The Guardian 15 March, 2006
University of Technology Sydney
rejects staff petitions
Over 300 University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) staff signed a petition to the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor calling on UTS to finalise Enterprise Bargaining before the new WorkChoices legislation takes effect. However, UTS management refused to agree to the National Tertiary Education Union’s (NTEU) settlement offer on March 8 for the Academic Enterprise Agreement, thereby making it almost impossible to conclude negotiations before WorkChoices commences.
"We submitted a full draft that we believed was HEWRRs compliant in December in order to facilitate a pre-WorkChoices Agreement", said Keiko Yasukawa, NTEU Branch Vice President. "Since then management have failed to negotiate. They have been on a go-slow."
(HEWWRR is the Howard Government’s Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements, anti-union legislation that enforces the imposition of the Government’s Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). University funding is contingent on it being implemented.)
"The NTEU’s claims are very modest in this round. We have revised our clauses from our last Agreement for the HEWRRs because we recognise that the university cannot afford to lose the extra government funding. The pay claim of 16 percent over three years is to ensure that UTS remains competitive with other institutions in Sydney", Keiko Yasukawa said.
"The settlement package has several concessions from our original claims, and we have retained the few that are crucial to delivering some justice to the groups of employees who have the most precarious terms of employment — the casuals and the fixed-term contract staff", she added.
"It’s not just NTEU members who want a pre-WorkChoices Agreement. This Government’s approach to industrial relations is rejected by the majority of the general community, as [Finance Minister] Nick Minchin has now confirmed", said NTEU UTS Branch Secretary Tony Brown.
UTS is one of several universities that must have a new Agreement Certified by August in order to be eligible for extra Commonwealth funding.
"However the approach adopted by UTS in this round of bargaining and its refusal to listen to staff raises serious questions as to what objectives the University has in mind. It is potentially a high risk strategy", Tony Brown said.
"There is already a new set of measures that restrict the right of staff to be represented by their union associated with this new Commonwealth funding."
"These HEWRRs claim to be about increasing flexibility, increasing management prerogative and restricting third party intervention. But who is the third party here? The level of interference in the management and the governance of universities by this Government is heavy-handed and unprecedented!", Tony Brown says.
"Rejecting the settlement offer means that our original claims are all back on the table", says Tony Brown.
"By failing to come to an agreement with the union, UTS management has set a course for making an Agreement under the WorkChoices legislation."