Management wants to talk to the union about a joint-approach . Not all NTEU members there want to talk back

A member meeting Friday voted decisively against any union-management agreement that would reduce wages and conditions.

Last week VU VC Peter Dawkins told staff the university would, as previously predicted, be $50m under-budget this year and with international student numbers not expected to bounce back, down a further $20m next.

Professor Dawkins has accordingly opened discussions with National Tertiary Education Union leaders on varying VU’s enterprise agreement to temporarily cut staff conditions and freeze pay rises in return for a commitment to protect jobs.

There is no deal to vote on yet, but Friday’s outcome could be bad for Professor Dawkins and the NTEU national leaderships if it leads to a rank and file member no vote on any savings agreement. The majority of VU staff who are not union members following the local NTEU lead on local issues. In 2018-19 university management put two enterprise agreement proposals to staff which were both opposed by the union.  The yes vote on the first was 23 per cent and 33 per cent on the second, (CMM September 25 2018, February 20 2019).