JUNE 1 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION TO KICK OFF CAMPAIGN AGAINST GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN UNIVERSITIES
May 15, 2005
Higher education unions will cooperate on a June 1 National Day of Action against the Federal Government plan to cut universities’ budgets by $280 million unless their managements sign up to harsh workplace relations changes, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) announced on Sunday.
“The NTEU is working on bringing together as broad a coalition of groups as possible representing those affected by the Government’s industrial plans for universities, including other unions and student groups,” said Grahame McCulloch, NTEU General Secretary.
“In addition to protest activities and community meetings at campuses across the country, there may be strikes at a significant number of the nation’s public universities where enterprise bargaining has not yet been completed, depending on the outcome of talks in the coming days.”
“We expect staff from the TAFE sector, where the Federal Government has recently announced similar plans, will also be participating.”
“The National Day of Action is part of a broader NTEU political, legal and industrial campaign against the Federal Government’s workplace relations changes to universities, the details of which will be finalised at a meeting of the Union’s National Executive on Monday.”
“As part of the Government’s proposed changes, universities face significant funding cuts unless they comply with the conditions,” said McCulloch. “These include no limitations on casual employment, the stripping back of staff conditions, and requiring universities to offer all staff Australian Workplace Agreements that override existing collective agreements.”
“Universities are independent institutions established through their own acts of parliament. While they need to be broadly accountable, they should not be subject to excessive government interference and should have the right to determine their own arrangements with their own staff.”
“The Federal Government is seeking to directly dictate the form of industrial agreements that should be offered to staff, and to micro-manage conditions of employment.”
“The NTEU believes these proposed changes also threaten the quality of teaching and research carried out at our universities, and could undermine the international reputation of our university system, making it harder to attract and retain high quality teaching and research staff.”
“The campaign will feed into the Australian Council of Trade Union’s national activities against the workplace relations changes to be introduced by the Federal Government when it takes full control of the Senate on July 1.”
INFORMATION AND COMMENT
Grahame McCulloch, NTEU General Secretary: (03) 9254 1910
Ken McAlpine, NTEU Senior Industrial Advisor: (03) 9254 1910
Andrew Nette, NTEU Policy and Research Coordinator: (03) 9254 1910
More information about the NTEU’s campaign against the Federal Government’s proposed workplace relations changes for universities is available at www.nteu.org.au/higheredatrisk