Staff in the School of Public Health and Social Work are kicking-up over workload changes

Their union says they breach the Enterprise Agreement and has lodged a dispute with university management. The claim is management wants to reduce time for research and service to increase teaching – as a way to reduce the need for sessional staff.

“Workload increases you accept now are likely to become the ‘new normal’ “ National Tertiary Education Union branch president David Nielsen warns.

Vice Chancellor Margaret Sheil tells CMM, “there are many changes facing individual academics and faculties as a result of COVID-19 and decreased revenue and moving materials online. In semester one we maintained as much casual and sessional support as possible. However, for semester two to achieve more savings we need to ask staff to do some things differently.”

She adds, “this will not result in increasing the overall workload allocation for any academic.”