On Thursday unionists at Victoria U voted to oppose management’s new offer on wages and conditions and by Friday the National Tertiary Education Union was in full campaign mode.

NTEU employees and members are undertaking a volunteer “telephone callout,” urging VU staff to vote against management’s offer for a new enterprise agreement. The union says management is deficient on pay increases and reduces workplace protections. “We are disappointed that they have chosen to go down this path rather than to continue negotiating, and in our view to do undermines collective bargaining,” assistant national secretary Gabe Gooding says.

Voting is expected to start at the end of the week in a must-win ballot for management, which decisively lost last year when it put a previous offer to staff, without NTEU agreement.