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.

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.

Swinburne NTEU branch has produced many collective bargaining bulletins detailing negotiations. These have been emailed to members, but in case you have missed an issue, or deleted the email, you can download past issues here.

All of the bulletins are in PDF format and are between 50kb to 200kb in size.

• Bulletin 1
• Bulletin 2
• Bulletin 3
• Bulletin 4
• Bulletin 5

Further updates and copies of Bargaining Bulletins will be made available soon.