University of Melbourne staff gear up for a fight

By Jeremy Smith

MELBOURNE — Members of the National Tertiary Education and Industry Union at the University of Melbourne have resolved to resist management's attacks.

Emerging out of negotiations with the university on October 25, the NTEU Single Bargaining Unit indicated that it hopes a revised agreement could be reached. The initial offer proposed a substantial erosion of conditions for staff. This offer has been subsequently rejected by a mass meeting of NTEU members, and a campaign has been organised.

The university's initial offer, put forward as part of the latest enterprise bargaining round, proposed pay increases of 6% in April, 1997 and a further 5% in April, 1998 in return for the delivery of productivity gains and redundancies. The offer included a warning that, should productivity gains not be achieved, a further reduction of up to 700 staff would be implemented.

At a stop-work meeting on November 7 a motion rejecting the offer was passed unanimously. Two hundred members of the NTEU voted to institute a campaign of work-to-rule bans and bans on the transmission of final exam results. These will remain in force until progress is made in enterprise bargaining negotiations. The campaign will be launched with workplace meetings convened as soon as possible to consider how to implement the bans. The final clause of the motion reiterated the NTEU's support for student campaigns against HECS and the introduction of fees.

From GLW issue 254