Western Sydney Uni – Member update – November 2016

University of Western Sydney – Member update – November 2016

This is a challenging time for Western Sydney University. The Enterprise Bargaining period is coming up and the Early Voluntary Retirement Scheme (EVRS) has been taken up by many. The workload implications for remaining staff require strong representation from your union.

These challenges are great, but they are also the reason why the PSA (CPSU) is here for you. As a collective, we must combine together to make things better, to fight for fairer workloads and to get the best Enterprise Agreement that we possibly can.

Enterprise Bargaining

Over the past three months, listenings have been conducted across WSU campuses. Your ideas and input from these forums will form the bedrock of our Log of Claims. These claims are being compiled and will be distributed to you for feedback before holding member meetings to discuss and endorse the Log of Claims. Formal bargaining meeting are not scheduled until February.

EVRS

Members have informed us about the major issues that the EVRS is likely to have on their future workloads. The PSA (CPSU) has written to the University seeking answers to the following questions:

What impact will the EVRS have on the workloads of staff and what will the University do about it?
How many staff will be leaving under the EVRS and which work areas will be affected?
When will vacancies caused by the EVRS be filled?

In response, the University indicated:

• It will have a final number of EVRS acceptances in early December.
• It is currently developing a work plan for each business unit which will consider EVRS impact. This will be shared with the PSA (CPSU) when complete.
• It has released a discussion paper to all staff.

EVRS discussion paper

Whilst the PSA (CPSU) welcomes the discussion paper, there remains a number of concerns. Some key points from the discussion paper include:

• a staged approach for implementation will occur across the different divisions, with the changes happening within the first quarter of 2017
• as required, Change Proposals will be distributed before implementing changes
• once specific numbers of staff who accepted early voluntary redundancy are known, areas which have been significantly impacted will be prioritised. These areas will require short-term staffing solutions to ensure workloads are kept at acceptable levels.
• a number of divisions are slated for “consolidation” and “removal of duplication”. The PSA (CPSU) is committed to ensure that “consolidation” doesn’t mean forcing the duties of two positions into one, and increasing workloads to an unacceptable level.

Next steps

We want to hear how the EVRS will impact you. To do this, we will be conducting meetings across WSU campuses. These meetings will be a chance to voice your concerns and hear what other members have to say. We will also be providing industrial advice and developing strategies to deal with immediate workload problems.

These meetings will be on:

Campbelltown
Tuesday, 29 Nov 2016
1:00pm to 2:00pm
CA-04.G.21 (LR03)

Hawkesbury
Wednesday, 30 Nov 2016
1:00pm to 2:00pm
HW-G6.1.16

Kingswood
Friday, 02 Dec 2016
1:00pm to 2:00pm
KW-V.G.13 (CLS)

In these times of change, it is vital your union remains strong. We encourage all members to bring along a colleague to these meetings so that they can see what the PSA (CPSU) does and get involved themselves. The PSA (CPSU) is the only union that exclusively represents Professional Staff. The more members we have, the stronger your union, and the better outcomes we can achieve for Professional Staff.