After more bludgeon than bargaining this year union and management will sit down at Murdoch University today to try and reach an enterprise agreement. VC Eeva Leinonen says she hopes for a deal by year’s end and management has thrown the switch to agreeable, with Provost Andrew Taggart running the make-nice campaign.

But the university is not abandoning its push for a stripped-down agreement, without the codifed rules on workplaces procedures the National Tertiary Education Union argues are necessary. Given the Fair Work Commission agreed to the university’s request to cancel the application of the now expired previous agreement management appears to see itself in a strong position.

Even so, there are some proposals that the union will not willingly wear. Like taking staff misconduct out of the agreement and making it a procedural matter. The union’s preferred position is for serious misconduct to be dealt with by a committee including staff reps, but it has accepted an independent arbiter (CMM May 20) in other agreements. But this is still way-short of what Murdoch U wants, that employees accused of misconduct gets to make their case but the university decides their fate.