23 September 2013 Deakin University and the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) have provisionally agreed on terms for a new enterprise agreement. The new agreement will include a 3% annual salary increase, and a $1200 initial increase to all salary bands (pro rata for non full-time staff). This reflects CPI (estimated at 2.5%), plus 0.5% per year which, together with the $1200 increase, works out at around at an average increase of 13.95% over the four years, or nearly 3.5% a year. The top-up payment means the percentage increase will be higher for lower-paid staff, and lower for staff on higher pay scales. Other key features include a revised academic workloads model, … [Read more...]
Bluestocking Week
13/08/2013 by
NTEU News | 12 August 2013 In launching this year’s Bluestocking Week (12-16 August), National Tertiary Education Union President Jeannie Rea said that the theme is ‘holding the line’ and the launch featured women literally ‘holding the line’ – a clothes line with large cardboard blue stockings displaying facts about women’s pay inequity. Rea said Women are now almost half of the senior lecturers but we are only a quarter of the professoriate. Too many women academics are employed precariously in casual positions or on limited term contracts. Women constitute the majority of general and professional staff, but continue to be concentrated in lower classified jobs … [Read more...]
‘Circle of silence’ protests over removal of Institute of Koori Education director
26/07/2013 by
NTEU News | 24 July 2013 Deakin University Institute of Koorie Education (IKE) staff are staging daily silent protests after the removal of their director, Professor Wendy Brabham, on 15 July. Brabham a nationally-respected Indigenous academic was suspended by her supervisor in the presence of security guards but was not furnished with an explanation until 23 July, eight days after her suspension. Each lunchtime staff gather in a circle of silence for up to ten minutes around a tree trunk cut from Professor Brabham’s homeland near Mildura. National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Victorian Division Secretary, Dr Colin Long, says that Deakin University has breached its … [Read more...]
Deakin staff reject pay offer
04/07/2013 by
NTEU News | 2 July 2013 The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has rejected Deakin University’s proposed salary increase of just 3% a year over 4 years. Colin Long, NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Colin Long says staff “expect a realistic offer that both protects their existing working conditions and recognises their work in generating record profits for the institution.” An analysis of Deakin’s annual reports by the NTEU "reveals a university with extremely strong income, profits and operating cash flows, and high holdings of cash and investments." The university recorded a 2012 surplus of $108.9 million and its holdings of cash and investments were at a record … [Read more...]
RMIT slammed over “sham redundancy”
21/05/2013 by
The Age | 20 May 2013 Employers have been warned against using redundancy programs to get rid of ''undesired employees'', after RMIT University was fined $37,000 by the Federal Court for breaking workplace laws, and ordered to re-hire one of its professors. RMIT sacked youth studies and sociology professor Judith Bessant last April, claiming the redundancy was for financial reasons alone. But in a decision handed down last week, Justice Peter Gray found the university had likely fired Bessant after she made allegations of bullying and intimidation against another professor. Justice Gray said his ruling would vindicate Professor Bessant's decision to make a complaint, … [Read more...]
Teaching only roles on the rise in unis
08/03/2013 by
The Australian | 6 March 2013 The number of teaching-only academics is expected to rise markedly as industrial relations in the sector responds to myriad pressures for change in the traditional academic role. Author of a new report on the topic, Belinda Probert (La Trobe University) points to a shift in attitude by the academic union, the appetite for more teaching academics on the part of university managers and the expiry of many enterprise agreements yet to make provision for these roles. Jeannie Rea (National Tertiary Education Union) is urging the creation of 2000 "scholarly teaching fellows" as entry-level, continuing jobs "to start to soak up" some of the casual … [Read more...]
NTEU edXpress March 2013
05/03/2013 by
The Labor-Green split: Too little, too late? The next stage in pre-election preparation by both Labor and the Greens involved a public declaration that the ‘agreement’ between the two parties was officially over. Dr Nick Economou, edXpress’s political pundit for the duration of the election campaign, explains what’s what. Read more USyd to strike this Thursday NTEU members at the University of Sydney will strike for 24 hours this Thursday (7 March) over enterprise bargaining. “It’s the first strike in a decade,” Branch President Michael Thomson told edXpress, “and shows … [Read more...]
Industrial action at Sydney and UNE
31/01/2013 by
NTEU Newsroom | 16 January 2013 Staff at the University of Sydney and the University of New England will vote in the next month over industrial action on enterprise bargaining, following successful applications to Fair Work Australia this morning by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). Neither university contested the union’s applications for protected industrial action ballots. Michael Thomson, the NTEU Branch president at the University of Sydney, said that the ballot would most likely be held in early February: University of Sydney management is offering less job security and wants to reduce sick leave entitlements and cut academic workload provisions. Management is … [Read more...]
Campus Review 4 December 2012
04/12/2012 by
This post has been removed at the request of Campus Review … [Read more...]
“Bloated universities” must trim fat to perform better
14/11/2012 by
The Australian | 26 October 2012 Australian universities are bloated with superfluous staff that thwart lecturers' ability to teach and suck up funds that would be better spent on research, according to Adam Creighton in the business pages of The Australian. He says they are riddled with inefficiencies and perverse incentives that hobble their ability to produce rounded, competent graduates. Creighton cites the recent Ernst and Young report into the future of Australia's universities which showed "absurd administrative burdens" are the norm. Only one of the Australian universities it examined had a ratio of support and administrative staff to academic staff of less than one. … [Read more...]
