Bargaining for a new staff agreement is starting to be serious

National Tertiary Education Union members  at Uni Newcastle decided yesterday to ask the Fair Work Commission to approve their voting on industrial action. Union state secretary Damien Cahill nominates bargaining issues as “secure jobs, protections against overwork, gender affirmation leave” and  “a fair pay rise.”

By “fair” he may mean the 15 per cent over three years the union’s national leadership wants all universities to pay (CMM April 21).

This may strike Uni Newcastle management as anything but fair, although you do not have to be a Novocastrian Nostradamus to prophecy what the union will do if management cries poor-ish. And that is point to the university’s annual report which records $152m in investment income last year, up from $31.7m in 2020 (CMM May 25).

And if management responds that without that nice large-ish earner the university made a $1.9m loss the union could point to the Uni Newcastle’s croesus of a kitty –  $625m in investments.