Union members at the University of Melbourne want to vote on taking industrial action, in the hope that action will hurry up enterprise bargaining with management. But National Tertiary Education Union branch president Steve Adams and colleagues says the university isn’t helping, not accepting the union’s assurance that its preferred administrator of an electronic ballot was fit and proper. Mr Adams adds this has delayed organising the vote as a second supplier has to be signed up.

“We have to remember that all we are seeking to do here is to survey our own members about what forms of industrial action they would be prepared to take,” he adds.