NTEU TAKES VICTORIA UNIVERSITY TO COURT OVER ALLEGED BREACHES OF AGREEMENT
20 February 2007
MEDIA RELEASE
The NTEU will today serve Federal Court papers on Victoria University, alleging serious breaches by the University of its Collective Agreement with the NTEU.
The prosecution is in response to what the Union sees as a
continuing and deliberate campaign to obstruct the settlement of
disputes at the University.
All Collective Agreements in universities set out procedures
about how the Agreement should be applied to settle disputes.
After preliminary procedures have been followed, the Industrial
Relations Commission has the power to ensure that the parties to
an Agreement carry out their obligations.
NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Matthew McGowan said today,
“Since the middle of 2006 the Union has attempted to raise concerns with the University management about plans to sack staff and changes to the way workloads are allocated.”
“Instead of dealing with the issues we have raised, the University has ‘thumbed its nose’ at us by refusing to meet or consult, refusing to respond to the concerns of staff, and using spurious technical points to prevent progress in settling these disputes.”
“It seems that VU is flouting the dispute-settling procedures to avoid matters being dealt with in a timely manner by the Commission.”
“Amongst other things, the University has claimed that the President of the NTEU Branch, an employee of the University, has no interest or standing to bring a dispute about the University’s failure to properly apply its academic workload provisions. This is not only obviously spurious, it has led to the University acting illegally.”
“Perhaps the worst aspect of VU’s behaviour is that it seems to be part of a consistent pattern of law-breaking by a number of universities over compliance with dispute-settling procedures. This is one of the reasons why the Union has launched this prosecution – university staff are entitled to have their Agreements adhered to, and to have disputes about their Agreements fairly resolved.”
Victoria University faces fines of up to $99,000 if it is found to have breached the Agreement as claimed.
For information about the Statement of Claim and further comment:
Matthew McGowan NTEU Vic Division Secretary 0417
054 110
Dr James Doughney NTEU VU Branch President 0400
303 063
Josh Cullinan NTEU Industrial Officer 0416
241 763
Ken McAlpine NTEU Senior Industrial Officer 0418
357 499