University of Canberra staff have voted overwhelmingly to endorse a new Enterprise Agreement for 2009-2012.

A meeting of NTEU members had also strongly endorsed the draft.

It now awaits approval and registration by Fair Work Australia, which is likely to happen in February. The University has already committed to paying a 6% payrise administratively in January.
The new draft agreement provides improvements for parents and carers, general, academic and UC English Language Institute staff, casuals and staff on fixed-term contracts.
After a long and hard bargaining period, culminating in a strong vote for industrial action (which in the end did not have to be taken) UC members also achieved an agreement that reinstates limitations on use of fixed-term staff lost under the last government’s HEWRRs.

This was the chief sticking point in negotiations as UC management had wanted to introduce 7-year fixed-term contracts for all new level B and C staff. These contracts will now be continuing contracts with longer probation periods.

University staff across Australia are reporting a lack of respect and sometimes even contempt shown by management for the work done at all levels of the university.

Staff are now demanding more respect for the vital role they play in ensuring a quality output by the university community. Respect at work means:

• Respectable workloads.
• Respectable work/life balance.
• A respectable pay rise.
• Respectable job security for all staff.

Collective Agreements have expired at all universities and the former Howard Government’s WorkChoices laws have been repealed. However, most universities are yet to finalise new Fair Work Agreements and are still clinging to the discredited industrial regime that John Howard imposed.

Bargaining – the state of play

This situation draws into sharp focus the inadequacies of the now expired Agreements on job security, workload controls, dispute resolution processes and the use (and abuse) of casual and fixed-term employment.

These provisions, amongst others, were required to be removed or weakened by the Howard Government’s Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs).

The only reason NTEU agreed to these provisions being diluted or removed was to enable universities to receive their share of the $500 million in additional grants that the Howard Government made conditional on the HEWRRs being met.

With the HEWRRs having been abolished 12 months ago, there is no reason or justification for any university not to re-instate the pre-HEWRRs standards in new and improved Collective Agreements.

However, despite negotiations occurring for many months at some universities, managements have stalled finalising new Agreements, and in some instances have refused to consider some of the key claims aimed at redressing the existing inadequacies.

Time for action

It is now time to break these deadlocks. Over the next few weeks NTEU members across the country will be voting in secret ballots on authorising action to put pressure on university managements to reach settlements on new Agreements.

Your colleagues need you to join our campaign to achieve fair and manageable workloads, a pay rise which will fairly acknowledge the hard work of all staff, and to achieve respect at work for all.

If you’re not currently a Union member, join online. To vote on and participate in action to be taken in the campaign, you need to join the Union today.

If you are already an NTEU member, contact your local office to see how you can help. You can do as much or as little as you like. Every helping hand will help us win the conditions YOU and your university deserve.