Rank-and-file forum to discuss Australian Labor government’s pro-business and war restructuring of universities
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The Rank-and-File Committee at Sydney’s Macquarie University is hosting an online forum on April 10 to discuss the serious implications of the Labor government’s Universities Accord final report, released last month. The Accord report insisted on a further corporate restructuring of tertiary education, including funding, teaching and research, to satisfy the employment and research demands of big business and the plans for war. The government’s review panel, which featured Australia’s highest-paid CEO, Macquarie banking group’s Shemara Wikramanayake ($32.82 million in 2022–23), declared that the education system, including universities, had to focus on “areas of national priority like clean energy, critical technology, minerals and defence.” These “will need more skilled professionals.” The report demanded “skills coalitions” of tertiary education providers, industry and trade union “partners” to “create a basis for scaling skills delivery on a sector basis.” The Accord report actually proposed tying funding to universities negotiating “mission-based compacts” with a new Australian Tertiary Education Commission. These compacts would, first and foremost, require universities to “deliver Australia’s future skills needs.” Business groups hailed the report. The Business Council of Australia (BCA), representing the largest companies in the country, said the document “offers a unique opportunity to reshape the higher education sector into one that is agile and responsive to industry.” Universities have already become increasingly enmeshed in serving the research needs of the Australian and US militaries. In recent years, some universities have signed multi-million-dollar research and development deals with the world’s largest arms manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin (US) and BAE Systems (UK). University-linked research institutions are performing military research in fields such as quantum technologies, hypersonics, autonomous vehicles, cyber warfare, robotics, artificial intelligence and space warfare. To fight this union-backed agenda, university workers and students need to form rank-and-file committees, completely independent of the unions. These can link up with workers in Australia and worldwide through the International Workers’ Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. This needs to be part of a broader struggle against capitalism itself and its program of ever-greater corporate wealth and plunge into war.

#AustralianLaborGovernment #Universities #Restructuring #Education #Business #War #RankandfileCommittee

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/30/pjvx-m30.html