Enterprise Bargaining at UNE – cool heads need to prevail
Colleagues,
These are tough times for universities, and we need working conditions that enable all staff, academic and administrative, to do their best work.
What UNE needs now are cool heads and people of goodwill on both sides of the bargaining table if we are to meet the challenges we face – increasing workloads, incessant policy change, insecurity of employment, over-bearing performance measures, and the burden of compliance among them. Such things are not the creations of Booloominbah, nor are they unique to UNE.
Our enterprise bargaining team is hoping to engage with academic and general staff who prefer a more collegial style of negotiating. The creation of this website and the discussion papers it will host are among the ways we hope to achieve this.
In this first posting, we provide a detailed background paper backed by evidence to identify some of the key challenges facing higher education today. I do not imagine that all staff will study every detail of that document but it does provide the basis for developing a series of more accessible discussion papers on key issues under negotiation. The first discussion paper appears with this posting and goes to the issue of academic work. The background paper shows just how diverse the academic workforce is becoming and my hope is that our enterprise agreement can move beyond the outdated, unitary conception of an academic to embrace diversity.
It should not be beyond us to construct an agreement that enables people with different skills and at different points in their lives to benefit from work arrangements that more closely match their individual interests and circumstances. If we are to achieve this, we must also create an academic promotion scheme that values everyone’s contribution to the university, not just those who excel at research. This is some of the thinking behind the first discussion paper and I encourage you to read it, discuss it with your colleagues, and let our bargaining team have the benefit of your views.
Jim Barber
Vice Chancellor
Enterprise Bargaining at UNE – join the discussion
Enterprise Bargaining Background Paper – The Future Higher Education Environment and the Changing Nature of University Work
Discussion Papers
Promoting Workplace Diversity and Job Security:Proposals for Change at UNE