Progress on negotiations
The 2003 round of enterprise bargaining (Round 4) commenced on Monday 6 October when the university and the NTEU met for the first time to discuss how negotiations would proceed.
The university received a log of claims from the NTEU on 29 September in response to the formal offer made by Monash to university staff on 24 August.
At Tuesday’s meeting, chaired by Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Planning) Professor Alan Lindsay, it was agreed that enterprise bargaining negotiations would be scheduled fortnightly from Wednesday 22 October.
The university hopes the negotiations will be short and focused so that an early agreement is reached.
Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements
On 22 September, the then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Hon Tony Abbott MP and the Minister for Education Science and Training, the Hon Dr Brendan Nelson MP, made a joint announcement of the new policies which they said would provide a funding increase to universities under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme in return for meeting the HEWRR and the National Governance Protocols.
Mr Abbott said that all certified agreements made and certified within the higher education system after that day (22 September) would need to comply with the new requirements to be eligible for additional funding.
While Monash University strongly supports the government’s aim of enhancing the quality and sustainability of Australia’s tertiary education system, the University does not support the linking of much-needed funding to industrial relations reforms.
Monash University has not yet received sufficient detail of the HEWRR in order to consider the ramifications for the university, nor has Senate inquiry into higher education funding and regulatory legislation been completed.
It is too early to determine whether the HEWRR will become law and if they do, whether they will survive in their current form.
The University has publicly expressed concerns relating to the HEWRR and the Vice-Chancellor been quoted in the press as follows:
“Monash Vice-Chancellor Richard Larkins said the Government had not recognised there had been significant workplace reform in universities in the past 10 years.
Universities had been working with the unions to introduce much more flexibility in workplace relations.
“We support the idea of more flexible working conditions and employment conditions, but not the current package in the way it’s put forward,” Professor Larkins told the HES.”
— The Australian, Higher Education Supplement, Wednesday 1 October.
Despite these views, the University is obligated to ensure that it does not jeopardise significant additional funding that is desperately needed. The NTEU will be well aware that without such funding, staff will be directly and adversely affected in terms of job security, salary increases and workloads. Students and teaching and resource outcomes would also be equally impacted.
Staff will be updated on this matter when government processes are completed and the university has had the opportunity to consider any concrete proposals put to it.