The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) branch at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) launched a staff strike for 36 hours, occurring from Thursday until Friday.
NTEU members are striking during a prolonged bargaining process. As the RMIT University Enterprise Agreement expired three years ago, and the Vocational Education (VE) Teachers agreement expired two years ago, current staff remain without an enterprise agreement. The NTEU have labelled management’s approach to bargaining as “intransigent.”
“While RMIT staff are struggling with the cost of living and dealing with bulging class sizes and ever-increasing workloads, Vice-Chancellor Alec Cameron commands a salary of over $1,000,000. No wonder trust in senior management is at an all-time low” said RMIT NTEU Branch President Tricia McLaughlin.
The NTEU presented an open letter on Thursday, signed by over 800 staff members, which expressed a vote of no confidence in Vice-Chancellor Professor Alec Cameron and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Vocational Education Mish Eastman.
Demands to management enshrined within the open letter included a wage increase that reflects “the cost of living, the workloads and the efforts of staff at RMIT,” secure work, a numeric target for 206 FTE Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employees, the right to 17% super for all fixed term and continuing RMIT staff; and equality of conditions for redundancy and disciplinary procedures for Higher Education and Vocational Education staff.
An RMIT spokesperson told Honi Soit that “RMIT respects NTEU members’ rights to take protected industrial action,” and “we are absolutely committed to progressing bargaining in good faith as quickly and efficiently as possible to reach a positive outcome for our staff.”
The open letter from the RMIT NTEU branch “condemns RMIT management’s approach to enterprise bargaining,” stating that NTEU members at the university have “lost confidence in their ability to administer their roles and responsibilities in accordance with the interests of staff throughout the enterprise bargaining process.”
“A non-union ballot and loaded surveys of staff instead of bargaining with the union representatives are so disrespectful,” said Julian Pratt, VE Delegate Chairperson.
The branch is also set to vote on a boycott of RMIT Open Day, which the NTEU has named one of the most lucrative opportunities for RMIT in student procurement.