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Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

SocietyNovember 15, 2023

As University of Auckland halls raise rents, RAs are set to lose their discount

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

Opponents say a contract change will leave residential advisers – students who look after their peers in university halls – struggling to get by.

Residential advisers (RAs), students who look after their peers while attempting to maintain their grades, are integral parts of university communities. Being an RA is a paid job for tauira with guaranteed housing within university halls of residences. Halls typically provide students with decent housing, albeit in a shoebox package, within walking distance of campus.

Our biggest tertiary institution, Waipapa Taumata Rau/University of Auckland, houses 4,400 tauira across 10 halls, with ambitious plans to expand the service to 7,500 total students by 2026. Waipapa Taumata Rau RAs are busy looking after those thousands of residents, each supervising 35, 38, 40 or 50 residents. 

During 2023, RAs at Waipapa Taumata Rau were on fixed-term contracts for 15 hours a week. They received the minimum hourly wage for those 15 hours plus any after-hours work they did, as well as an allowance for being on call after hours. They also received a 25% discount on accommodation in the hall in which they worked. But with the 2023 university year ending, prospective RAs are being offered their contracts for 2024, and these have come with several unexpected changes. 

University Hall Tower, one of Auckland University’s first year halls of residence. (Photo: University of Auckland)

Not all the changes are unwelcome. The university is raising the wage for RAs from the current minimum wage of $22.70 to the living wage of $26.25, for example. Another important change is RAs being replaced by full-time staff outside of daytime working hours, which came about after RAs raised issues about the toll of after-hours work. “Through those discussions, we have concluded that we can no longer ask our RAs, who are first and foremost students, to risk compromising their own wellbeing by being on-call after hours,” a Waipapa Taumata Rau spokesperson said via email. “The frequency and severity of mental health issues has been steadily increasing for many years now, and dealing with these incidents can be very distressing.” Even non-distressing callouts disrupted sleep, which has had an impact on RAs’ academic success. At an October rally outside the vice-chancellor’s office, one student, Poppy, spoke from experience about how grades slip when tauira must work to cover hall rent.

But one contractual change in particular has angered student groups: the 25% RA rent reduction has been axed. The discount was already less than what other local and international universities offered RAs, said Matthew Lee, chair of Students for Fair Rent, a group advocating for RAs and residents that organised the rally. “RAs in many universities in the United States don’t even have to pay rent. It’s disappointing that in a country where we consider ourselves to be more progressive and protective of workers’ rights, RAs are completely mistreated by their employers,” Lee said. 

Matthew Lee of Students for Fair Rent at their October rally outside the vice-chancellor's office.
Matthew Lee of Students for Fair Rent at their October rally outside the vice-chancellor’s office.

Even with the rent reduction, the RA pay on its own has not been enough to cover it – something raised at the October rally, with one RA complaining that “all of the labour I give to the uni doesn’t even cover my rent”. Lee said that even when combining paid work and a student allowance or loan, RAs struggled to afford “to live at the place they are required to live at”.

Students for Fair Rent, Working Students Aotearoa, the Auckland University Student Association and local Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick have called for RAs to either turn the contract down or delay accepting it until more favourable conditions have been negotiated. 

Newly re-elected Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick at the rally.
Newly re-elected Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick at the rally.

But Auckland University says the contractual changes reflect the change in RAs’ roles, which will allow them to focus on community building rather than after-hours pastoral care. “The remuneration package will reflect that smaller, though still critical role, with 15 hours paid (at living wage rates). We believe this remuneration package is appropriate to the work being asked of RAs,” said the spokesperson. 

But Lee of Students for Fair Rent said that after the removal of the rent reduction, and paired with the on-average 8% rent increase at all Waipapa Taumata Rau halls coming next year, the rise in the wage was negligible. A Students for Fair Rent petition said the increase “makes the University of Auckland Halls of Residence the most expensive student accommodation in the country and is far above the market rate in Auckland Central”. 

Amid the rent increases, some tauira are looking for alternatives. Catherine, a Carlaw Park Student Village resident, spoke at the rally, detailing how she had to work 20 hours a week to afford Carlaw, leaving her with “no social life and stress and anxiety about the situation”. She can’t afford the increased rent next year, and is considering moving to Australia to study. 

Since the rally, Waipapa Taumata Rau has formally responded to Students for Fair Rent’s petition for fairer rent, which attracted around 1,500 signatories, and Lee said that he and fellow student campaigners “expect to enter into discussions with the university regarding both the rent and RA issues”.

“RAs are not just part-time employees at the university,” said Lee. “They are full-time caregivers of residents at student accommodation, and should be given the dignity of such a role. It is disappointing that the university has, once again, decided to prioritise profits over students.”

This is Public Interest Journalism supported by NZ On Air.

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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

SocietyNovember 14, 2023

Hear me out: It’s never too early to start celebrating Christmas

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

People complain that Christmas comes earlier and earlier each year. But you don’t have to start celebrating if you never stop, argues Sam Brooks.

When I was a kid, before dial-up internet and phones with cameras, it was firmly established that December was the month of Christmas. Stores would be decked out in their most garish red, urging me (or my aggrieved mother) to get ready for the 25th. Even as a child with very little understanding of time, though, I knew Christmas took place on just one day: the 25th. The month was prep for that day.

At some point, long after I became an adult, the allocated time for Christmas merriment crept earlier in the year, until it was taking place on November 1. This is so ingrained now that Mariah Carey releases a yearly video indicating that Halloween is over, and the festive season has now begun. Smith and Caughey’s erects its iconic window display in the first weeks of November. Christmas sales creep onto social algorithms and shopping catalogues two full moon cycles ahead of the actual day.

This creates a sense of anger in some people. They view Christmas as something akin to a bull in the calendar’s china shop, breaking out of its designated month and laying waste to an otherwise blissful November. The gentle jingle of bells registers instead as an assault on the senses. They see red, literally and figuratively.

My suggestion for them, and the world at large? Don’t stop celebrating Christmas at all. 

This could be you in March. (Photo: Getty Images)

Celebrate it all year around. To misquote Emperor Palpatine, “Let the spirit of Christmas flow through you!” A hangover only comes if you stop drinking.

Let’s be honest, you’re thinking about Christmas before November 1 anyway. If you happen to have a family spread out across the motu, let alone the world, you’re already negotiating who is going to be where, booking flights and accommodation, and in general emotionally preparing for what may be a super stressful and not at all restorative time of year. It makes every sense for me to balance out that stress with a little Christmas-associated treat. Drink some eggnog, eat a little chocolate. Pull a cracker with a loved one. Listen to ‘Fairytale of New York’. All things in moderation, all year round, including Christmas.

For those who reject this entirely, think of it as a kind of vaccine, inoculating you against end-of-year madness. Surely it’s easier to hear ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ once every month than to hear it 12 times in the space of a few weeks? It’s like cleaning your house: if you do a little bit of celebrating on a regular basis, November and December would be way less stressful.

It’d be hard for the first year, maybe the first two. Christmas songs in March would take some getting used to. But eventually we’d get used to it all, even the rampant commercialisation. Christmas shelves would be reduced to just a corner of the store, for fanatics who are always looking for the best decoration to adorn their tree. Your favourite musician wouldn’t release a Christmas album just for that end-of-year boost. Better yet, people who are a bit… intense… about Christmas won’t find their friends and families giving them a wide berth around the same time each year for “no reason”. It’s win-win-win.

If you’ll allow me to be earnest and heartfelt for a second, I think what I really want is the Christmas spirit, year-round. For people to carry the love for those around them; to show generosity towards those shouldering more than their burden (especially people who have to work customer service this season). To carry the joy that radiates from the high notes in ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’. To carry the care and consideration that goes into making sure the 25th happens at all, and the grace of deciding that, truly, nothing will ruin Christmas.

Even if it’s only March!

But wait there's more!