Bargaining for Better Work

Workload

Management has rejected staff proposals for improvements to Professional Staff workloads, including protection from workload increases caused by restructures and protection against excessive overtime. We had proposed a rigorous workload review mechanism for professional staff but that was rejected by management.

Griffith management say they are fixing workloads by hiring new staff, but the numbers are minimal and will only replace a fraction of the staff that were lost under R2S restructure. They have said 25 additional staff over the life of the agreement which is two years. A drop in the ocean.

The removal of workloads restrictions from the academic agreement will lead to burnout of academics and academic work falling to Professional staff. Griffith staff are all in this together and should vote no so that management have to come back to the table to negotiate improvements for both agreements.

Pay cut in real terms

The agreement proposes a below-inflation wage increase that will see staff at Griffith University fall further behind colleagues at QUT and UQ. Meanwhile Griffith recorded a $122 million surplus in the last annual report!

We want to retain the best staff and be able to recruit the best staff. This proposal will make it harder to compete for staff with UQ and QUT.

On call allowances

We were seeking to improve on call allowances for professional staff, but management have ignored that in their draft.

Keeping pace with academic staff

If the Academic agreement is rejected, which we think it will because it opens the floodgates on workloads and wage theft, and professional staff vote up their agreement then we may end up with separate negotiations down the track. We want to keep negotiating both agreements at the same time to maximise the strength of the union and keep professional staff entitlements level with academic staff, not lagging behind.

          Academic staff should vote NO because:

Workload

Instead of agreeing to staff proposals to fix academic workloads, management is asking you to agree to removing key academic workload protections.

The proposal:

·         There will be no regulation in the Agreement for what is to be included in workload allocation models and removes the formal consultation process in the previous Agreement which includes staff in the development of Group workload allocation guidelines.

·         No protections for staff from arbitrary changes to work profiles. Staff could be moved from teaching and research to teaching focused without consent.

·         Removes the requirement for an 8 week non-coursework teaching period and a maximum of 28 weeks of coursework teaching per year, which will allow a teaching allocation for academics on a balanced profile over 3 trimesters per year.

·         The clause separates research supervision, course convenorship and program directorship from teaching. These activities may not be counted as teaching for the purposes of workload allocation. Course convenorship could be arbitrarily moved from teaching to service and HDR supervision could be shifted into research.

·         Removal of explicit workload protections for early career staff in the previous Agreement.

Reducing the minimum payments for casuals

·         wage theft is rampant in the university sector.

·         Current agreement provides for a minimum payment of three hours per first hour of delivery and two hours per repeat delivery to cover preparation, course admin and student consultation.

·         Proposal reduces guaranteed payment to just the hour of delivery. Everything above that requires ‘agreement’ of the staff member’s supervisor.

·         Currently a tutor teaching 3 x 1 hour tutes would get paid for 7 hours work (3 hours for the first hour and 2 hours per repeat). Under the proposal the tutor would only be guaranteed the 3 hours of delivery an everything above that would be subject to agreement.

·         To quote management’s own propaganda: “All work will be agreed and paid based on the duration of the work conducted”

·         We know what ‘agreement’ looks like when a casual is being offered a course to teach. It’s take it or leave it.

Pay cut in real terms

The agreement proposes a below-inflation wage increase that will see staff at Griffith University fall further behind colleagues at QUT and UQ. Meanwhile Griffith recorded a $123 million surplus in the last annual report!

Casualisation

In response to NTEU proposals to significantly reduce casualisation, management are proposing to convert just 20 casuals in total over the next two years, less than what would probably have happened anyway.

At the same time management is proposing to reduce minimum payments for casuals, leaving those employees to try to negotiate proper preparation time with the university and likely a race to the bottom on pay.

          And keep in mind:

Salaries

·         Last Agreement pay rise 2% - March 2021

·         Admin pay rise 2% - March 2022

·         12% over 3.5 years = 3.4% per annum

·         RBA forecasts inflation to be 8% for 12 months to December 2022

·         $123 million surplus (from 2021 Annual Report)

·         Current UQ offer 14% | QUT 4.03% per annum

·         Staff numbers have been cut drastically since 2019 including 1 in 10 professional staff, 1 in 4 casual staff and 1 in 14 academic staff.

Affordability

The annual reports show that Griffith has been investing surpluses in financial assets like shares and financial investments. The have gone from having just under $300M (three hundred million dollars) in cash and financial assets in 2012, to just under $900M (nine hundred million) in in cash and financial assets in 2021. Some of these surpluses should be going to the staff who bring the money into the university.

Splitting staff

Management have given no indication whether they will proceed with one of the two agreements if only one gets up. This is potentially divisive and could lead to professional staff getting a bit of a payrise and academic staff not getting one. Or management could be forced back to the table and have to negotiate a better pay deal for one group. We want to see all staff get a good deal, so even if you think the professional staff agreement isn’t too bad and you need some sort of pay rise (because management only paid 2% in March) you should vote no to keep the negotiations together.

No minimum vote

Management have walked away from negotiations with the staff bargaining team to hold a vote on a detailed new agreement most staff won’t read over a weekend in mid-December. There’s no minimum turnout to make the vote valid. So a small minority of staff who vote will determine all staff pay and conditions for the next few years.

Academic Freedom and First Nations Employment

They have rejected our claim to better protect Academic and Intellectual freedom for all staff (including professionals) and rejected our claim to include a target for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment in the Agreement.

Negotiations

·         NTEU consistently requested longer and more frequent meetings.

·         Average meetings were fortnightly for 2-3 hours which hampers progress.

·         Management failed to engage on our major claims until recently.

·         Management rejected key claims around job security, casual conversion, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment and academic freedom.

·         Then, all of a sudden, they were in a hurry.

·         We offered to meet with them to try to finalise the negotiations before Christmas.

·         It was their decision to walk away from negotiations.

Voting information

●     You will be asked to vote online between Friday 9 and Monday 12 December

●     The link will be sent to you when voting opens

●     The vote is secret and management won't know how you voted

●     If staff vote No, management will be forced to come back to the bargaining table and negotiate a better deal for staff

●     EVERY VOTE COUNTS - the vote will be close. There’s a good chance that the only a handful of votes will decide the outcome.