University of Sydney
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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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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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Open Letters
Sydney University staff, general and academic, have been writing letters to inform management of their reasons for supporting the Enterprise Bargaining campaign and industrial action.
These letters are powerful and eloquent and speak to the anxieties university staff have about the direction management is taking Sydney University, and their hopes for Higher Education and this institution. Please read and share them widely.
Staff at Sydney University have also made a video (Dear Michael - An open letter to the Vice Chancellor) which you can view below.
Dear Michael - An open letter to the Vice Chancellor
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Abbott’s smoke and mirrors budget plan hits education hard
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) today warned that Federal Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, is hiding the range and breadth of funding cuts planned by the Coalition should it win ...
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NTEU protests call for the restoration of $2.3bn cut from higher education
Over 700 protestors called for the restoration of the latest $2.3bn cuts to university and student funding at a rally this afternoon in Sydney’s Victoria Park. Staff from the University of ...
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NTEU welcomes Greens and Andrew Wilkie’s opposition to uni cuts legislation
The Greens and independent MP Andrew Wilkie this morning announced their support for the National Tertiary Education Union’s ‘uni cuts- dumb cuts’ campaign and declared their ...
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Open Letter to University Management - Helen Dunstan
We come now to the saddest part: the fact that you, our Vice Chancellor and our Provost, have alienated yourselves from us. Just when unity and cooperation are most needed in the face of ferocious budget cuts, and when our advice on all manner of issues could be of the most value to you, we find that the only manner in which we can realistically engage with you is through adversarial industrial processes. The reality is that the issues go much deeper than those that are at stake in the present round of Enterprise Bargaining, and they require the best efforts of all of us, including some good old-fashioned humility on your parts, if they are to be solved. -
Protest tomorrow to call for the restoration of university cuts
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) is urging everyone who cares about higher education to join national protests tomorrow (Tuesday 14 May), to coincide with the Federal Government bringing ...
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Open Letter to Dr Barry Catchlove, Fellow of Sydney University Senate - Gillian Cowlishaw
At the end of 2011, the Vice-Chancellor made a sudden announcement that a large number of academics were to be made redundant, or moved to “teaching-focusssed positions”, due to their failure to produce an arbitrary, retrospectively defined quantity of research publications. The damage done to staff morale was extreme. This attempt to sack or downgrade staff was subsequently shown to be not only short sighted and clumsy, but based on misleading evidence. Many threats of redundancy were withdrawn, while some academics, valorised by students and peers for their teaching and research contributions, felt so stigmatised and demeaned by this process that they took the voluntary redundancy offer, while others who were not on the original hit list took advantage of the payouts to leave the university on advantageous terms, often leaving colleagues in their departments without adequate staffing, as maintaining academic program integrity was not one of the criteria used in the “change plan” (as the Fair Work Australia ruling against the university subsequently showed). These actions demonstrated to staff across the university that senior management has little respect for academic staff. Further, it demonstrated a certain managerial incompetence, which Senate may not be aware of. While many of us object to the increasing managerialism in the running of the university, when it is accompanied by incompetence and inconsistent messages we must surely object strenuously. A final insult was being subsequently told by senior research management staff that “quality” not “quantity” was needed in our research. Those who had been threatened with redundancy on the basis of an appearance of insufficient quantity, lost any remaining shreds of respect for management at that point.
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A Message from Sydney University Staff - Job Security
Staff from the University of Sydney tell management why job security is important not only to them, but to ensuring quality education.
A Message from Sydney University Staff
