Sydney, Australia - Motion Passed by NTEU Supporting the "Occupy" Protests

It seems that the Occupy Protests in Sydney, Australia have been well received by the media, politicians (mostly) and locals. I received an email today from the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) www.nteu.org.au..., of which I am a member, which just passed a motion in support of the Occupy Movement.

This excerpt is from the email sent to all NTEU members, which includes teachers, academics and researchers from all schools and universities across the country.

The National Tertiary Education Union (University of NSW Branch) passed the following motion on Wednesday October 19 in support of the Occupy Sydney protests:

“We recognise that these occupations are occurring in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and the movements across Spain, Italy, Europe and the Middle East against neoliberalism, corporate power and attacks on working people and the poor. We pledge to raise funds for the protest and to encourage NTEU members to participate in the protest and community solidarity events.”

A union and community rally will be held in support of the Occupy Sydney protests:

XXpm, XXnd October
Top end of Martin Place
free bbq, music, performers

The NTEU encourages members to participate. For more information please visit:
www.occupysydney.org.au...

You can find more details on "Occupy Sydney" on the occupy website posted above. When educational bodies support something, it is usually something worth listening to, as universities and their associations like to maintain a fairly unbiased stance on things (with a slight tendency toward the left as a whole, though many of my colleagues would actually be considered right-wing), and usually bring an academic approach to contentious issues.

The fact that our union sent this out makes the Occupy Movement appeal more to me than anything else I have read so far, as my experience with NTEU has always been that they defend the individual very well from the large corporate entities that universities are becoming, and are generally a trusted organisation.

I'm not sure exactly what will come of "Occupy" but at least it is making a wider populace aware of the growing dissatisfaction of many citizens.