UNIVERSITY TOLD - OFFER AWA "ONLY" EMPLOYMENT OR RISK LOSING FEDERAL FUNDING
Monday, 30 July 2007
In a serious escalation in the pressure on Universities by the Federal Government to force workers onto AWA’s, the University of New England (UNE) has been sent a memo from the Department of Education, Science and Training warning that unless the University has a policy of offering jobs on an AWA-only basis, they could lose their funding.
At stake is the $400million worth of funding from the Federal Government to the university sector.
The NTEU has gained a copy of the memo, which outlines the changes to University policy that are required for UNE to get access to funding that is contingent on complying with the Government’s “Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements”.
NTEU Acting General Secretary, Ken McAlpine said the Department’s memo was the first to come to light that shows that the Federal Government is determined to go further in forcing universities to push AWA’s onto staff.
“At first the Government threatened funding if Universities didn’t offer AWA’s, but this is taking it a step further and saying to the sector – if you don’t include AWA-only employment in your policies your funding is threatened.
“The Government obviously does not respect the choice that the majority of employees in our sector have made – out of the approximately 150,000 AWA’s offered, only about 2000 staff have left the security of collective agreements to go onto individual contracts.
“While the Government has publicly said all employees must be offered “genuine choice” between collective agreements and AWAs, Mr Howard’s bureaucrats are enforcing his real agenda: to remove choice and force staff onto AWAs.
“The Government is now saying “genuine choice” means the choice between an AWA and unemployment.
“With all the crisis issues facing our universities – lack of funding, casualisation, overcrowded tutorials and lack of access for ordinary families, you would think the Federal Government would have better things to focus on in higher education, rather than just pushing through their WorkChoices agenda,” Mr McAlpine said.
For further information and comment: National Comment
Ken McAlpine, NTEU Acting General Secretary: 03 9254 1910
NSW and UNE Comment - Chris Game, NTEU NSW Division Secretary: 02 9212 5433