UNIVERSITY OF BALLARAT MANAGEMENT DOING STUDENTS AND THE UNIVERSITY A DISSERVICE
MEDIA RELEASE
4 August 2005
University of Ballarat management is letting down its students and the University’s standing in the community by threatening to now not pay staff who are applying industrial bans, NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Matthew McGowan said today.
“Vice-Chancellor Kerry Cox’s edict means that those staff who continue to withhold exam results will be told that their pay will be stopped, meaning that they have effectively been stood down. How does this assist students?”
“University of Ballarat staff have applied this work ban since May. Why is management choosing now to take such a heavy-handed approach?”
“Our members are doing all they can to minimise the effect of our bans on students, including regularly exempting students who can genuinely show hardship from the ban.”
“If our members are in effect stood down, as suggested by the University, students would miss lectures and access to university staff.”
“This escalation by the University unfortunately fits a pattern of threatening and intimidating behaviour, when we need to be sitting down to settle this dispute.”
Mr McGowan said that Professor Cox’s approach to industrial relations has already had a negative effect on the university’s operations and its standing in the community.
“Instead of preparing his own version of a new agreement and presenting it as take-it-or-leave-it, Ballarat staff want Professor Cox to negotiate meaningfully on a new enterprise agreement that will satisfy the government’s requirements and deliver the funding increases, as is happening at the other 37 public universities in Australia.”
“This is why the industrial bans are in place.”
For further information and comment:
Matthew McGowan, NTEU Vic Division Secretary 0417 054 110
Jeremy Smith, NTEU Ballarat Branch President 0429 334 938