The Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill is set to pass the Senate -with changes that university managements will probably like (but may not need). Private providers should brace

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke announced new amendments yesterday including three that address similar employers being covered by a single agreement. That unions could ask for multi-uni agreements has alarmed some universities, notably the Regional Universities Network (CMM November 14).

Mr Burke says the bill now,

* increases good-faith bargaining time for a new single organisation agreement from six to nine months after expiration of the previous one before multi-employer bargaining can be authorised

* allows the Fair Work Commission to apply a “reasonably comparable text” for multi-employer agreements

* empowers the FWC to order a proposed multi-employer agreement be put to employees if one or more unions with members involved “are unreasonably withholding agreement”

However welcome to managements, they may not end up mattering all that much

National Tertiary Education Union General Secretary Damien Cahill tells CMM,  that while it will consider multi-employer bargaining with public universities, “ the strong history of enterprise bargaining within this sector suggests that the biggest opportunity for multi-employer bargaining is within the largely unregulated private tertiary education sector, which has many workers on award and even sub-award conditions.”