After long preparations and  negotiations union and management at the University of Melbourne are within a light-year of a new enterprise agreement, with early arguments (as in ones that started last year) over.

The campus branch of the National Tertiary Education Union appears ok with freedom of speech protections, an issue on which it ran hard early. Management now seems to have abandoned separate agreements for academic and professional staff which it was pushing for.  And it looks like 12 month-contract staff will qualify for the 17 per cent superannuation, permanent employees receive

But peace is not perfect. The union says it is asking for a 2.3 per cent pa pay rise across the agreement but management will not move from 1.7 per cent. The campus executive has convened a meeting to vote on a half-day strike next month and a ban on participating in the university’s open day.