UTS staff walk out, blame loss of trust in executive

By Melanie Clarry and Lucas Zhu

Hundreds of staff and students at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have gone on strike in a dispute over pay, working conditions, and to protest a lack of transparency by university management, which they say they have lost trust in.

Staff began gathering from 8am outside university entrances on Thursday, forming a picket line before marching to Alumni Green around noon. 

The industrial action follows months of growing tension behind UTS’s Operational Sustainability Initiative (OSI), which proposes cutting over 130 courses and making more than 300 staff redundant.

A central demand of the strike is a proposed 20 per cent pay increase, which staff argue is necessary to keep up with inflation.

“They’re asking staff to relinquish some of their demands on conditions in order to get a proper pay offer,” said Ella Haid from the UTS Students’ Association.

“This is terrible because, on average in Australia, workers in the last four years have lost out on $20,000 of income through wages not keeping up with inflation.”

[Students] are frustrated that they may have started a degree here… and those departments are now going to be gutted.

Staff also say the strike reflects wider concerns about course cuts and their impact on prospective students.

“They’re frustrated that they may have started a degree here… and those departments are now going to be gutted,” Haid added.

The OSI, first announced in November 2024 as a response to the financial impacts of COVID-19 and seeking a reported saving of $300 million to pay back a bond, has been a key source of concern for staff.

An earlier proposal suggesting up to 400 redundancies — nearly a 10th of UTS employees — was halted in September 2025 after SafeWork NSW issued a prohibition notice, warning of a “serious and imminent risk of psychological harm.”

UTS leadership, particularly Vice-Chancellor Andrew Parfitt, has also faced scrutiny over transparency and decision-making. It includes criticism following reports five senior executives spent $140,000 on an alumni trip to the United States in July 2025, and the revelation that Parfitt’s $935,000 contract had been secretly extended for five years.

In December, 95 per cent of participating staff voted no confidence in Parfitt’s leadership, following months of industrial action and stalled negotiations after the university’s enterprise agreement expired in August 2025.

Staff say concerns extend beyond job cuts to broader issues around communication and workplace culture.

“We’ve lost trust in management,” said one staff member who wished to be anonymous, pointing to delays in responses and a lack of clear communication.

Many described frustration at a lack of consultation they believed could have resolved many issues.

Staff also claimed negotiations with the university had become increasingly strained.

“University management… is much more dismissive,” said William Girdler, a staff member on the bargaining committee in the most recent round of talks.

“This is a total shift from previous rounds… now it seems much more hostile.”

Despite ongoing negotiations, picketers say they are prepared to continue industrial action.

“The only power we have is our labour and the withdrawal of labour,” said Dr Sarah Attfield, from the National Tertiary Education Union.

Conversely, in several internal memos sent to staff, UTS chief operating officer Glen Babington said that some of the NTEU’s arguments “do not accurately reflect the proposals the university has put forward”.

 

He defended the university’s proposals on addressing the regulation of AI, parental leave, and administrative increase, among other issues.

The UTS strike comes amid a broader wave of industrial action across Australia’s media and education sectors, including strike activity at the ABC, and industrial action by teachers in Victoria and Tasmania, signalling broader national tensions around pay, job security, and workplace conditions.

Main image by Lucas Zhu.