Victoria Tutors' Network

Four friendly members of the Tutors’ Network organising committee. L to R: Dani Pickering, Erica Cassie, Max Soar and Cody Rei-Anderson.

Four friendly members of the Tutors’ Network organising committee. L to R: Dani Pickering, Erica Cassie, Max Soar and Cody Rei-Anderson.

The Victoria Tutors’ Network exists to build a supportive community of tutors and other casualised workers at Victoria University of Wellington. We want to bring people in these positions together to discuss shared issues and to organise around improving teaching and learning conditions.

One of our goals as the Tutors’ Network is to reinforce tutor representation across the university. Postgraduate students engaged in tutoring and other casualised work at the university need representation in our capacities as both students and as staff. That’s where student associations like the PGSA and staff unions like the TEU come in. That’s also where the Tutors’ Network operates, liaising with these groups to make sure that when decisions are made that affect us, they acknowledge our status as both students and staff.

What is the Tutors’ Network?

At present, we are a group of tutors actively working to build a peer network across all schools at VUW. We want to ensure the voices of tutors are represented both in the TEU and in the university by growing our union membership. We want to use our collective strength to improve conditions for tutors across the university through changes like ending unpaid overtime, ensuring adequate training and support for pastoral care, and securing pay that respects an understanding of tikanga me te reo Māori.

 If you share these goals and want to be more involved in the network (or want to hear about what we’re up to by joining our mailing list), please contact us at wgtntutorsnetwork@gmail.com.   

What is the TEU and how do I join?

The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) is a workers’ organisation dedicated to the interests of all staff employed by universities and other tertiary institutions across Aotearoa New Zealand. In other words, if you’re employed by VUW or elsewhere in the sector, the TEU is your union.

 To join the TEU, head to teu.ac.nz/join and fill out the form. Tutors should make sure to indicate that they are on the Tutors’ Collective Agreement, and are either fixed term or casual employees. A few more important things to keep in mind:

  •  Normally the union charges membership fees to make sure the organisation can continue to advocate for your interests, but in 2022 staff on short term contracts earning less than $15,000 over the course of the contract can join for free.

  • You may have received a form with your contract that asks if you want to be a member of the union. Please note that filling out this form does not mean you are a member yet—it simply means someone from the union will contact you about your potential membership. To join, make sure you fill out the form on the union website.

  • You should also know that your membership does not roll over whenever you sign a new fixed-term contract. This means that you effectively have to re-join the union each time you sign a new contract as casual or fixed-term staff.

How can I participate in the Tutors’ Network and the TEU?

We are always looking for tutors who are keen to get involved in our efforts to organise for-tutor-by-tutor events and liaise with different student and staff groups whose interests overlap with ours. Contact us at wgtntutorsnetwork@gmail.com to get in touch and join our Slack workspace.

The TEU has meetings which are open to all union members. If you’ve joined, you should receive email invites to these, which we encourage all unionised tutors to attend. Tutors are only one part of the TEU at Vic, and the more we are represented at meetings of the whole union, the better our voices can be heard and contribute to the union’s collective strength.

What is a union and why is it important?

Unions are democratic, collective organisations that protect and advocate for employee rights, pay and conditions. In New Zealand, you have the legal right to join a union and you cannot be discriminated against for being a union member. Unions are workers coming together to fight collectively for changes at their specific workplace or across their entire sector. 

Unions are important because they harness our collective energy: individual conversations or negotiations for change within our roles at an institution can only go so far—it is through unions that we can create change together.

What does it mean to be a union member?

As a union member you may be called upon to support a labour action (such as a strike) in the event that bargaining fails. Standing together in solidarity is what being in a union is about, and that means supporting your fellow union members in the struggle for better pay, working conditions, and recognition of our rights at work.

Solidarity is not easy though. Unions are full of people from all corners of society with a wide range of experiences and perspectives, so working together across these differences is undeniably challenging. It’s also one of unions’ greatest strengths: being able to attract and maintain a huge membership by uniting working people from diverse backgrounds under the common cause of workplace democracy.

What do unions fight for?

Through a process called collective bargaining, unions fight for agreements with employers which lay out terms for wages, hours, and working conditions. Unions also give staff a say in how their workplace is run: they allow us to channel our collective voice to influence decisions that would otherwise be made for us by our employers. Historically, this dynamic has resulted in huge gains for workers that we take for granted today: weekends off, overtime pay, and the prohibition of child labour, to name a few.

Union activism isn’t restricted to labour politics, either. Unions have been on the front lines of feminist struggles for equal pay; they’ve flexed their muscles in support of Māori land struggles like the occupation of Bastion Point; and they’re also playing an important role in fighting climate change in their respective industries while ensuring that working people have a say in the transition to a green economy. Unions have the power to quite literally change the world.