Fred Fuentes & Simon Cunich, Sydney
According to the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), Sydney University may become the next battleground in the fight over PM John Howard's new industrial relations laws. The university has signalled its intention to push more than 5500 staff onto individual contracts (AWAs) to comply with the Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRR).
Under this law, universities are required to offer AWAs to all staff members before August 30 to be eligible for their share of a $260 million funding pool. The NSW NTEU points out that other universities have not made such an aggressive attempt to move staff off their collective agreements and onto AWAs.
On August 16, NTEU NSW secretary Chris Game criticised Sydney University for pushing "a worst-practice industrial model", rather than leading the way with pay and conditions. Sydney University NTEU branch president Michael Thomson said that the university is yet to notify its staff of the move.
"The first that most staff will hear about this is when they read about it in the newspaper", Thomson said, adding that the conditions at risk include all leave arrangements, academic freedoms (because of draconian powers to terminate staff) and access to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to arbitrate disputes. At the same time, staff are being offered a non-guaranteed 6% performance bonus.
Sydney University political economy lecturer Stuart Rosewarne told Green Left Weekly that the Howard government is keen to use the HEWRR law to restrict union activity. HEWRR was being used to promote "increased casualisation and short-term and fixed-term contracts to be offered in place of continuing contracts of employment", he said.
Asked about the requirement for universities to offer AWAs, Rosewarne pointed to the government's hypocrisy. "This is the so-called guaranteed 'choice clause' in the law, but the workplace relations department has bent over backwards to argue that clauses that state that there should be genuine choice for all current staff and prospective staff, and that the universities have an obligation to advertise this, aren't HWERR compliant. The union managed to get robust, genuine choice clauses in some enterprise agreements, but not all because management wanted to demonstrate its resolve to undermine the union's authority."
Rosewarne said that the Australian Higher Education Industry Association, in line with the Howard agenda, "has sought to marshal university managements to take up the opportunity provided by the HEWRRs to marginalise the union".
He said the biggest push has been at Ballarat University, where management refused to negotiate a union enterprise agreement and tried to force all staff onto AWAs. But, he added, that attempt failed due to a protracted industrial and political campaign, and now Ballarat has an enterprise agreement.