Despite Tim Sprague having been unavailable due to sickness, the second bargaining meeting proceeded for the year on Tuesday this week.

Progress was made on:

Managing change

It’s looking like agreement might be possible on a Managing Change clause that both management and the Unions can agree to, which mainly includes the right of Unions to be properly consulted on any impending change proposals, prior to a decision being reached. Our claim will also strengthen the right od staff to be provided with proper access about change proposals in order to make informed decisions in response to any proposal. 

Position Classification

The NTEU is primarily seeking to strengthen the appeals process for General Staff Position reclassification claims by way of an appeals committee comprised of some Union nominees.  Despite the management team stating problems it has with the make up of an appeals committee, we are getting very close to securing a stronger process for appeals.

MUCC (Consultative Committee)

The crux of the NTEU’s claim on this proposed committee is that the function of any such committee be not just to discuss workplace issues faced by staff at MQ, but to discuss issues with the intent of progressing solutions for the issues.  The NTEU’s position is that Union officials should be present with full rights.  Both Unions have put forward the position that the Chair of the Committee should be elected.

General staff career development

This clause is now agreed and settled. 

 Union representation

Negotiations continue on claims around Union representation, aimed at winning back much of the Union’s former rights around office space, time release for elected officials, access to staff inductions, payroll deductions cemented in the collective agreement, and more.

 The next bargaining meeting will be on March 11 to focus purely on Academic Workloads, with a view to expediting this claim.  We are waiting for confirmation on a further full-day bargaining meeting on March 18.

Following intensive bargaining between the NTEU Murdoch Branch Bargaining Team and Murdoch University Management, substantial progress has been made towards the agreement, including the reintroduction of proper regulation for the use of fixed term contracts by the University.

The Bargaining Team has therefore taken the decision to withdraw the proposed industrial action for next Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th February 2010, the first 2 days of the teaching semester.

On Tuesday 19 January 2010 NTEU representatives had a full day EB meeting with University representatives, which was conducted in a generally positive and constructive manner.

While progress was made in resolving some outstanding clauses there are still a significant number of matters that are not close to resolution. A brief summary of the topics discussed follows: 

Senior Staff Contracts

The management proposal to extend Senior Staff Contracts down to Heads of Schools and Branch Heads was extensively discussed and remains an area of significant disagreement, though the discussion did clarify the respective points of difference between each side, notably the philosophical and industrial issues as to whether Heads of School are simply line managers.

Disputes/Reviews and Staff Complaints

There was a useful combined discussion on Disputes/Reviews and Staff Complaints and there is now agreement in principle (subject to drafting) to retain Review Committees separately for matters such as promotion/reclassification, unsatisfactory performance/misconduct, staff complaints, redundancy and redeployment.  The disputes clause requires further negotiation.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) Employment

After considerable discussion we appear to be closer to agreement on a strategy for increasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment and on the establishment of a representative monitoring committee.

PDR

A considerable amount of time was spent on this topic as the NTEU is strongly opposed to linking PDR with unsatisfactory performance. Considerable progress was made and our respective positions were clarified. We believe we are close to agreement about removing management’s proposed link between PDR and unsatisfactory performance.  The NTEU is to propose a definition of what constitutes unsatisfactory performance.

The drafting group will continue to work on detailed clauses and we have proposed a further full day bargaining meeting near the end of February 2010.