HEWRRs TO BE ABOLISHED
6 February 2008
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Julia Gillard last night announced that the Government’s intention is to repeal the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs).
Mr Grahame McCulloch, General Secretary, NTEU today said:
“The NTEU and its members welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s announcement that it is the government’s intention to abolish the Coalition’s Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements.”
“This is especially important as the sector is due to commence a new round of enterprise bargaining over the next 18 months.
“Even before the introduction of Workchoices, the Coalition government used higher education funding to target universities as a vehicle for the introduction of its industrial relations agenda, including the requirement that all staff be offered AWAs.”
The HEWRRs not only imposed constraints on universities’ day to day management of their own staff, they also threatened the quality of university education by limiting the use of restrictions on casual employment and caps on staff-student ratios.
“We hope that Australian universities will never again be held to ransom by a government making university funding conditional upon the implementation of a government’s political agenda.”
“We look forward to our discussions with the Minister tomorrow (Thursday) about how she intends to move forward on the abolition of the HEWRRs.”
“All universities should understand that the HEWRRs are now politically and industrially dead and we look forward to a new round of free and fair enterprise bargaining without unwarranted interference from the Commonwealth.”
For information and comment:
Grahame McCulloch, General
Secretary, (03) 9254 1910
Paul Kniest,
Policy and Research Coordinator, (03) 9254 1910