Jo Williams, Melbourne
On April 6, members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at meetings on two separate campuses of the Victoria University of Technology (VUT) decided to go ahead with a planned 48-hour strike, scheduled for April 28-29.
The meetings also unanimously passed a motion from the floor expressing no confidence in the VUT's vice chancellor, Professor Elizabeth Harman.
The NTEU has been in negotiation with the VUT for 18 months. The key issues under negotiation are a three-year enterprise agreement until 2008. The NTEU is seeking cumulative pay rises of 22.5%.
Just before Easter, the NTEU Victoria University branch executive suspended the previously planned 48-hour strike in the belief that an agreement had been reached with Harman.
However, the university decided not to finalise the agreement, instead requesting further concessions from the NTEU.
Harman also distributed an email to all staff blaming the NTEU and suggesting that the union called off the strike due to a lack of staff support.
Since Easter, management has continued to avoid completing negotiations by referring to an undefined concession on working conditions, above and beyond those negotiated over the past 18-month period. Moreover, it is expecting that the NTEU should come up with the details of the concession.
The NTEU membership responded with renewed commitment to industrial action. In addition to the planned 48-hour strike, members voted to hold a rally on April 28, impose a range of bans including "work to rule", and hold protest actions including a rolling redirection of telephones to the senior manager of choice.
A strike committee has been established to coordinate the picket lines for the April 28-29 strike and to organise volunteers to distribute leaflets and posters.
From Green Left Weekly, April 13, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.