Victorian Universities Stop Work Over Lack Of Progress On New Enterprise Agreements
4 May 2004
Academic and general staff at three Victorian Universities are stopping work this week to protest at the lack of progress on finalising new Enterprise Agreements, NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Matthew McGowan said today.
Staff at RMIT held successful stopwork meetings at the City and Bundoora campuses yesterday (Monday 3 May). Staff at VUT will stop work for 12 hours from noon tomorrow (Wednesday 5 May) and meet at 1pm. University of Melbourne staff will stop work from 12 – 2pm, also on Wednesday 5 May.
“University staff are frustrated about new agreements taking so long, and the unsatisfactory offers that have been made so far,” Mr McGowan said.
“NSW universities have finalised agreements with salary rises of up to 19%, and significant improvements to some employment conditions, in particular parental leave. So far, RMIT has offered a miserable 12%, the University of Melbourne has made no guaranteed salary offer, only a possible 16% fully contingent on achieving future revenue targets, and VUT has failed to make any offer at all.”
Mr McGowan said that Department of Education, Science & Training (DEST) figures indicate that Victorian universities clearly have the capacity to pay salaries at least comparable with similar NSW institutions.
“DEST figures show that Victorian universities have dramatically cut the proportion of their total expenditure spent on salaries, from 64% in 1996 to 54% in 2002. The figure has fallen to 47% at the University of Melbourne. While they cater for 26% of Australia’s students, they receive about 29% of university revenue.
“Whatever may be the problems of some universities, they are not caused by salary increases. It’s time that university managements recognised their staff’s commitment to hard work and quality outcomes for students.”
For further information and comment:
Matthew McGowan, ph 0417 054 110
Justin Baré, VUT NTEU Branch President, ph 0407 521 839
Sean Cooney, Uni of Melb NTEU Branch President, ph 0405 137 833
Jeanette Pierce, RMIT NTEU Branch President, ph 0438 706 508