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Perpetuating Howard’s Requirements at La Trobe

 

The recent message from the Vice-Chancellor on forthcoming negotiations for a new union collective agreement at La Trobe appeared to be only about the implications of the salary claim served on all Australian public universities.  In reality it contains an important signal of a management’s intentions in respect of conditions of employment that should not be overlooked by staff.

 

The key sentence is in the second last paragraph, where the Vice-Chancellor states,  “…I propose that the current EBA be rolled over for a further three years (with an expiry date of June 2011) subject to provision being made for further salary increases for staff over the period of the agreement.”

 

The current agreement was negotiated in the context of the Howard Government’s intrusion into the affairs of universities in the form of the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs). The HEWRRs threatened to remove funding from universities until important conditions of employment were removed from collective agreements and the contents of the agreements were approved by government officials and the Minister.

 

Members should be aware that among the conditions removed at La Trobe during the last HEWRRs influenced round of bargaining were:

• Arbitrated restrictions on the use of fixed term employment for work of an ongoing nature. 
• Academic role and workload provisions that included an entitlement to undertake research.
• Important descriptors for classifying general staff and procedures for determining reclassification applications.
• Important consultation processes relating to organisational change.
• The procedures governing the proceedings of misconduct investigation committees.
• The right of unions to initiate procedures to resolve workplace disputes on behalf of an employee who does not wish to be identified to management as the complainant.
• The prohibition on the imposing a second period of probation on a contract employee who is offered a second contract.
• Grievance procedures.

Whilst some of the removed conditions can be found in the university’s Human Resources Manual (HRM), by no means all of the conditions which the NTEU was told would be placed there ended up in the HRM. Provisions in the HRM also lack the enforceability of provisions in a binding collective agreement, and can be varied by management. To roll the existing agreement over for another three years will put those conditions at risk, and lock in the loss of the other conditions that do not even have HRM status.

 

The practical effect of the HEWRRs on employment security at La Trobe is demonstrated by the Commonwealth staffing statistics for higher education. Based on university reports as at 31 March each year, in 2005, before the current collective agreement came into force, La Trobe employed 2137 continuing staff and 476 contract staff. By 2007, the latest year for which the statistics have been published, the number of continuing staff had declined to 2077 while contract staff had increased by 25.63% to 598. This trend should not be allowed to continue for another three years.

 

The latest directive from the Vice-Chancellor in relation to the freeze on general staff positions is clear evidence that the University intends to continue misusing fixed term contracts. The Vice-Chancellor has directed that for any exceptions, “…there is a preference for any such positions to be filled on a fixed term basis only.” This is additional to the informal freeze on permanent academic appointments which, to our knowledge, has been in place since last year.

 

The proposal to roll over the current agreement has been put by La Trobe management despite both the election of a new Commonwealth government that is committed to abolishing the HEWRRs, and claims by the Liberals that they also no longer want to retain the HEWRRS.

 

Each time the NTEU serves a salary claim (and this is the 5th since the bargaining system commenced), management’s initial response predicts dire consequences. This has been the case regardless of who is the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe and whether the university has a deficit, a small surplus, or even a larger surplus.

 

While there may be an element of theatre in this, the arguments between the NTEU and management about salary increases reflect factors such as management’s view of the relative priority of other expenditure options compared to pay rises, inflation estimates, different views on the salaries that are appropriate given the work that staff undertake, cost impact and implications, and the university’s ability to compete with other institutions in recruiting new staff. Sometimes industrial action has been necessary to resolve an impasse.

 

Two things are worth noting on rewarding, retaining and recruiting staff. First, the NTEU’s claim was determined partly on the basis of information and projections in respect of salary movements for a number of sectors from which universities recruit new staff. Second, even allowing for the last instalment which is payable in July under the current collective agreement, the base salary rates at La Trobe for Senior Lecturer and HEO 5 will be below the weighted national average for Australian universities.

 

Bill Deller

Branch President

 

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Serena O'Meley & Karen Stancombe
Branch Industrial Organisers
La Trobe University Branch - NTEU
Telephone: 03 9479 2124
Fax: 03 9479 1503
Email:  nteu@latrobe.edu.au
Shop 10C, the Agora, Bundoora Campus
http://www.nteu.org.au/latrobe
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