What is bargaining? Bargaining is a system whereby unions and their members negotiate on behalf of all employees to establish legally enforceable rights and entitlements, including salaries, paid leave such as parental leave, redundancy pay, limits on workloads, and hundreds of other entitlements.
Most of your rights and working conditions are set and protected by these union-negotiated Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBAs). Contracts of employment generally don’t include any rights for workers, and university policies can be changed without notice. By law we are only allowed to negotiate employer by employer – for now we can’t negotiate on an industry level.