UNE Log of Claims

Executive, 28 July 2008, EX87/08

"That the UNE EB6 Log of Claims is endorsed by the Executive."

The union will soon formally commence round six of university enterprise bargaining (EB6). Bargaining is central to our industrial and organising approach, which seeks to make sustainable gains in our members' terms and conditions of employment as well as presenting an important opportunity for building union organisation throughout the bargaining process.

Central to our EB6 strategy is the engagement of members at each university using our EB6 Discussion Paper. By running a number of focus groups at each university we will receive comprehensive feedback on the issues that concern members and this will lead directly to the development and finalisation of the log of claims for each university.

We commenced the roll out focus groups at the University of New England (UNE) in May 2008. Around a dozen focus groups were held across that period. Each focus group was facilitated jointly by one organiser or industrial officer and a delegate. It was an objective to have 70% of members at UNE attend at least one focus group. Over 70% of members attended one or more focus groups. Members who could not attend a focus group were asked their views about enterprise bargaining and their conditions of employment over the phone using a pre prepared script.

Once the focus groups were completed a draft log of claims was sent to all members for comment and an invite to attend a members' meeting to discuss and endorse the log of claims.

The feedback from members has been overwhelmingly positive. They clearly support this level of engagement and believe it will provide our union with a strong mandate to pursue the claims identified in the log of claims.

This members' endorsement meeting took place on Wednesday 25 June 2008. The log of claims was unanimously endorsed following several amendments.

Members were also introduced to the members of the union's bargaining team which consists of Kylie Day, Jen Mitchell, Marney Tilley and Andrew Holland.

The delegates on the bargaining team will serve the endorsed log on the university next week.