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15 June, 2005

Good News for UNE on HEWRRs

On Friday, 27 May 2005, the University received a letter from Minister, Dr Brendan Nelson that he and Minister Kevin Andrews had amended the HEWRRs as follows:

  1. The timeframe has been extended for universities to comply with the HEWRRs this year, from 30 September to the new deadline of 30 November 2005; and
  2. The criteria which required universities to offer AWAs to all staff, has been relaxed with regard to casual staff who are engaged for a period of less than one month.

In addition, UNE (along with a handful of other universities) was in the unusual situation at the time of the Minister's announcement on 29 April, of being caught between having balloted and approved its two Enterprise Agreements, but not yet having had them certified (which occurred on 5 May). This meant that UNE was going to have to renegotiate its two Agreements to become HEWRR-compliant and go through another ballot and certification process prior to 30 September this year.

The Ministers' announcement last Friday has clarified that UNE is now included with that group of universities which were deemed to have Enterprise Agreements in place as at 29 April, so we do not now have to have HEWRR-compliant Enterprise Agreements in place until 31 August, 2006.

This means that, instead of being forced to rewrite rushed versions of our Agreements and taking them to another vote within the next two months, we can address the changes by allowing the normal bargaining process to take its course next year.

Obviously this is a more desirable situation for everyone involved, since it allows for a proper period of consultation with all key stakeholders.

This does not mean the HEWRRs will go away, of course. By 31 August this year, we are still required to offer all new staff the option of being employed under Australian Workplace Agreements, and secondly, even though our existing Enterprise Agreements do not have to be, our policies and practices must be HEWRR-compliant by 30 November this year.

So there is still much work to be done. However, this is achievable, and should ensure that our additional CGS funding for 2006 is secure.

While it seems that we can achieve next year's funding, we need to bear in mind that failure to certify HEWRRs-compliant Agreements by 31 August next year will mean millions of dollars in cuts to our CGS funding from 2007 on (7.5%!)

But what this news does mean is that we have more time to negotiate new agreements that comply with the Government's requirements and thus secure our long-term funding. It also means you have more time to inform yourself about the issues at stake.