Universities strike back

As The Guardian goes to press, staff at universities 
across the country are preparing for a national strike on 
Thursday, October 16. The strike has been called by the National 
Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).

They will be resisting attempts by the federal government to 
impose anti-union industrial relations in the university sector 
by threatening to withhold $404 million of core funding.

A leaflet published by the NTEU and distributed at a picket 
conducted at Sydney University says that staff at Sydney 
University are striking in protest at the Federal Government's 
attempt to sabotage fruitful negotiations between University 
management and workers.

It says that the Vice-Chancellor and the NTEU were on the point 
of signing the "heads of agreement" for a new enterprise 
bargaining agreement after 12 months of negotiation in good faith 
and without any disruption in the workplace.

The agreement allowed the University to pursue its mission while 
providing improved conditions for all staff in the form of better 
parental leave; regulation and improvement of conditions for 
casual staff; employment of more indigenous staff; improved 
career development opportunities for general staff; better 
policies on academic workloads and a decent pay rise.

The Government intervened at the eleventh hour to try and force 
the University to abandon its agreement with the NTEU and to 
implement instead, a grab-bag of new, anti-Union workplace 
regulations.

The University management is opposed to the government's 
ideological industrial relations crusade but the Government is 
pointing a gun at their head as the extra funds are desperately 
needed even though $404 million does not even touch the sides of 
the gaping hole left by previous funding cuts.

The Government claims that it simply wants Universities to give 
staff the "option" of being employed under an individual 
Australian Workplace Agreement (AWA).

The NTEU says this is a cheap and very dirty trick dressed up in 
the rhetoric of "free choice". University staff already have the 
option of negotiating an individual common law agreement with 
their employer.

The Government is not satisfied however, says the NTEU. Under 
current arrangements any individual contract offered by a 
University must at least match, if not surpass, the working 
conditions set out in collective bargaining agreements.

This means that any staff who take an individual contract have a 
strong collective agreement to fall back on. An Australian 
Workplace Agreement, however, is a form of contract that 
explicitly cuts off access to such a safety net. The minimum 
standard becomes whatever employers can get away with offering to 
the most vulnerable of their employees.

Government objectives

The NTEU says that the Government is trying to make it unlawful 
for University managements to work cooperatively with Unions — 
unlawful to have Unions directly representing their members in 
grievances and disputes; unlawful to distribute information about 
the Union to new staff; unlawful to let staff have their Union 
fees deducted through the payroll system and unlawful to give the 
Union use of an office.

The NTEU has also pointed out that if the Government has its way 
it will become unlawful for University management and Unions to 
even attempt to negotiate a cap on the proportion of staff 
employed as casuals. Yet, says the NTEU, unlimited casualisation 
will do nothing to improve, let alone maintain standards of 
teaching and research.