UNIVERSITY AWA EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE ILLEGAL
1 Feb 2008
The Workplace Ombudsman has advised the University of Wollongong that it was illegal to offer employment on the condition that a person signs an AWA (Australian Workplace Agreement) – as they had to offer the choice of the Enterprise Agreement.
The Workplace Ombudsman investigated a complaint by the National Tertiary Education Union in early January, that the University was breaching the following clause in the University’s Enterprise Agreements: At the time of offering an AWA the University will offer a genuine and informed choice between the AWA and this Agreement.
“This is a major victory in the campaign against AWAs. We hope the University will now see sense and go back to offering the Enterprise Agreements. Their active pursuit of five year AWAs in the current environment especially was breathtakingly confrontational and counter productive” said Kim Draisma, NTEU President, University of Wollongong Branch.
The NTEU was approached by two academics in the Graduate School of Medicine on 4 January, who had not been offered the choice of the enterprise agreement but had only been offered employment if they signed an AWA which would last for five years. The Workplace Ombudsman was not pursuing legal action for the breaches related to these two academics as the University had since offered them choice of the Enterprise Agreement.
However the Ombudsman’s office will now be investigating the widespread breaches of this clause given that the University has admitted to the NTEU that all new staff in the Medical School have only been offered AWA employment (both academics and general staff) and that on occasion it had done this in other areas of the University.
The Ombudsman’s Office will require the University to produce all written employment offers since 29 November 2005 (when the current Enterprise Agreements commenced), to see how many staff were not offered the choice of the enterprise agreements. The documents will have to be produced within 14 days to the Ombudsman for them to assess the volume of breaches.
The NTEU has called on the University to:
- Cease offering AWAs to any staff from now on (given that the Labor Government will soon pass legislation to prevent AWA employment in future)
- Offer choice by allowing any staff who signed an AWA without choice to now choose to terminate their AWA and revert to the Enterprise Agreement.
For further information and
comment:
Ken McAlpine, Senior Industrial
Officer: (03) 9254 1910
Trish Mullins, NTEU
NSW Legal/Industrial Officer: (02) 9212
5433
Kim Draisma, NTEU President University
of Wollongong Branch (02) 4221 3701
Jo
Kowalczyk NTEU Industrial Organiser University of Wollongong Branch
(02) 4221 3701