Important Enterprise Bargaining Update

Bargaining Recommences

Enterprise Bargaining resumed on Tuesday between the University and both the NTEU and CPSU after the University suspend bargaining with the NTEU while industrial action was pending.  

Two Agreements

While still in the relatively early stages, it is becoming clear that bargaining the academic related clauses is going to take a great deal of time.  The NTEU has produced a long and complex clause on Academic Workload. They have also flagged that want to revise other academic related issues such as OSP.  On the other hand the issues over Professional (General) staff clauses, while still critical, seem less complex.

After discussing the idea of having separate agreements with the CPSU, the University has decided to pursue two separate agreements: A Professional Staff agreement and an Academic Staff agreement.

Our primary reasons for this separation are:

•    We believe we can conclude a Professional staff agreement before the end of the year.  This will give certainty to Professional staff on both conditions and remuneration much sooner than we thought possible.
•    Negotiation of Academic clauses will be more focused – we will negotiate these clauses with the NTEU only and give them the attention they will require.
•    There are some areas of significant difference in Professional and Academic staff employment conditions.  Mixing different conditions and processes in clauses creates unnecessary complexity. For example Academic staff do not have set hours and we are proposing different methods of leave management for Academic and Professional staff.
•    Having a Professional staff agreement makes it easier to focus on the staff development issues that unions have raised and we have also identified in the “Your Say” surveys.

Assurances

Separating into two agreements will not stop bargaining the Academic agreement.  We plan to conduct bargaining for both the Professional staff agreement and the Academic staff agreement.

We will negotiate with NTEU and CPSU on the Professional staff agreement.  Both unions have professional staff members and have a right to be in bargaining.

To ensure no disadvantage in remuneration for either group of staff the University guarantees:

•    The increases in salary rates in the Academic agreement will be no less than those in the new Professional staff agreement.
•    If we negotiate any higher salary rate increases in the Academic agreement then we will make up the difference for Professional staff.

We will provide updates on the progress of both agreements as we progress through bargaining.

This message was sent by Tim Sprague, Director Human Resources.

Contact: Tim Sprague

Phone: Ext 9700

Publish Date: 29 Sep 2009