By JO HARRISON
A 24-HOUR strike and protest by academics, general staff and English language teachers has done little to sway management of the University of New England (UNE) to support the National Tertiary Education Union’s (NTEU) calls for a seven per cent pay increase per annum, improved conditions and greater transparency at UNE.
About 50 protesters gathered last Wednesday 1 May at the main entrance to UNE to draw attention to their plight. President of the UNE Branch of the National Tertiary Education Union, Dr Tim Battin, said Wednesday’s protest was a last resort after lower level forms of industrial action proved futile.
“Twelve months after bargaining commenced for a collective agreement for academic staff and six months after it commenced for general professional staff and for our colleagues in the English Language Centre we are a very small way down the track,” Dr Battin said.
“Today’s protest is about sending a strong signal to management that we are serious about the matter.”
Negotiations between the university and the union are ongoing, however according to Dr Battin “not much happens” at the negotiations.
“Management has previously stated that it can’t afford our salary claim,” he said.
“We see that the executive pay themselves very handsome salaries; they need to come back and say what they think they can afford.
More importantly they need to take very seriously our claims about improvement of conditions.”
Deputy vice-chancellor of research Professor Annabelle Duncan stood firm on the universities position.
“The union has the right to take strike action whenever it likes, however we as a university will not be bullied into what we do by strike action from a very small number of our staff,” Professor Annabelle Duncan said.
“The people that have suffered are our students; which is a shame, and of course the staff themselves who have suffered from a day’s pay cut for participating in the strike.
“We are not going to budge from our position because of the strike, we are negotiating with the union in good faith but we do expect them to do the same.”
According to Dr Battin last year’s workplace changes and restructure have taken their toll on a vast majority of university staff and the union believes that this restructure was handled very poorly.
“Workplace change processes do need greater transparency,” he said.
“Managers who are given the ability to oversee these change processes need to take seriously the concerns of staff, so that staff don’t become cynical and disengaged from the whole process.”
Claims by Mr Battin of a high number of UNE staff seeking health care for stress-related issues have been refuted by UNE management.
“Our staff work very hard there is no doubt, but they don’t have bad employment conditions either,” Professor Annabelle Duncan said.
“There is adjustment among our staff in terms of coping with the introduction of trimesters but I don’t believe a huge number are over-stressed by that in comparison to anywhere else.”
