Commonwealth Government, with Education Minister Jason Clare announcing in October, "if you don't think there are challenges in university governance, you've been living under a rock.” The union was also instrumental in the creation of present NSW and Victorian parliamentary inquiries into university management.
Dr Cahill’s announcement was not widely expected, although there is speculation of tension with his 2022 election running mate, National President Alison Barnes. Her support was crucial in his replacing previous general secretary Matthew McGowan before that year’s election, but observers now suggest their unity ticket does not extend to management of the new bargaining round.
Dr Cahill is widely recognised as a tough and focused negotiator but with a comprehensive understanding of industrial relations law and practise – there is a suggestion that enterprise bargaining without him will take longer for the same deal to be done.
But while he talked to managements, he never liked what he said they stood for. In 2022 he claimed universities were “morphing into property developers with a side-hustle in education.” It was not a compliment.