VICTORIA UNIVERSITY BRANCH
32 Federal Street, (corner of Tiernan and Federal
Streets - enter via carpark in Tiernan Street)
Footscray Park Campus, Telephone: 9919 4076, Fax: 9919 4019, email:
vu@nteu.org.au
Friends of VU
Students and community members, support VU by joining Friends of Victoria University.
- ABOUT US
- ENTERPRISE BARGAINING STARTS AGAIN
- VU Act retains its legislative commitment to the west thanks to Friends of VU
- NTEU takes VU to Fair Work Australia over academic workloads
- Victoria University (Academic & General Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2009
- Heads of Agreement between Victoria University and NTEU
- The Academic Workloads Model
- SCHEDULE 4 - Calculation of Academic Sessional Rates
- 2010 Branch Newsletters
- 2009 Branch Newsletters
- 2008 Branch Newsletters
- CONNECT - the publication for sessional academic staff
ABOUT US
Branch Officers
President: Richard Gough, telephone 9919 4640
Vice-President Academic: Susan Bevan, telephone 9919 2566
Vice-President General Staff: Michael Zaar, telephone 9919 5233
Secretary: Emily Wark, telephone 9919 8256
Branch Staff
Branch Organiser: Steve Horton, telephone 9919 4076, vu@nteu.org.au
Industrial Organiser: Russel Baader, telephone 9919 4076, rbaader@vic.nteu.org.au
Postal address:
National Tertiary Education Union
Victoria University Branch
Footscray Park Campus
c/- Victoria University
PO Box 14428
Melbourne 8001
| Branch Committee |
ENTERPRISE BARGAINING STARTS AGAIN
The EBA that was voted on in December 2009 has passed its nominal expiry date (28 February 2009) and we are now able to commence bargaining for a new Agreement to take us to 2012.
The NTEU has served a Log of Claims on the University and requested that bargaining start in the week commencing 22 March.
The Log of Claims for the new Agreement can be seen here:
| NTEU Log of Claims for a new EBA |
VU Act retains its legislative commitment to the west thanks to Friends of VU
Greens MPs in State Parliament, on behalf of Friends of Victoria University, have succeeded in an amendment to compel Victoria University to consider the needs of students in the west.
The amendment was supported by the State Government and also had the support of the Opposition.
The VU act has been amended to retain its old object of service to the Western region which was about to be abolished in a new recasting of the Act to make it conform with the model legislation for other Victorian universities. The object as follows has been reinserted:
‘... to develop and provide educational, cultural, professional, technical and vocational services, and, in particular, to foster participation in post-secondary education for persons living or working in the Western Metropolitan region of Melbourne’.
Victoria University will be the only university to have specific changes to the objects in its Act in this way.
Hansard from the Legislative Council, with a spirited presentation by Greens MLC Colleen Hartland on behalf of Friends of Victoria University, is available here.
There is castigating criticism of Victoria University’s management as well as strong argument for the retention of VU’s ‘Westernality’. Liberal MLC for Northern Victoria Donna Petrovich also criticizes the University’s decision to close the Sunbury campus. A brief excerpt of Colleen Hartland’s MLC’s speech is below.
‘As I have indicated I will move an amendment which, in effect, maintains the old section 6(i) in the Victoria University of Technology Act, under the same heading, ‘Objects of the University’, which will become clause 5 of the bill ... I am pleased the Minister for Education’s office has indicated that the government is inclined to support the Greens amendment.
Obviously if this occurs it will be a very significant A number of recent events have raised concerns that Victoria University is starting to move away from its special responsibility to the western suburbs. In 2007 the university retrenched 70 staff, in an austerity program that caused cuts to student services. Information obtained by the Greens via freedom of information showed that, at around the same time, the university held a New Year’s Eve party for 90 people at a cost of $25 000. Over an 18-month period senior managers of the university spent a further $71 000 on their university credit cards on entertainment at some of Melbourne’s most expensive restaurants. One university councillor spent $3600 on attending a Melbourne Football Club game.
In August 2009 cuts to Chinese, Japanese and Spanish teaching at Victoria University were announced. In October 2009 cuts were announced to maths courses, and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute said they would result in maths teacher shortages in western suburbs high schools. In November 2008 VU announced the closure of the Melton and Sunbury campuses and proposed 270 redundancies without prior consultation. Friends of Victoria University, of which I am a member, was formed in outrage at those cuts. They approached me to move this amendment, and I am happy to do so.’
Victoria University management continues to pursue an unrelenting adversarial approach in its relationships with staff and students in 2010 with its recent decision to unilaterally increase academic workloads without consultation. This is an approach which the Region and Victoria State Parliament have now clearly rejected as antithetical to the aims of the Western Region. It is time for the University to reconsider this approach.
The NTEU calls on the Chancellor and University Council to call a moratorium on any further proposed changes which will harm staff, students, the community or the Western Region until the appointment of a new Vice Chancellor.
We call further on Council to develop a new strategy which involves staff, students and the community in developing future planning for higher education in the region.
It is time for Vice-Chancellor Liz Harman to move on, it’s time for a new vision, it’s time to renew Victoria University after too many years of destruction.
| Hansard VICTORIA UNIVERSITY BILL |
NTEU takes VU to Fair Work Australia over academic workloads
On Thursday, 18 February NTEU lodged an application with Fair Work Australia [FWA] for FWA to deal with a dispute over the proper application of clause 47 Workloads Academic Staff of the Victoria University (Academic & General Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2009. A hearing has been set for 10 March.
The application followed NTEU representatives attempting, in meetings with management, to get the University to comply with the provisions of the new EBA in respect of the application of clause 47 Workloads Academic Staff. It was put to the University representatives that the University should cease to implement the changes that had been made, under the old Agreement, on 12 January this year and commence negotiations with NTEU over academic workloads. We were told that it was too difficult to “wind back” to the pre-12 January position. That is, that the University, having made the changes, sought to keep them despite the provisions of the new EBA.
All our academic members will be aware of the reprehensible action of the University in unilaterally changing the academic workload model on 12 January this year. NTEU at that stage notified an industrial dispute, under the terms of the old Agreement, over the validity of those changes. That process was not resolved when the new EBA came into effect on 29 January and that dispute ceased to have effect.
Now, despite having signed an agreement with the NTEU in June 2009 that quite unambiguously stated that “matters relating to the academic workload model will be subject to ongoing negotiation by a union and management working party [and that] [n]o changes will be made to the existing model until agreement is reached on the outstanding matters” (see full Heads of Agreement at www.nteu.org.au/bd/vu) and despite staff voting in good faith on a commitment made by the University in the new EBA that “... the current Academic Workload Model will remain as University Policy for the life of this Agreement, however, [it] will be varied subject to agreement between VU Management and NTEU” the University proceeded on 12 January to unilaterally change the model to the detriment of the staff and, not incidentally, to the detriment of the students of the University.
VU management (read Vice-Chancellor) seem to think that they can get away with the 12 January changes on a legal technicality – that the changes have been made and, despite the terms of the new EBA, cannot be “wound back”. Never mind principles; never mind even a token nod to the much-touted VU “Values” of “integrity, respect and transparency”.
Our application to Fair Work Australia [FWA] for a resolution of this dispute set out the matter of the dispute over the proper application of the Agreement in the following terms:
What is the dispute about?
1. Clause 47 Workloads Academic Staff requires that the workloads of academic staff be regulated by the academic workloads model as it existed in the Victoria University (Academic & General Staff) Enterprise Bargaining Agreement 2005 [“the existing model”].
2. Clause 47.3.2 states that “No changes will be made to the existing model until agreement is reached on the outstanding matters referred to under point 47.3.”
4. The Victoria University (Academic & General Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2009 was made by the staff of the University on 21 December 2009. In explaining the terms of the proposed Agreement the University advised staff, in respect of academic workloads, that “... the current Academic Workload Model will remain as University Policy for the life of this Agreement, however, [it] will be varied subject to agreement between VU Management and NTEU”.
5. On 12 January 2010, after the Victoria University (Academic & General Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2009 was made and before it was approved, the University changed the terms of the Academic Workloads Model without either negotiation or agreement with the NTEU.
6. The University continued to implement the 12 January changes to academic workloads after the approval of the Victoria University (Academic & General Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2009 on 22 January 2010.
7. On 3 February 2010 the NTEU advised the University that it was in dispute “... over the application of clause 47 Workloads Academic Staff...” and seeking the implementation of the Academic Workloads Model as it existed at the time the Agreement was made on 21 December 2009.
In brief, after staff had voted on an Agreement that on its face said that the academic workloads model, as it existed on 21 December 2009, would be changed only by negotiation between NTEU and the University the University unilaterally changed the model and then, after the coming into effect of the new Agreement, continued to implement those changes.
Do you feel cheated? You should. Whether you are an academic or a general staff member of this institution you should have serious doubts about the degree to which you are respected as a member of this community and the degree to which agreements made will be honoured.
And whatever the outcome of the action in FWA it is clear that we have a serious fight on our hands this year to achieve an academic workloads model that respects both the integrity of agreements reached and the concept of a work-life balance.
For more information go to: http://vufacts.org/
Victoria University (Academic & General Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2009
The new Agreement has a nominal expiry date of 28 February 2010. (Note that all agreements continue to operate past their nominal expiry dates until replaced by another agreement.)
It is the intention of the NTEU and the University to commence bargaining again after February 2010 for a subsequent agreement to mid-2012.
This is therefore an interim agreement.
The Agreement provides for a 4% payrise and an increase in the casual loading to 25% (both already implemented). Note also that at clause 23 of the Heads of Agreement the University committed to 'a replacement Agreement [which] will include future salary increases applying in 2010 and 2011.'
The new Agreement builds on the current Agreement conditions and removes the odious HEWRRs (Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements) forced on the University by the Howard government.
It also improves on the current Agreement in the following ways:
- The qualifying time for Long Service Leave is now only 7 years (pro-rata access to LSL after 7 years’ continuous service)
- Casuals will be able to access Long Service Leave
- Higher Duties Allowance for General Staff will now apply after a qualifying period of 5 consecutive working days for all classification levels
- Sessional academics will be paid for all marking occurring outside of lectures and tutorials
- All pre-HEWRR restrictions on the use of fixed-term employment have been re-instated to provide more secure forms of employment for most staff. All HECE (Higher Education Contract of Employment Award) provisions have been re-instated which means fixed-term contracts may only be used in a limited range of circumstances
- Employment terms and severance benefits for long-term research only staff on fixed-term contracts have been improved
- Childcare workers will now receive the same hourly rate of pay as other General Staff in the same classifications (Childcare workers work a 38 hour week and all other General Staff work a 36.75 hour week. Prior to this agreement the annual remuneration for both groups was the same. Childcare workers were therefore being paid a lower hourly rate. The annual remuneration for Childcare workers under this Agreement will therefore be higher than for other General Staff.)
- The current academic workloads model will continue to apply in the new Agreement until replaced through further negotiation
The full Agreement can be found here (Note that the Agreement must be read in conjunction with the following VU policies: Linking of Classification Levels - General Staff; Probation; Redeployment Principles General Staff; Relocation of Staff; Special Studies Program; Staff Performance and Development Planning):
| Victoria University (Academic & General Staff) Enterprise Agreement 2009 |
Heads of Agreement between Victoria University and NTEU
The Heads of Agreement between Victoria University and the NTEU is available here:
| Heads of Agreement |
The Academic Workloads Model
The Academic Workloads Model does not exist in consolidated form. The base document is 'Model.pdf' which is modified by the following listed documents (in chronological order):
1. WMRRG Final Report_10 DECEMBER 2007.pdf
2. workload amendment_2008.pdf
3. VCs determination 121108.pdf
4. 10.01.12 Acting VC's determination on Academic Workload Model.pdf
The NTEU is in dispute with the University over the changes made in '10.01.12 Acting VC's determination on Academic Workload Model.pdf'. The dispute alleges that the University failed to properly apply the new Agreement, which precludes changes other than by negotiation with NTEU.
| Model.pdf | |
| WMRRG Final Report_10 DECEMBER 2007.pdf | |
| workload amendment_2008.pdf | |
| VCs determination 121108.pdf | |
| 10.01.12 Acting VC's determination on Academic Workload Model.pdf |
SCHEDULE 4 - Calculation of Academic Sessional Rates
| SCHEDULE 4 - Calculation of Academic Sessional Rates |
2010 Branch Newsletters
| Branch News No 1, March 2010 | Enterprise Bargaining Starts Again; NTEU Takes VU to Fair Work Australia over Academic Workloads; State MP Castigates VU Senior Management; Sessional Staff and the New EBA |
2009 Branch Newsletters
| Branch News No 2, 19 February 2009 | Strike Action Needed to Counter Intransigent Management |
| Branch News No 1, 17 February 2009 | Strike action needed to counter intransigent management; 2009 - a year for making VU or breaking VU?; Is VU really “SUPER ATTRACTIVE”?; NTEU members’ meeting |
2008 Branch Newsletters
| Branch News No 5, October 2008 | Job Security Dispute: Victoria University Matters – but apparently not to the VC |
| Branch News No 4, 30 September 2008 | COLLECTIVE BARGAINING UPDATE |
| Branch News No 3, 9 September 2008 | Charges for Carparking; Collective Bargaining UpDate; Our Universities Matter!; Business and Law Tutorials; Workers’ Compensation review threatens workplace stress claims |
| Branch News No 2, 5 June 2008 | Collective Bargaining Commences at VU!; The 'UNMAKING' of Equity & Social Justice; Who Gives A Toss About General Staff at VU?; Elections for VU Branch Executive; DESPATCHES; A 4% Payrise! |
| Branch News No 1, 4 February 2008 | From the President; We Have Moved!; Despatches - messages from the frontline: The Unmaking of VU; Academic Leave Deeming; A 2% payrise and 4% yet to come! |
CONNECT - the publication for sessional academic staff
| Connect, Vol 2 No 2, August 2009 | |
| CONNECT, Vol 2 No 1, March 2009 | |
| CONNECT Issue 1, 2008 | |
| CONNECT Issue 2, July 2007 | |
| CONNECT Issue 1, 2007 |