VU Management Revisits Workchoices

Management at Victoria University are in the process of breaching agreements on workloads, said Dr Jamie Doughney, Victorian President of the National Tertiary Education Union today.

“Victoria University management are using sleight of hand to unilaterally impose higher workloads on fewer academic staff. This means more threats to jobs and higher student-staff ratios,” Dr Doughney said.

“Last year, staff at Victoria University voted in good faith for a new collective agreement. That agreement between the NTEU and Victoria University said there would be no change to existing workloads unless agreed jointly between the union and management.

“The holiday season has caused a technical delay in Fair Work Australia approving the new agreement. There is a short time before the new agreement becomes technically binding, but it is certainly morally binding,” he said.

“The University is relying on relics from the Howard-Government imposed collective agreement from several years ago that technically is still in place until the new agreement comes into effect,” said Dr Doughney.

Dr Doughney continued: “To use a technical delay and the annual leave period to sneak through changes is bad faith. It also means that management with malice aforethought will breach the Heads of Agreement, signed officially by the University last year.”

“No changes means no changes, unless agreed on jointly by the union and management. We just want fair negotiation, without a Howard-Government gun pointed at our heads,” said Dr Doughney.

The NTEU has created a website to raise awareness about this issue with staff, students and the community: www.vufacts.org.

For further information contact:

Alex White, Communications and Campaigns Officer

Email: awhite@vic.nteu.org.au,

National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members at two WA universities – Curtin University and  Murdoch University- will take industrial action tomorrow, Wednesday 16 September 2009.

NTEU members at these universities will participate in a 24 hour work stoppage to help win new collective agreements that deliver manageable workloads, increased job security, a fair wages outcome and other improvements to conditions that will ensure staff can continue to deliver quality educational outcomes for their students. The work stoppage will involve both academic and general staff.

In secret ballots conducted recently at both Curtin and Murdoch, over 80 per cent of voting members supported conducting industrial campaigns to secure new collective agreements. Tomorrow’s strike action are the first stoppages in support of the bargaining claims after over 12 months of negotiations.

NTEU WA Division Secretary Dr Lyn Bloom commented that “NTEU members have been negotiating  new collective agreements with each institution. The failure of managements to offer a fair deal, and their attempts to reduce staff working conditions,  has resulted in strike action being taken. University staff are notoriously reluctant to take industrial action and are doing so now because they have been forced into it by the failure of Managements at both Curtin and Murdoch to listen to their staff. In particular, Murdoch staff are calling for their salaries to be lifted to the level of those of their counterparts at Curtin, ECU and UWA.”

“It is time for management to invest in quality educational outcomes by ensuring improved staff : student ratios, more resources, improved conditions and a reduction in the casualisation of the sector through improved conditions and more secure jobs for casual staff,” Dr Bloom said.

There will be a Rally at 11:30 am on Wednesday 16 September 2009 at Victoria Gardens in East Perth. Speakers will include NTEU National Assistant Secretary Ted Murphy.

For further information please contact:

Dr Jan Sinclair-Jones, NTEU Curtin Branch President on  0417 953 822

Janice Dudley, NTEU Murdoch Branch President on 0403 380 667

Dr Lyn Bloom, NTEU WA Division Secretary on 0417 930 113

A strongly attended Meeting of Academic and General Staff NTEU members at Curtin University unanimously passed a series of motions today endorsing Protected Industrial Action.

The motions called on all members to actively engage in a 24 hour stop work, picket lines and rally on 16 September.

NTEU National General Secretary, Grahame McCulloch, told the meeting that Curtin Staff are faced with “one of the most extreme Corporate Management styles in the sector, and that, even if the University were to increase its offer to match the NTEU’s claim of 7% per annum wages and redress the poor student staff ratio the proportion of University revenue expended on salaries would still be less than it had been in the first half of the decade.” Curtin NTEU Branch President, Dr Jan Sinclair-Jones, said “the implications of this trend, of shifting resources away from the University’s core responsibility to provide quality education in Western Australia, were deeply disturbing to all staff.

The motions also noted Management’s latest offers to staff and reflected the meeting’s view that the offers do not constitute a satisfactory to the dispute on the grounds that they:

• include a removal on the limits on teaching and associated duties;
• fail to recognise the role of the Union in dispute procedures, appeals, and review processes under the Agreement;
• fail to commit to net job losses;
• have inadequate limitations on the use of fixed term contracts and no provision for limits on casual employment;
• removal of the right to have compulsory arbitration;
• the fail to provide for adequate general staff reclassifications procedures, and reductions in general staff shift work and trades allowances;
• Fail to provide an adequate pay offer having regard to Curtin’s strong financial position.

Contact: Dr Jan Sinclair-Jones, President, NTEU Curtin Branch.

Mobile :  0417 953 822