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Priced out of homes close to class
UNSW research find that 90 per cent of NSW school teaching positions are in local government areas where housing is unaffordable on teacher salaries.
Probably like junior academics around UNSW’s eastern Sydney campus – the median house price in Kensington is $3.4m.
There’s more in the Mail
In Features this morning
An agency to oversight the Accord is one future for HE relations with government. Roger Smyth explains how it’s done in NZ, HERE and where it came from HERE
plus Sean Brawley and colleagues on how Uni Wollongong is learning to live with risk. Another instalment in their series on how the university restructured to revitalise admin, HERE
and Sarah O’Shea (Curtin U) reminds us that the Accord should address a fundamental purpose of universities: creating better societies.New in Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series, Needed now in learning and teaching
Union piles on the pressure at Uni Melbourne
Jane Hansen was scheduled to be installed as the university’s new chancellor Wednesday afternoon
According to the National Tertiary Education Union, Ms Hansen is “a well-known and respected member of the Uni Melbourne community.”
And so the comrades call on her to, “bring a fresh perspective to university leadership – one that recognises the invaluable contribution staff make to the community and supports staff to do their best by listening to them during the bargaining process.”
To make the point the union planned to picket Ms Hansen’s installation as chancellor on Wednesday afternoon – but the university has called it off, “due to a planned staff and student protest.” There is no word when it will occur – although, given the state of enterprise bargaining sometime next century is possible.
Plus the union is targeting reputational risk for management
The NTEU’s lead enterprise bargaining negotiator has increased the emphasis on insecure work at Uni Melbourne.
The union wants 80 per cent of jobs to be continuing, which management doesn’t. Law School professor, Joo-Cheong Tham warns Uni Melbourne staff management’s position is “a fundamental failure to fix the chronic job security plaguing this university.”
Professor Tham, points to the university’s continuing use of casual staff and cases of underpayment – including allegations now in two Federal Court matters . And he cites management’s public statements on the need to reduce its reliance on casual staff, (umpteen CMM stories such as June 10 2022, HERE).
“The crisis of working conditions at the university has been accompanied by a crisis of trust in senior management. Overhauling the university’s insecure workforce model by establishing continuing employment as the norm through the Enterprise Agreement is vital for addressing both crises,” Professor Tham writes.
They are problems for management that will continue if the Federal Court finds for the Fair Work Ombudsman in its two cases against the university for underpaying staff (CMM February 13).
Uni Melbourne did not provide a requested comment by deadline last night, but earlier this month told CMM, “we are working collaboratively and constructively with the unions to reach a new enterprise agreement that is fair to all, recognises the value and contribution that all staff members make to our institution …” (CMM May 3)
UNSW puts a pay rise on the table
Management proposes 16 per cent in four instalments, from signing through to July 2026
“We believe this to be a competitive offer, reflecting the value we place on all our staff while also addressing the ongoing cost of living pressures,” HR chief Deena Amorelli told staff Friday.
Close to the competition, if that happens to be neighbouring Uni Sydney, which is offer 16.1 per cent (flat) over the same period, plus $2000 on signing. Of course it has taken Uni Syd a while to get there – the original offer was not denominated in https://www.nma.gov.au/explore/collection/highlights/holey-dollar Holey Dollars, it just seems like that long ago
Ms Amorelli also cites agreement “on three key-issues” – “enhanced” provisions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, including intellectual freedom provisions in the professional staff agreement and “strengthened redundancy provisions.”
And she adds bargaining meetings with the unions are increased to a full day a week, “with the collective aim of reaching a resolution as soon as possible.”
Good-o but there is a negative on the positive – Ms Amorelli is disappointed that the National Tertiary Education Union has a 24-hour “work stoppage’ scheduled for Wednesday week.
Still time for the comrades to cancel with honour intact if management makes a concession still in reserve.
Charles Darwin U wants trainee doctors in its house
CDU is going flat out to the finish of the race for new places in med schools
There are said to be 80 up for allocation by the Commonwealth and CDU wants 40 of them for its proposed medicine course. Foundation dean of medicine Diane Stephens was in the NT News Friday making the case to an audience that is surely already convinced.
VC Scott Bowman has been working on what’s needed to make a med school, pretty much since he arrived at CDU in 2021. He already had people and plans in place when he made his case for a school in a Flinders U speech that October, (full marks for frankness, Flinders has long taught medicine in the NT (CMM October 5 2021).
And over the following years health-courses have been created, a partnership with the Menzies School of Medical Research in Darwin established and Western Sydney U’s med school enlisted to develop a curriculum (CMM August 9 2022).
But while he has the medical mallards in a row, Professor Bowman has always had plenty of policy in his pitch, “we know that one of the most significant barriers to providing quality health care services, especially in regional and remote areas, is attracting and retaining a well-qualified health workforce. Experience demonstrates this is best done by training the health workers locally,” he told CMM Friday.
Plus politics– “it’s quite strange and remarkable that the NT, which is six times the size of the UK and has unique and pressing medical challenges, is the only state or territory with no Commonwealth-funded medical places in the country.” (CMM August 9 2022).
A bargaining win for Uni Newcastle
Management announces agreement with the CPSU
DVC Kent Anderson tells staff that members of the Community and Public Sector Union have agreed on terms with management for a new professional staff enterprise agreement.
But a meeting of the larger and way more militant National Tertiary Education Union, which represents professional and academic staff rejected management.
NTEU members have been undertaking protected industrial action this month. Last week the union stated, “we have made some good progress for professional staff conditions, but academic workloads and decasualisation remain outstanding.”
This is win, of sorts, for the university, an improvement on December when members of both unions decisively rejected an offer from management that their negotiators opposed.
As to what happens next, there are separate UoN agreements for professional and academic staff and management will likely now be considering if it wants to try taking an offer to staff without overall union support. Offers from universities almost always fail when union members oppose them, but they have a better chance when there is no united front. “We will need to talk further with the unions next week and consider our options in seeking to finalise our new professional staff agreement,” Professor Anderson states.
Appointments
John Greenwood is appointed director of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, moving from Leeds Teaching Hospitals in the UK. He will replace Tom Marwick who will concentrate on clinical practise and research.
Iain Hay (ex Flinders U) becomes academic dean at the Australian Institute of Business.