NSW Division
Posts tagged with USYD
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Strike And Picket - May 14
On Wednesday April 30, NTEU Members voted to take further Industrial Action on Tuesday May 14.
Members will be on Strike for 24 Hours and will be picketing the University of Sydney from 7 am.
You can download the flier below which includes information about why members elected to take strike action again. You can also view our Compare the Pair information which lays out the difference between the NTEU's vision for Sydney University and management's lack of one.
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(195 KB) - PDFUSYD: Strike and Picket Poster - 14 May
Published: 07 May, 2013
Tags: EB6, Strike, poster, Sydney, USYD, Syd, bargaining
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YOGACTION - Sydney Uni Casuals Demonstrate what Flexibility Really Looks Like
On Monday May 06, the Sydney University Casuals Network held a Yogaction outside the meeting of the University Senate. The action highlighted what managements' claims about "flexibility" mean in reality.
Yogaction!
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Flexibility?
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Bending Over Backwards
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Tied Up in Knots
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Finding Balance
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Management's Own Flexibility
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Table Pose - Be Your Own Office
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Heads Down in Downward Facing Dog
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Keep it All Inside in Child's Pose
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Learn to Play Dead with Savasana
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Standing on Our Heads
You can also read an article in New Matilda written by Sharni Chan, Janin Bredehoft and Claire Parfitt, three of our casual activists.
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Fear, Love and Learning in the Market University - Podcast Now Available
For those of you who were unable to attend the NTEU Public Lecture given by Professor Raewyn Connell at Sydney University on April 24, it is now available online.
You can read the Open Letters that sparked it all, and view the video made by Sydney Uni staff here.
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NTEU Sydney News - April 2013 Edition
The latest edition of NTEU News is out now. This edition includes excerpts from the fantastic open letters and information about the elections for Staff Elected Senate Fellows and a bargaining
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Open Letter to the Vice Chancellor and University - Sue Woolf
"... I looked up from my research and teaching, and realized that the educational institution I’d joined so joyfully had become a severely hierarchical corporation that I hadn’t a hope of approaching in a democratic way. The style of management of our university – management defined, it seems to me, solely as the managing of systems, structures, finances and building, never people - has robbed the colleagues I’ve been proud to be amongst, colleagues chosen for their brilliant scholarship and eagerness to share it, of any hope of democratic governance, even of the courage to speak out."
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Compare the pair
Compare the pairThe NTEU has been bargaining now for 10 months. So we produced this leaflet to show the difference between the NTEU's vision for Sydney University and management’s lack of one.
Your Union Claims:
Management Claims:
A commitment from management to finalise bargaining within 30 days.
Bargaining is now entering its 10th month. At the current rate of progress it is unlikely negotiations will be finalised until sometime towards the end of 2013.
Progress is being made, so a commitment to conclude bargaining is unnecessary.
Slow progress saves management money it would otherwise need to spend on new programs and wage increases, remembering the last pay rise was in January 2012. More importantly for management, it buys time for an Abbott government to be elected and place restrictions on union representation of staff.
Recognition of the role of the unions and protection of rights to office space and access to internal systems and services.
The unions are not external organisations without any interest in the quality of education or the University. Union members are all employees of the University. Unions are therefore, a significant part of the University community and should be appropriately recognised and their roles protected in the Agreement.
Agreements should only be between management and staff. Unions are external organisations without an interest in the University.
Management initially tried to exclude unions from the Agreement. They were forced to partially back down following industrial action but are still refusing to provide office space and access to internal systems. Given an Abbott government is expected to significantly limit the right of unions to enter workplaces, not having a permanent presence on campus would potentially restrict the union’s capacity to represent staff. Management says the unions should pay commercial rent like “other tenants”; however, the unions do not exist to make a commercial profit. The Union is the members employed by the University, why should staff pay rent to their employer?
Fair and equitable processes and procedures for managing change, redundancy and review committees.
The NTEU seeks to protect job security and ensure staff are treated fairly and objectively in managing change, redundancy and restructure processes including: (i) that no position will be made redundant unless the work is no longer required to be performed by anyone; (ii) ensuring that a redundancy review committee has an external independent chairperson and that its decisions are final; and (iii) providing general staff the same redundancy entitlements as academics.
Positions aren’t always correctly classified because of the current process and a lack of training for those tasked with classifying positions.
The existing conditions provide a clear framework to ensure position classifications accurately reflect the work being performed. The provisions require that classification assessments be done by suitably qualified people, although management admits this isn’t happening. Management cannot identify a systemic problem with the clauses. Rather, they identify a systemic failing by management to properly train people and thus ensure a “suitably qualified” pool to assess position classifications.
Maintenance of existing conditions ensuring general staff are paid correctly through enforceable position classifications, position descriptions and reassessment procedures.
All staff should have an agreed position description that matches the work they perform. Position classification assessments and reviews need to be independent, timely and not influenced by budgetary considerations.
Positions aren’t always correctly classified because of the current process and a lack of training for those tasked with classifying positions.
The existing conditions provide a clear framework to ensure position classifications accurately reflect the work being performed. The provisions require that classification assessments be done by suitably qualified people, although management admits this isn’t happening. Management cannot identify a systemic problem with the clauses. Rather, they identify a systemic failing by management to properly train people and thus ensure a “suitably qualified” pool to assess position classifications.
Equality of access to 17% superannuation for all staff.
The unions claim seeks to end the absurd discrimination between those staff receiving 17% and those who do not.
Not all staff deserve 17%.
Apart from the absurd claim that not all staff deserve 17%, management want to allow staff to cash out up to 8% of their super entitlement. This would seriously undermine the Commonwealth funding model, which provides universities significant grant which cover the high employer contribution. Further, if contributions fall below 14%, staff will be disqualified from the UniSuper Defined Benefit Scheme.
Improved general staff access to career development through a dedicated General Staff Development Fund and new mobility scheme.
All staff should have access to career development opportunities. However, in a survey conducted by the NTEU, 69% of respondents said they do not have a meaningful career path, 60% said training and development is inadequate.
The need for strict workload regulation is unnecessary because staff can individually negotiate their workload with their supervisor.
Management’s claim effectively removes the 40/40/20 model that protects academic research allocations. It also deletes restrictions on weekly hours (37.5) and annual hours (1725), meaning it would not be unreasonable for managers to demand staff work additional hours. In addition, management’s claim allows that where a staff member is forced to take annual leave they may be required to make up the time with additional duties, e.g. performing make up teaching.
New permanent positions for long-term casual and fixed-term academics.
The NTEU claim addresses the misuse of casual employment to deliver the majority of teaching in Australian universities. All staff deserve secure employment, a career path and the entitlements that flow from them. The NTEU’s Scholarly Teaching Fellow claim will absorb teaching currently done by casuals by creating permanent positions for casual staff already engaged in an Australian university.
Any new positions should only be fixed term in case a person “isn’t any good”.
Management’s claim that Scholarly Teaching Fellows be exclusively fixed term ignores the purpose of the NTEU claim and would create an additional insure fixed term category. Furthermore, comments about wanting to get rid of underperforming staff evidences the deep mistrust management has of staff and confirms the desire to increase performance monitoring and surveillance.
Protection of personal (sick) leave entitlements.
Statistics requested in bargaining by the unions shows that in 2012 the number of staff who took no personal (sick) leave was 41%, 47% took less than 10 days and less than 1%, just 55 staff, took more than 50 days in order to deal with significant health issues. There is no reason for management to attack sick leave; allowing it to do so now will establish a dangerous precedent for the future.
The current personal (sick) leave entitlement is excessive compared to community standards and embarrassing for senior management outside the University.
The embarrassment of senior management is not, in the absence of an identified abuse of the entitlements, sufficient reason to make a concession on this issue. The existing standards have been in place for many, many years.
New protections for staff who are victims of domestic violence.
Nearly 1/3 of Australians experience domestic violence or abuse at some stage of their lives. Of every 100 women experiencing or witnessing domestic violence 65 are in paid employment. In a 2011 survey by the UNSW Domestic Violence Clearing House, 30% of those who experienced domestic violence reported the violence continued at work, primarily through abusive phone calls and emails and/or the partner physically coming to the workplace. For employers the result is lost productivity, high levels of absenteeism and unnecessary staff turnover.
Domestic violence leave can be accommodated through personal (sick) leave.
Around 1 million employees are covered by specific domestic violence clauses in enterprise agreements. By conflating Personal (sick) Leave and Domestic Violence Leave management is undermining the purpose of the unions claim to recognise the unique impacts of domestic violence on staff attendance, performance and job security, which is essential to escaping an abusive partner. The claim requires dedicated leave and resources to support staff to deal with the effects of domestic violence so they can care for children, attend medical appointments, legal proceedings and seek safe housing.
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Casualisation and the Academic Workforce
Here is Kurt Iveson talking about casualiation and why the NTEU's academic workforce claims in the current round of Enterprise Bargaining are so important. He talks about how those claims will address the explosion of precarious and casual teaching in the University and invest in the next generations of academics. High quality education relies on high quality working conditions for staff.
Casualisation and the Academic Workforce
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NTEU Members Meeting: Motions
University of Sydney NTEU members voted today to take further industrial action if management does not move on core Union claims.
The motions passed at today's NTEU Members' meeting are
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Staff Elected Fellows of Senate - Important Voting Information
The elections for Staff Fellows of Senate open today. The NTEU believes it is important to support staff elected Fellows of Senate who have a good understanding of the issues facing University staff and the direction of the University. We are urging staff to vote for the following active, prominent NTEU members.
It is critically important that we have advocates for staff, the University and higher education as our representatives on the Senate.
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Open Letter to the Vice Chancellor - Robert van Krieken
"For me a central question that we all at this university need to answer, in a way that is persuasive to a reasonable proportion of those working at the coal-face, is: what does it mean to be a university, and not a brewery? What kinds of relationships and lines of communication should we have, especially horizontally, but also vertically? What does it actually mean for managers to ‘respect’ the staff they manage, what rules should they be abiding by? There are many people in senior management positions at this University who are acutely aware of the importance of these questions, and have arrived at a considered approach to how they should be answered. In my view these are the ‘best practice’ managers at the University. This round of Enterprise Agreement negotiations, including the industrial action, will have achieved an enormously positive effect if it generates an impetus towards not only answering these questions, but developing the policies, practices and institutional forms that give those answers a firm shape in the real world of university
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