University Employers Seeking to Slash Award Safety Net

Joint Unions' Media Release re Award Modernisation from AMWU, ASU, CPSU, LHMU, NTEU

The Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) must make a modern award or modern awards for university staff by the end of 2008.

The employers have put forward draft academic and general staff awards that seek to drastically slash award conditions.

If accepted by the AIRC, this will weaken the capacity of university staff to maintain decent conditions in their enterprise agreements.

This is because the award(s), in conjunction with the National Employment Standards (NES) will provide the safety net against which the agreements will be assessed for the no-disadvantage test.

Among the employer claims in their draft awards are to take away existing award entitlements to paid maternity leave.

They also want to increase working hours to 38 per week for the majority of general staff, whose working hours for decades have been between 35 and 37.5 per week.

The university employers also want to re-open the door to the abuses of fixed-term employment that were going on in the 1980s and 90s, in the name of flexibility they say they need.

The AIRC made an award in 1998 to limit the use of fixed-term employment to legitimate purposes, such as funding with a finite term or replacing staff on maternity leave. This was after hearing voluminous evidence about academic and general staff being employed for year after year on annual fixed-term contracts to perform ongoing jobs.

David Carey, the Federal Secretary of the CPSU said: "A new modern award should not drive down award conditions to the lowest common denominator."

"In fact we aim to restore conditions and rights taken away under Howard's Work Choices and Brendan Nelson's Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements - the HEWRRS."

NTEU Senior Industrial Officer Ken McAlpine said: "The employers' proposal to attack the award safety net by removing paid maternity leave, cutting pay rates and increasing hours of work will not be acceptable to university staff."

For more information, contact
David Carey (CPSU-SPSF) 0418 233 923
Ken McAlpine (NTEU) 0418 357 499