Enterprise Bargaining

Professor Alan Lindsay
Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice-President, (Academic)

30 August, 2004

Dr Carol Williams
President, Monash Branch NTEU
CLAYTON CAMPUS

Dear Carol,

Thank you indeed for your letter to the Vice-Chancellor which I understand has also been circulated to members of Monash staff who are members of the NTEU.

As I am sure you are aware, I hold university responsibility for enterprise bargaining and as such, the Vice-Chancellor has asked me to respond on his behalf.

I am disappointed at some of the assertions in your letter.

In particular, your letter appears to attack the university’s negotiating team and asserts that it is making a “claim” on performance based contracts. The university has no claim on performance based contracts. The university wishes to keep the existing performance based contract clause, agreed by NTEU negotiators in two previous enterprise agreements, in its current form. The university has accepted your concerns about some aspects of the current proposed clause and made a more than reasonable suggested compromise. I believe your suggestion that the management team is in any way contemptuous of the union is without foundation.

I reiterate that the position of Monash, as expressed by our negotiators, reflects the views of the Vice-Chancellor’s Group and the Senior Management Committee of the university, who are kept regularly informed in an objective and impartial way of the relative status of negotiations. The university negotiators have long experience in enterprise bargaining negotiations. Previous negotiators (both locally and at the state level) from the NTEU have been able to reach enterprise agreements with the same people, as have officials of other unions.

I am disappointed that you now state you intend to take industrial action and in particular, that some of the industrial action contemplated will impact on students on the most important day of their university life, that is on graduation day. I urge you to reconsider your intended industrial action and its potential impact on students.

The university has already agreed to the highest non-contingent salary offer amongst Victorian universities and the highest quantum of maternity leave offered at Australian universities. To therefore suggest the university is mean or contemptuous is without foundation. I do not believe that either the NTEU or the university can readily reach resolution if we move to a phase of attacking each other’s negotiators.

Both Peter Marshall, Divisional Director of Student and Staff Services, myself and the management negotiating team are happy to meet with the NTEU negotiating team to bring these negotiations to a rapid conclusion, but clearly this cannot occur under the threat of industrial action.

If you are able to pause your proposed industrial action, say until 24 September, so that these meetings can take place I believe that we can, with goodwill on both sides, bring the negotiations to an early conclusion with a satisfactory result for both the university, its staff and of course the NTEU.

The university is prepared to resume negotiations without any preconditions on either side, but not under the immediate threat of industrial action.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Alan Lindsay

The University believes that the current enterprise bargaining negotiations will lead to significant improvements in your working conditions. However, a few key issues remain unresolved that the University requires agreement on in order to maintain its position as one of the country’s leading universities.

On most issues the University and the NTEU are close to agreement. In-principle agreement has been reached on:

• Academic and general staff workloads
• Grievance resolution
• Parental leave
• Performance management for General staff
• Job Security
• General staff classification and linking
• General staff career development
• Study leave
• Workplace policy on Bullying
• Indigenous Employment.

These proposals include considerable improvements in benefits for staff, most significantly in regard to parental leave.

On 9 August 2004, as a sign of good faith the University announced the payment of a 2% administrative salary increase with effect from 4 September 2004, in advance of negotiations being completed.

However, negotiations reached an important turning point during the meeting on Wednesday 11th August. The University has been prepared to amend its original position during negotiations on a number of key issues including managing change, superannuation, intellectual freedom, allowances and performance based contracts. At the 11 August 2004 meeting, the NTEU continued to insist on provisions in relation to these and other matters which are unacceptable to the University. The negotiations concluded on the basis that the parties would consider their respective positions before arranging further negotiations. The University remains hopeful that the NTEU will modify its position on the outstanding matters.

It is essential in these negotiations for both sides to be flexible and considerate of the objectives of both parties. The University’s negotiating team believes that the NTEU is making unreasonable and unrealistic demands.

Monash’s current salary offer still remains the highest non-contingent salary offer in Victoria (see graph below), and Monash’s parental leave offer is one of the most generous provisions in Victoria (see comparison of parental leave benefits below).

Victorian Universities Current Salary & Maternity Leave Offers

Benefits have been calculated to reflect equivalent number of full-time weeks paid leave.