University management: five-star Scrooges

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has labelled as 
hypocrisy Wollongong University management's praise of staff for 
the high standard of their work while at the same balking at an 
acceptable pay deal. University of Wollongong staff have gained 
the recognition of a five-star rating in the Good Universities 
Guide. The current pay offer from management would leave staff 
with a deal well below those concluded or being offered at other 
universities around the country.

"It seems the university is happy to accept accolades for the 
quality of its research and teaching, but this clearly fails to 
translate to its treatment of staff, who are themselves the 
researchers and teachers", said Kim Draisma, President of the 
NTEU Wollongong Branch, which represents academic and general 
staff at the University.

"The university has told us all along that it intends for 
Wollongong staff to be 'middle of the pack' on pay and conditions 
when compared to other universities. However, despite us being 
shown to be considerably ahead of the pack on our research, the 
university is only prepared to make a pay offer that leaves us 
amongst the lowest paid university staff in the country."

The NTEU points out that in order to maintain such high standards 
and to continue to attract and retain quality staff, management 
has to ensure pay and conditions for its academic and general 
staff are comparable with the rest of the sector.

"The union congratulates our fellow staff for their efforts in 
achieving this rating", said Ms Draisma. "We also give a 
commitment to our members that given their achievement we will 
not let university management short change staff and the 
Illawarra community when it comes to maintaining the excellence 
of the institution."

The announcement of the university's award came at the end of a 
week in which staff vented their frustration in a series of 
stopwork meetings set to coincide with graduation ceremonies 
being held on the campus.

Staff held peaceful assemblies outside the graduations and 
distributed information detailing the pay dispute to graduates, 
parents and other members of the community.