The open letter addressed the broader context of cost of living pressures, the declining value of a university degree, and a more precarious job market as key reasons for more consultation prior to indexation.
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“This pay offer suggests ANU staff are seen only as a cost… rather than real people with mortgages or rent to pay, families to feed, and bills to pay.”
22 months of bargaining has come to a close, with 80% of NTEU members voting for the agreement.
In an email announcing the University’s financial results, Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott did not state the surplus amount, saying instead that “the University’s parent operating result for 2022 was $749.6 million lower” than in 2021.
Despite ongoing calls to remove weapons manufacturing from universities, the Government has pledged funding for Commonwealth-supported places to support AUKUS.
Staff from the University of Melbourne were joined by striking workers from Monash, Deakin, La Trobe and Federation universities as they marched towards Melbourne Trades Hall.
“This vote is a call for university managements and our government to think seriously about our sector.”
The acting Vice Chancellor said that the redundancies were due to a number of factors including a drop in student numbers and insufficient government funding. She said that this meant the University was forced to make “hard decisions” in an attempt to reduce its operating budget by $60 million annually.
The NTEU is campaigning on many of the same issues as at the University of Sydney: academic workloads, casualisation and pay. They want management to maintain the 40/40/20 model of academic workloads and create 150 extra permanent positions for current casual staff by 2024.
Monash has applied to the Fair Work Commission to retrospectively change the enterprise agreement in place between the University and the NTEU from 2019.