By Jeremy Smith
The National Tertiary Education and Industry Union national council in October launched a campaign around three claims: a 15% pay rise, retention of positive aspects of the award and past enterprise bargaining agreements, and involvement of unions and staff in restructuring decisions.
A number of tertiary institutions have reached agreement with unions in enterprise bargaining negotiations. Although the NTEU and other unions achieved salary and wage increases in all cases, the results were mixed.
At the Australian National University, workers waged a lively campaign involving a considerable number of members and won a lump sum payment of $1850 and a 4.3% wage increase over 12 months. The University of Canberra negotiated 9% over two years and a $500 bonus.
Southern Cross University stitched together a 9.8% increase for academics, with the university offering a profit sharing scheme to fill the gap.
Queensland University of Technology offered 11% to academics over two years and only 6% to general staff. The University of New England agreed to 11.8%.
At La Trobe University, no agreement has been reached, and bans remain in force. Negotiations continue at University of Melbourne and at Deakin. Deakin is expected to make an offer of 11% soon, but with poor conditions. Talks have made little progress at the University of Ballarat.
At Macquarie University, management's latest offer will be put to an NTEU meeting on February 13: a 15% increase over three years in three instalments, but with a number of new clauses including reduced sick leave.
At the University of WA, a general meeting of two unions voted to reject the university's pay offer of 5% backdated and 5% at the beginning of 1998. Members also voted against a proposed expansion in university opening hours from 12 to 16 hours per day.
The meeting did vote for offers of improved flexitime and increases in maternity and paternity leave. The unions will meet again in February and will discuss industrial action if negotiations do not lead to a satisfactory outcome.
Where the union has fought a resolute campaign involving the members, it has achieved greater success. At Sydney University, an energetic battle was waged, with bans on the transmission of exam results proving an effective weapon.
Academics won 12% over 12 months while general staff won 6.5% with a $1850 lump sum payment. Most importantly, the unions won agreement that no redundancies would result from the salary increases and that the institution had to find other ways to fund the gains.