# THE “OUCH” FACTOR BEGINS TO BITE AT USP

At the end of the first week of the strike by USP unions pressing for the removal of the Vice Chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, even union leaders themselves are openly expressing their fear of the stoppage fizzling out. Why? Because as the days pass, it is starting to dawn on many of those on strike that they didn’t factor in the serious consequences for their personal finances. The “ouch” factor.

They have already lost five days pay and USP is adamant – based on top-level legal advice – that it is perfectly justified in withholding the income of its workers who refuse to perform the tasks they are engaged to do. They have contracts that do not include continuing to be paid if they withdraw their services and nothing is going to alter that fact. So how much punishment can individual workers take?

As the first week of the strike draws to an end, the unions are clearly winning the PR war in Fiji, with expressions of support from a brace of politicians including Inia Seruiratu, Mahendra Chaudhry and Savenaca Narube, who may think there is political capital in supporting striking workers but are failing the most basic test of politics, which is to do the numbers.

USP is not a Fijian institution. It belongs to the region. And as the Education Minister, Aseri Radrodro, has been forced to acknowledge, the Fijian government can’t affect change at USP unilaterally. Even if it wants Pal Ahluwalia gone, it is a matter for the USP Council made up of all the island nations plus Australia and New Zealand. And as Grubsheet has continually pointed out, while the Vice Chancellor has the numbers on the USP Council, what Fijian politicians say amounts to nought.

The unions are also winning the PR war with the media in Fiji and especially with the Fiji Sun, which has slavishly fallen into line with their narrative of Pal Ahluwalia as a devil in a turban presiding over chaos at the region’s foremost institute of higher learning.

I have had cause recently to praise the Fiji Sun‘s Naisa Koroi for his editorials but the one today falls way short of the mark in terms of accuracy and contains a factual howler that amply demonstrates that Naisa hasn’t done his homework. He puts the onus on Hilda Heine – the current Marshall Island’s President – to intervene in the strike, writing that as the USP pro-chancellor, it is her duty to work through the mess.

Wrong. Unfortunately for Naisa Koroi and the Fiji Sun, Hilda Heine hasn’t been the USP pro- chancellor for a long time. The Acting Pro-Chancellor of USP and chair of the Council is Professor Pat Walsh, the New Zealand government’s representative on the Council. And mistakes of this magnitude inevitably cast doubt on the rest of the Sun’s slavishly pro-union narrative.

But the Sun’s worst journalistic offence is to accept, at face value, the unions’ claim that while they are on strike, the VC is absent from Fiji on inconsequential business or on holiday. Wrong again. The Sun itself pictures Pal Ahluwalia today by the side of King Charles at the CHOGM gathering in Samoa – surrounded by students from the Samoa campus – announcing that USP is to be the regional hub of the King’s Commonwealth Fellowship Programme, a worldwide academic initiative. Coming on top of USP recently rising 200 places in the annual global university rankings under Ahluwalia’s leadership, this honour doesn’t exactly scream dysfunction at USP, for all the noise the unions and their local media mates are generating.

So at the end of the first week of the USP strike, the Vice Chancellor is with the King and Head of the Commonwealth on official USP business that is bolstering the university’s profile and prestige. And in Suva, most classes at USP are reported to be operating normally, most USP students are refusing to back the staff stoppage and the strikers loll around on the grass chatting or drinking kava while slowing and unwittingly falling into a financial abyss.

You can assess for yourself, Fiji, who is really winning this war of attrition and who will be forced to blink first. Will the unions be able to get the numbers on the USP Council to remove the Vice Chancellor first? Or will the strike fizzle out because the University largely continues to function with non-union staff and the “ouch” factor bites harder as the days progress? How long would you be able to go without pay under the circumstances? Qori.

Perhaps Rosie Fatiaki and Reuben Colata are going to dip into union funds or their own pockets to support their members in the lead-up to Christmas. If striking USP staff are gormless enough to believe that, they probably also believe in Santa Claus. As things stand, it’s more likely to be “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s back to work we go!” And that’s been the case right from the start. Minus a week’s pay and counting.

Yes, he’s gone. Gone to Samoa to see King Charles.

The Fiji’s Sun‘s editorial today riddled with unsubstantiated spin ( the union leaders are “not politicising the strike”. Oh really? ) Plus a major journalistic howler.

And assorted letters from both sides of the fence…