Attacks on Australian university jobs deepen but union boasts it is “stronger” Over recent weeks, a “second wave” of job cuts and course closures has hit university workers and students around Australia, on top of the unprecedented destruction of tens of thousands of jobs, especially casual positions, in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite widespread hostility to the assault, reflected in protest rallies by staff and students at many campuses, the attacks are continually deepening, assisted by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which is isolating each struggle and opposing any national industrial action to halt the assault.