Thousands of staff at the University of Sydney are set to go on strike on Wednesday, partly over an impasse between workers and management over artificial intelligence.
National Tertiary Education Union members will stop work for 24 hours, in a move that is likely to pose major disruptions to the university’s day-to-day operations, as union members hammer out their new enterprise bargaining agreement with management.
The union is demanding “provisions to protect staff against any adverse effects of artificial intelligence systems in the workplace,” as well as a 20 per cent pay rise for all staff, and 17 per cent superannuation for casual workers, in a log of claims seen by this masthead.
“We want enforceable protections against AI being used to cut jobs, intensify workloads, undermine academic and professional judgement, or replace work and human interaction that are fundamental to a university,” said the NTEU’s Vince Caughley.
“The major concern is the extraordinarily cavalier way this is being approached.”
While AI’s impact on students has been well-canvassed, the impact the fledgling technology will have on academic staff has opened a new front. This masthead revealed last month that the state’s universities are deploying AI in lectures, as a virtual assistant for conversational skills and as a “study buddy”. Many across the sector are increasingly worried about the effect it is likely to have on jobs.
“There is a real danger that university management has drunk the AI Kool-Aid,” said Caughley.
Much of the university will shut for Wednesday, with student or staff ID required to access buildings that day. Almost all of the university’s suitable classes will go online, it said, while labs and other things unable to be done remotely may be cancelled for the day.
The University of Sydney reported $1.7 billion in takings from foreign students and recorded a $194 million surplus last financial year, a significant decrease on the surplus of $545 million the previous year.
A university spokesperson labelled the strike as “premature” and said industrial action would not influence how the new EBA was agreed.
“We agree using AI ethically requires a human-centred approach and our Responsible AI Framework, principles and guardrails that govern use have been developed with this as a key value. We also maintain the use of AI is best governed through policies and frameworks that can be updated as needed to respond to this rapidly changing technology, rather than set for the three-year term of the enterprise agreement,” said the spokesperson.
“AI is undeniably changing the modern workforce, and we consider it our responsibility to make sure our staff have the opportunities and capabilities they need to drive our research, education and operations.”
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