12 November 2015

Tertiary Education Union

Unitec staff hold Black Friday rally to protest cuts

Unitec staff will rally tomorrow morning to oppose their polytechnic’s plan to cut hundreds of jobs and privatise student support.

The rally will take place at Unitec’s Gate 4, Carrington Rd, Mt Albert, between 7.30-8.30 am.

TEU’s national secretary Sharn Riggs will be at the rally, along with tertiary education staff and students from all of Auckland’s public tertiary education institutions.

She says if Unitec’s plan goes ahead students wanting help will need to ring up a call centre run by multinational company Concentrix.

“Students will be paying more money next year and getting less support. It’s not fair on them and it’s not fair on the many people who work to help those students but who will lose their jobs.”

Riggs says the direction Unitec is trying to go is a bad model for education and she expects other institutions will warn Unitec before it damages itself, its students and the reputation of tertiary education in New Zealand.

TEU’s Unitec branch president Sid Aksoy says Unitec’s managers have not listened to any of the over 100 submissions people working at Unitec wrote proposing solutions that did not involve job cuts or taking away student support.

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