UNSW bargaining bulletin – February 2018 (PDF version)
Dear CPSU NSW Members,
As many of you would probably know, the current Professional Staff Enterprise Bargaining Agreement is shortly to expire. Accordingly, a new round of bargaining between the unions representing Professional Staff and the university has begun.
The first full session of this round was held last Thursday (8/2/2018). In the room as the CPSU NSW team were Alister Wareing (Library), Jane Knowles (Library), Warassamon Kate Brown (Engineering) and Lisa Nelson from the CPSU NSW. A meeting was also held in December last year, where the logs of claims were exchanged.
We are seeking a range of improvements to the Agreement for the benefit of Professional Staff. These include:
One part of these claims is a proposal to remove or significantly increase the cap on payments to staff who are being made redundant. Currently it is three weeks’ pay per year up to a maximum of 52 weeks. This equates to 17 years’ service, so no additional benefit accrues to a staff member who has worked longer than 17 years. We discussed this issue in the session last Thursday. Your team argued removing the cap would mean better recognition of staff who have worked for the university for many years, and that the larger amount would assist and protect older workers who might find themselves facing redundancy late in their working lives.
We will see how this claim goes. The university’s representatives listened and took notes.
Moving forward it is vital that UNSW Professional Staff join the CPSU NSW, because united we bargain, divided we beg.
