The Guardian 22 February, 2006
University staff take action over AWAs
An email to workers claiming they would be no worse off under an individual contract has become the battleground in a landmark $16 million class action against the University of Ballarat in Victoria.
Individual workers are suing the University for $33,000 each on the basis that they were provided "false and misleading information" about the Australian Workplace Agreement.
Maurice Blackburn Cashman (MBC) are running the case on behalf of an National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) member, Jeremy Smith, and several hundred other workers who were offered the contracts.
NTEU Victorian Secretary Matthew McGowan, who is backing the action, says the case — due in court next week — is a new approach in an environment where unions have fewer rights to enforce industrial agreements.
The approach has been masterminded by MBC partner Josh Bornstein, who was also the architect of the successful legal strategy in the 1998 waterfront dispute.
At the centre of the action is an email the University’s Vice-Chancellor Kerry Cox sent to employees last December claiming there would be no loss of conditions or job security for those who signed the AWAs being offered.
But the workers will argue the final contracts provided inferior redundancy entitlements for both academic and general staff, while almost all of the protections available to staff facing dismissal, suspension, or disciplinary action under the certified agreement have been removed.
The AWA also removed the ability for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to arbitrate disputes.
If successful, McGowan says the workers will argue that penalties of $33,000 for each breach of the federal Workplace Relations Act should go directly to the workers.