National Tertiary Education Union leaders at the University of Melbourne are claiming a win for Wednesday’s stop work, saying management improved its enterprise bargaining offer the next day. NTEU branch president Steve Adams and colleagues say the university agreed to 1725 working hours ceiling for academics and for their “workloads to be consistent with appropriate work-life balance, health and safety and the reasonable expectations of the position.”

The union says it still wants “similar enforceable workload regulation for professional staff.

Other outstanding issues include management’s proposal for separate academic and professional staff agreements which the union opposes and the NTEU’s claim that management wants no “positive commitment to intellectual freedom,” – which UniMelbourne says is not correct.