Sue Bull, Ballarat

The long campaign for an enterprise agreement at the University of Ballarat has turned a corner. The March 7 departure of Vice-Chancellor Kerry Cox, who is also head of the employer body, has opened the way for a resumption of negotiations.

Nearly nine months have passed since serious negotiations have taken place, but after approaches from local National Tertiary Education Union officials, the interim VC, Kwong Lee Dow, authorised the resumption of negotiations on April 13 for a union-based agreement.

Despite the cold climate that unions now face, NTEU officials are up-beat about achieving a good agreement. This is in part because the union has already had to confront aspects of Work Choices in the form of the government’s Higher Education Workplace Relations Requirements.

As Ballarat NTEU branch president Jeremy Smith told Green Left Weekly: “We ended up being a testing ground for the federal government’s IR agenda, ahead of the rest of the union movement. But we responded by campaigning hard, using a broad range of tactics. It looks like it might all now pay off.”

However, the union branch is not taking the foot off the pedal. “There’s a bigger struggle going on. We’ll be looking to build up some momentum in the lead-up to the June 28 national day of action. We also have plans for a large public forum on regional education issues”, Smith said.

From Green Left Weekly, April 12, 2006.
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