The campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union strikes next Wednesday

It’s part of the union’s protected industrial action over enterprise bargaining. According to the comrades, management “has shifted a little on pay … and opened limited expressions of interest for fixed-term contracts to PhD students” but “it isn’t enough.”

The union states it’s “major claims” include, a target of 80 per cent secure work, “manageable workloads” and “fair pay.”

Monash U management presented an offer to all-staff on April 4, which included a headline 13 per cent pay offer, not far off the NTEU national target of 15 per cent, but the university was silent on key local union demands (CMM April 5).

Both sides may well be watching the outcome of the Deakin U staff vote now underway. DU management has put an offer, which the NTEU rejects, direct to staff. If DU management wins it could encourage Monash try its luck with a union-opposed vote. But that is a very big if – staff who are not union members tend to listen to the NTEU in bargaining.

In recent memory, Victoria U put two offers to staff which the union opposed – and was decisively beaten on both (CMM February 20 2019).