This just in via the NTEU, WA Division:
"✊ UWA Publishing win! ✊
Thanks to enormous public support and an extended period of intense union activity, members at UWAP have received contract extensions and some certainty for the near future.
UWA has announced that fixed-term contracts for UWAP staff will be extended by six months, with further extensions pending a consultation process for “a new model for publishing” next year. Staff on ongoing contracts are similarly safe from redundancies. Given the original plan was to close UWAP from the end of November, with fixed term contracts ending in two weeks, our members at UWAP end their year in a much more secure position than a few weeks ago.
There is still some uncertainty about the nature of the coming consultation. However, the result is well worth celebrating: members at UWAP stood together and did not allow themselves to be divided, even when facing senior management in one-to-one meetings. Nothing is a done deal if you and your colleagues stay united!
#saveUWAP #ourUWA"
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Once again, an enormous thank you to all who signed this petition - your voices, and the sheer numbers in which you raised them, have helped make a difference ! Your signatures and reasons for signing have been presented to key decision makers at three points since the proposal to cease UWAP's hard copy literary publishing activities was announced - most recently last Monday 9 December, to the meeting of the UWA Senate.
At the moment we are just shy of 10,500 signatures (10,498). I can't bring myself to formally close the petition until we get those final two people to sign, but I do feel that this petition has done its work and it is time for the campaign to move into a new phase.
While it is too soon to say the future of the press is safe, things are certainly more positive than they were in mid November. If you'd like to keep up to date with developments from here, you can:
(1) Sign up to UWAP's mailing list at https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/ and
(2) Check out the #SaveUWAP campaign website at https://saveuwap.weebly.com/
Thanks again for your support, and please enjoy a safe (and hopefully fire-free) festive season with your loved ones.
All best - MS