National Tertiary Education Union members at Monash U met yesterday to discuss what to do following their vote to take nine forms of protected industrial action (CMM )

They may have had more to talk about than originally anticipated, given on Tuesday the university presented staff with a pay rise proposal for a new staff agreement, not far off what the national union specified last year. The university is offering a 13.6 per cent compound increase across 30 months (CMM yesterday).

However the Monash branch tweets that members voted to go out for a day, May 3. “Members are unhappy with the current pay offer from the University, poor working conditions, and the slow progress of enterprise negotiations,” is the message.

And yesterday, union state secretary Sarah Roberts adds university surpluses in the previous two financial years means the university can do better.

“Monash has the cash to relieve cost of living pressures in a far more meaningful way,” she states.

She’s right on substantial surpluses in 2020 and ’21m however the university group had a $78m loss in ’22.

VC Margaret Gardner commits to using past surpluses in part for salary increases, (CMM March 27) question now is how much of them.