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Enterprise Bargaining: we’re almost there

Posted 23 November 2010 by Michael Evans (NTEU National Office)

Enterprise bargaining in Australia’s universities is almost complete, with only a few new Agreements still outstanding.

However, as you would expect, the remaining outstanding Agreements are proving the most difficult to resolve. NTEU members are in dispute at the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University, and the University of Wollongong in particular, as they try to achieve similar improvements in salaries and employment conditions that have been successfully reached at most other universities.

The major sticking point is the important issue of job security, with some university managements refusing to reinstate employment conditions that were stripped away by the Howard Government’s industrial laws. These protections for fixed term and casual employees have been agreed to by every university that has finalised a new Enterprise Agreement.

The major outcomes achieved in this round of bargaining include:

• Salary increases of between 16 – 18% over the life of Agreements, with an average increase of 4.6% pa to 2012.
• Restoration of job security and managing change provisions and limits on management prerogative.
• Guaranteed Indigenous employment targets.
• Improved general/professional staff classification processes.
• Caps on academic and general/professional staff workloads.
• Improved conditions for casual staff, including increasing the casual loading to 25%, separate payment for marking, more secure employment opportunities, limits on the use of casual staff.