Cuts set a context for tough talks

Macquarie U members of the National Tertiary Education Union met Monday to sign-off on bargaining claims for the new enterprise agreement and protest the professional staff restructure just announced. There are also academics still smarting from recent redundancy rounds.

Which may not make for the best of negotiating moods when bargaining begins in the new year.

While one of the NTEU’s claims is that there be but one restructure per agreement there are people at MU touched by two in two years. The union also wants modelling of workplace change in advance and reviews after implementation.

In the last bargaining round, MU management and NTEU used the Fair Work Commission’s “new approaches” model – which starts with parties setting out issues and searching for solutions rather than beginning with demands and then escalating arguments (CMM October 24 2018).

Hard to see the NTEU buying that again given the mood among members.