The Guardian 20 February, 2008
Collective bargaining
returns to higher education
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) last week congratulated the Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard for the introduction of a new Bill to repeal the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRRs) and National Governance Protocols.
In a statement, Grahame McCulloch, General Secretary, NTEU said:
"On behalf of the NTEU and its members I thank the Minister for promptly acting to fulfil the government’s election promise to abolish the Coalition’s Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements and Governance Protocols.
"The HEWRRs were used by the Coalition to hold universities to ransom over approximately $285 million of funding if they failed to comply with the government’s ideologically motivated industrial relations agenda."
Under HEWRRs universities were forced, amongst other things, to offer all of their employees non-union AWAs, stop union representation on consultative committees and other university bodies and remove clauses that set Indigenous employment targets.
In addition the Minister is amending the Commonwealth Grants Scheme (CGS) guidelines to remove the HEWRRs and Governance Protocols requirements, which take effect immediately.
"While the NTEU understands it will take sometime for the new Bill to pass both Houses of Parliament, the decision to amend the guidelines means that for all intents and purposes the HEWRRs will effectively be dead," Mr McCulloch said.
"We look forward to an environment where collective bargaining will take place in a free and fair environment without unwarranted government interference.
"It means the union will not only be able to negotiate for competitive pay and working conditions for our members but also contribute to the development of institutional policies that will sustain and improve the quality of research and education at our universities."