Members and staff would have received the usual Friday Five newsletter last week from the Managing Director Steffan Faurby. The MD said he is “less than pleased” and claims the media is providing misinformation about the organisational design proposed for Student Services Board (SSB) and Facilities Management & Logistics (FM&L) and wants to clear up a few fallacies.
He said the proposed structural changes do not involve 700 staff. This is correct: it involves 678 jobs cuts and affects every student and staff member in TAFE NSW, including hundreds of roles from regional communities, as has been reported.
Those losing their jobs and involved in yet another restructure and are also “less than pleased”. Many of these staff have more than 30 years’ experience in their jobs supporting TAFE and the community.
The numbers the union has confirmed with TAFE are correct. Union officials had requested confirmation of the cuts because of the high number and disbelief that TAFE NSW could, within 12 months, simply toss workers aside after getting TAFE NSW through the pandemic. Staff once considered essential are not needed. The union was “less than pleased” when the figures were confirmed.
Below is a snap shot of the job losses just in the FM&L side where 183 jobs (not the 50 reported by TAFE NSW) are gone, including security guards, general assistants and gardeners.
There are currently 436 FM&L jobs. After the restructure there will be 253. This group of staff are “less than pleased”.
During the consultation the Government and TAFE NSW have been put on record in Parliament and the press saying the “no frontline job is affected”. The union requested that when management are meeting with staff they state clearly that TAFE NSW does not consider the SSB and FM&L staff to be frontline staff. Management refused, which is somewhat ironic when the majority of the change management team, including Mr Faurby, have never worked in a student-facing role. The community of NSW would be “less than pleased” with this.
Members’ position descriptions in some cases date as far back as 1999 and on average are several years out of date. However, the same staff have been working beyond their current job descriptions and put a great deal of effort in keeping TAFE NSW going. They are “less than pleased” that their hard work has not been recognised.
In 2016 TAFE NSW combined 10 separate, competing institutes into a single organisation and, in the process, got rid of the Human Resources recruitment officers. This led to engaging a firm Hudsons, a private organisation that undertook interviews by video conferencing. In many cases it did not provide the right questions for the right job. The staff who went through the process were “less than pleased” with the stress and upheaval this caused.
The changes proposed will have a significant impact on the teachers and students because the work will remain. If TAFE NSW doesn’t intend to privatise and engage contractors, who will do the work? If TAFE NSW indeed doesn’t intend to engage contractors as stated to undertake the work of security, gardeners, and facility officers, then the CPSU NSW demands Mr Faurby provide a statuary declaration to that effect.
“’All organisations review their structures regularly to ensure they have the right resources and operating models to deliver their core business. TAFE NSW is no different,” wrote Mr Faurby in the Friday Five. This is true. However, TAFE NSW has been under constant change since 1999 and the ‘Life Long Learning’ review.
TAFE NSW has now heard members’ requests and has decided to extend the consultation period to 5:00pm Thursday 1 April 2021. This was mainly due to the CPSU NSW requesting an extension on behalf of members.
The CPSU NSW strongly encourages you to provide your feedback to People and Structure Changes and a copy of your feedback to the CPSUNSW so as we can keep them honest and call TAFE NSW out on the proposals and submited feedback. Please copy and paste whatever you submit to the Structure Changes feedback forms into an email and forward to your union delegate. And remember that all your communications between you and your union are privileged and protected.
Join at www.cpsunsw.org.au.
