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University of New South Wales – Enterprise Bargaining update

University of New South Wales – Enterprise Bargaining update – June 2018 (PDF version)

At the end of December last year, the CPSU NSW submitted its Log of Claims for the current round of Enterprise Bargaining. In a series of meetings since 8 February this year, many of the claims contained therein have been presented to university management. Their progress has been reported on in regular bulletins and updates. At a meeting to be held on the 21st of this month, this Thursday, the CPSU NSW will complete the submission of all the claims contained in our Log.

These are:

Dispute resolution

• Broader access to raise a dispute
• Making sure that the progress of any proposed change is halted until the dispute has been resolved or escalated to the Fair Work Commission

Fixed-term employment

• A commitment that fixed-term employment will not be used as a substitute for continuing employment
• Ability to apply to convert to continuing employment after two years (rather than the current three)

Overtime

• Clearer wording to ensure that staff who are on a flex scheme can access Overtime if directed to work outside of bandwidth hours.

Redeployment to a lower-level position

• Salary for staff on the old superannuation scheme will be maintained at their previous level until they retire.

Probation

• Staff who have already completed probation once will not need to do it again if they change contracts.

Draft clauses for these claims have already been sent to university management. We plan to speak to them in the meeting on the 21st.

Submitting so many claims at one time is in no way ideal. Delegates and officials engaged in bargaining really need time to carefully present each one, using detailed discussion and examples of the circumstances they are designed to redress or improve. However, we have been forced to do so because another union has come to an agreement with university management to conclude this round of Professional Staff Enterprise Bargaining within a limited time frame. The CPSU NSW was not included in this understanding. In fact, we found out at the last meeting, which was on 7 June, that this next meeting is proposed as being the last meeting in the whole process of Professional Staff Bargaining. Obviously, this will have a severe impact on our capacity to argue and push our claims. However, we will do what we can. We will provide a further update as soon as we are able to.

CPSU NSW contacts

Organiser – Chris Bird

Industrial Officer – Jen Mitchell

If you are not yet a member of the CPSU NSW, you can join the CPSU NSW by going to www.cpsunsw.org.au.