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Thor Kerr for WA Division Secretary, NTEU

23/6/2021

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I am running for the position of Western Australia Division Secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in a postal ballot that opens today, 23 June. I aim to build an activist culture and organisational infrastructure for the NTEU that will protect members from overwork, underpayment and precarious employment.

If elected, I will shift the secretariat’s culture towards supporting branch action, building alliances and challenging university management. I will not collaborate in managing the decline of universities in Western Australia. I will work to empower WA branches in organising their staff against our sector's addiction to restructures, redundancies, and casualisation. I will engage members, allied organizations, parliamentarians and media workers in reshaping universities for communities in Western Australia.

Fair contested elections build community, particularly at this critical juncture as we face overwork, redundancies, precarity, wage theft, COVID-19 and challenging negotiations for stronger enterprise agreements. 

My experience with challenging negotiations on labour conditions goes back to 1998 in The Hague, where I worked as an editor and document specialist for the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) on labour relations, which addressed the new ILO Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. This landmark declaration called on member states to recognize the right to collective bargaining. 

I became Vice-President of the NTEU Curtin Branch amid staff cuts because of my dedication to branch committee, and my reputation for supporting members and contributing to high-density membership as a delegate since early 2017. I have focussed on coordinating NTEU actions among members and with representatives of allied organizations. I have defended the interests of NTEU members in speeches on the steps of Western Australia’s Parliament and other public venues, as well as in tough closed-door meetings with university management. We have achieved several wins in these difficult times, such as avoiding spill and fill in the 2020 redundancy rounds, and in maintaining our 2% pay rise in 2021. Through union-coordinated work as a staff representative on Curtin University’s Academic Board and on other committees, I have worked to ensure staff participation in teaching and research policy changes and helped to thwart management actions that would breach the Enterprise Agreement. 

Currently, I am a Senior Lecturer in Curtin’s School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry. I coordinate and teach a Master of Arts course which has provided me an opportunity to build solidarity with teaching staff across a range of disciplines. In supporting researchers, I have served on the board of a research institute, on an Australian Academy of the Humanities’ roundtable, as a book and journal editor, as a journal and manuscript reviewer, and on a human research ethics advisory committee. I have also contributed to the steering and scientific committees of conferences hosted by universities in Western Australia and abroad. My academic career began in 2010 as a sessional academic while completing a PhD. In 2012, I won a fixed-term early career development fellowship that had been included in the university’s enterprise agreement. After two years on a fixed contract, I was employed on a continuing basis from 2014 in a teaching and research capacity. I have authored two scholarly books, many journal articles and led the editing of two academic volumes. I have taught undergraduate and postgraduate students; supervised PhD, honours and masters students; designed units; and implemented new courses in collaboration with teaching, student-support and teaching-support staff. My research has contributed towards decriminalising Indigenous activism and to furthering understandings of social movements and environmental policy change in Western Australia.

Social justice has been my calling since working as a graduate volunteer at an Indonesian non-government organization in a low-income area of Jakarta during the New Order dictatorship in the early 1990s. The solidarity in which I participated as a volunteer development worker, and later as an editor and journalist, contributed towards Indonesia’s democratic transition at the turn of the century. After that historical moment, I dedicated the next 10 years to developing a successful enterprise to support information transparency, ethical practices and environmental design in the building and construction industries of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. In this role, I learned how to recruit, lead and support colleagues from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. I also learned how to negotiate complex agreements in and across multiple countries. Back in Australia, I led political campaigns that resulted in substantial progressive swings at state and federal elections, and worked with elders, librarians and parliamentarians to challenge media and police harassment of Indigenous gatherings. I look forward to bringing this energy and experience to the role of NTEU Division Secretary for Western Australia.
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Researching with community: Fremantle's Walyalup Heart

27/5/2021

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Fremantle Council last night voted to change the name of Kings Square to Walyalup Koort, a Whadjuk Nyoongar name meaning ‘Heart of Fremantle’. The decision was made following an extensive community engagement process, says the City. The name will now be referred to Landgate for formal approval.

One night earlier, I was on a panel that discussed the proposed renaming of Kings Square at a Politics in the Pub event in Fremantle. The insightful and complex discussion was led by Director of the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, Brendan Moore (centre in image below). Then Kings Square Project Director Russell Kingdom (left in image) discussed the history of its square and its heritage. 
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My talk began with an extract from Shaphan Cox's PhD describing the whitewashing of Aboriginal texts in the square. I addressed Stan Grant's 2019 call for postcolonial Australia to be created in the space between ship and shore by presenting findings of my research with Dr Irfan Wahyudi on colonial heritage preservation by community volunteers in Broome and in Banyuwangi, East Java.

​My point was to alay fears of a sense of potential loss of colonial heritage in the renaming of Kings Square by describing how Indigenous media organizations, such as Magabala Books and Goollarri Media, are actively drawing on the colonial archive to revive and enrich the heritage of Australia.

The panel and lively QandA was chaired by former Member of the Legislative Council, Lynn MacLaren. The event at The Local Hotel was hosted by the Fremantle Network and organized by Dr Christian Mauri.
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Why I'm running for WA Secretary of the NTEU

22/5/2021

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"Our members are used to not being listened to at work. Our union should be a place where their voices can be heard. Thor will be a strong voice for rank and file members locally and nationally. I endorse him wholeheartedly and encourage you to vote for him."
NTEU WA Division President Dr Richard Hamilton

"I want Thor to be the next WA Division Secretary. Over the years, he has proved to be smart and quick on his feet in challenging poor management decisions. He cares about university workers, especially the most vulnerable, and demands that their rights be respected and their voices heard. We need his strength, intelligence and authentic commitment at the centre of the NTEU to improve work conditions at tertiary institutions in Western Australia."
NTEU Curtin Vice President (General Staff) Sian Flynne

“Thor Kerr has a solid track record of working towards social justice in Western Australia, as demonstrated through his years of research collaboration with the Nyoongar Tent Embassy and volunteer work with the NTEU at Curtin. I will vote for Thor to bring his deep commitment and activist energy to the WA Division Secretary role at the NTEU. I trust other members will take the time to get informed about the election, and vote for Thor too.”
Curtin NTEU Committee Member (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Frederick Yasso

"Thor is an engaged unionist and activist with a dynamic and compassionate politics. Thor is dedicated to engaging staff and students - in a classroom, in bargaining, or on the steps of parliament - on a range of social issues that represent what the NTEU fights for."
NTEU Curtin Committee Member (Casual Employee) Dr Madison Magladry

"Thor is well respected in the academic community for his leadership, professionalism and commitment to social issues. His vigour and sensitivity in working with a range of people are greatly admired. Thor is the definitely the person you want on your side."
Associate Professor Panizza Allmark, Edit Cowan University

​"Thor has worked with the Curtin Student Guild to establish a partnership of Curtin unions. He has brought experience, knowledge and insight that has helped us navigate the university’s inner workings and effectively resist changes like staff cuts and forced online learning."
Curtin Guild President Jesse Naylor Zambrano

"Thor has always stood firmly shoulder-to-shoulder with colleagues, was extraordinarily patient to resolve issues with all of his energy and empathised with whatever problems we had with university management. What makes extraordinarily special is that he always dared to raise his voice against mismanagement, staff exploitation, and unfair treatment. I still remember quite a few occasions where he took justice to the highest levels of university management - in his personal time, and risking his own position - where others simply would have stood down. This makes him special! In this position, he will always have an open ear for us and fight idealistically for academic rights locally here in Western Australia."
Dr Artur Lugmayr

“In my time as a sessional academic at Curtin, Thor’s advocacy was visible, impactful, and uplifting. He consistently spoke for and alongside casual staff, and he was always able to articulate, with clarity and force, his knowledge and experience. Thor is fired by fairness and equity in the workplace, and that meant—and means—a tremendous amount in such a precarious moment as this.” 
Dr Daniel Juckes, University of Western Australia
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Towards a fairer society: an evening with Patrick Gorman

5/5/2021

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Patrick Gorman, the former Curtin Student Guild President and current MP, will discuss building a fairer society on the evening of Thursday 20 May at Curtin University. Patrick is Shadow Assistance Minister for Western Australia and Federal Member for Perth. Patrick will discuss the topic of fairness in democratic governance. The event is being hosted by the Discipline of History, International Relations, Sociology & Anthropology in Curtin University's School of Media, Creative Arts & Social Inquiry. To attend, click here.

Patrick is a long-standing supporter of democratic governance of universities through his work in student guilds and in federal politics. I recall giving a talk last July from the steps of Parliament House with Patrick Gorman, NTEU President Richard Hamilton and other inspiring figures at the Hands Off Our Education rally organized by the Student Guilds of Western Australia. Go student guilds!
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Revisiting the WA legislation on university governance

29/4/2021

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In considering the future of universities in Western Australia, Gerd Schröder-Turk's (2021) article outlines the risks of substantial changes in university governance in recent years. The article describes how Barnett government legislation in 2016 increased the tendency of universities to be 'governed by a body dominated by a group with little first-hand professional experience in or in-depth exposure to the tertiary sector'. The article describes impacts from the reduction of staff-elected positions on university governing bodies. Also, it outlines parliamentary opposition to the 2016 change articulated by Lynn MacLaren and current Education Minister Sue Ellery. Perhaps, we should revisit the unsuccessful motion put forward by Ellery to double the number of governing body positions elected by academic staff. 
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    This page was created to share ideas on rebuilding universities for communities in Western Australia.

    The header image shows a  construction site at my campus before the glass ceiling collapsed killing a young worker and injuring two others. Social and union pressure around this incident led to Western Australia's Legislative Council passing the Work safety bill in the days that followed. While waiting for the bill to become law, the image reminds me of the ongoing lack of legal protection for workers in a culture dominated by managerialism and corporate ambition.

    A turn is needed towards transparency, empathy and democracy in building universities.
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