Apart from highlighting the inadequacies of workload formulae across every level of academic life, it’s also one of the best reports I’ve read showing the impact of online technology on academic work.

The figures are stunning enough. Number of those surveyed who worked on weekends: 100%. UWS staff/student ratio: 1:23. And be sure to check out the pie chart comparing Level A appointments.

A sample of quotes:

- “It is now 5.15pm. I have been up since 4am marking assignments and I still haven’t finished”

- “I had to turn around 86 hours of marking in 10 days. 86 hours is what I actually get paid presuming I can mark 1,000 words every 20 minutes, which I can’t…”

- “In 2008 I have taught 7 different units none of which I have taught before”

- “This year I travelled to other campuses twice per week. I had a WLA for 7 return trips but had to undertake 13 return trips to see students and collect exams. $300 in tolls”

I came across this amazing research while trying to find out about the union’s recent campaigns – part of ongoing preparations for the State of the Industry conference happening in November. We may yet hear more about this, and hopefully one of the study’s research team will agree to speak on Day 1. But so far, in spite of numerous emails and phone calls, the NTEU President doesn’t seem available, or at least hasn’t told us one way or another over the past 3 months. I’m quite disappointed about this, since so much anecdotal evidence would suggest the NTEU’s profile could do with some boosting. I had thought the conference offered a timely opportunity for the industry’s peak representative body to prove its relevance to a significant part of its constituency.

Maybe I’ve just gone about asking the wrong way. If the report is any indication of the wider experience of contemporary worklife, our President is probably drowning in email and can’t imagine any way of handling the amount of communication requests she receives…