The union-management COVID-19 proposal  is less endorsed than acclaimed

Management and campus unions, NTEU and CPSU, hammered out an agreement on how to manage savings to deal with COVID-19 caused losses. The deal includes; * staff buying up to eight-days leave * three additional university shut-downs totalling seven days across the year.

In return the university will not run COVID-19 related redundancies. It will also stick to the casual staff budget as of March and continue fixed term staff whose work remains.

This struck the university community as not bad, demonstrated by votes this week to vary the university’s enterprise agreement.  With 60 per cent or so of eligible professional staff voting, the proposal was approved by 95 per cent. The turn-out for academic staff was 40 per cent and the majority was 91 per cent.

With non-staff savings already in-place WSU observers suggest the $15m saved should cover the university’s deficit this year.

This is a big and relatively pain-free win for Vice Chancellor Barney Glover and the campus leadership of the two unions.