-
Improved conversion rights for casual staff
-
Casual staff are paid by the hour for all work, not by the task
-
Conversion to permanent after 3 years’ continuous service or 2 successive contracts.
-
Retrenchment, including voluntary retrenchment, may only occur where the work performed in the position is no longer required to be performed by anyone.
-
No one subject to organisational change process more than once during the life of the new Enterprise Agreement.
-
Paid sick leave for casual staff.
-
Allowances for casual staff for policy familiarisation and discipline currency
Job security is key to working together to build a fair and productive workplace. A university that values its staff does not subject them to the stress and uncertainty of permanent insecurity.
The majority of people who work at universities don’t have permanent employment
Casual and contract staff have become critical to the functioning of our universities. We are passionate and dedicated teachers, researchers and professionals — we deserve secure jobs. Where secure jobs are not possible, there needs to fairer pay and conditions for casual staff.
This round we are seeking paid sick leave for casual staff. In the past it has been assumed that casual loadings compensate for sick leave. But for casual staff, if all our work falls on one or two days, getting sick can cost us our weeks wages. This puts pressure on us to work while sick, which is unfair on us and unsafe for our campuses.
Use of rolling fixed-term contracts for ongoing work forces the best staff to look elsewhere for job security. That means we all lose valuable colleagues with experience and institutional knowledge. It means we have to pay unnecessary administrative costs training new staff.
Sadly, these days even a permanent job does not guarantee job security. Constant excessive and unnecessary restructuring and redundancies are exposing more staff to stress and uncertainty and causing chaos and disorganisation.