'Fight for every job': University union on war footing

A day after Prime Minister Scott Morrison appealed for industrial peace and urged all sides to “lay down their weapons”, the university staff union has threatened widespread industrial action after the collapse of its proposed jobs framework.

The union had offered to take pay cuts of up to 15 per cent in exchange for universities not involuntarily standing down staff without pay or making staff redundant without first exhausting all other options. But vice-chancellors refused to sign the deal.

The National Tertiary Education Union withdrew a vote on the National Jobs Protection Framework on Wednesday after at least 17 universities said they would not sign up, and national president Alison Barnes accused vice-chancellors of being greedy and avoiding scrutiny.

“NTEU will now escalate to what will be historically high levels of industrial disputation and campaigning to fight for every job,” Dr Barnes said.

The move comes after NTEU Fightback – a group of NTEU members who led a “rank and file revolt” against the framework – claimed vindication for its campaign.

Deakin University on Tuesday became the latest institution to announce it would not sign up to the national framework. It also announced that about 400 jobs would be cut in an effort to offset an estimated revenue shortfall of up to $300 million in 2021.

Central Queensland University made 182 positions redundant last week, and on Wednesday the Australian National University announced it would look to implement a voluntary redundancy round across its more than 3000 staff to try to fill a $375 million funding gap.

The current round of job cuts is just the beginning of what the university sector expects could be up to 21,000 jobs disappearing because of falling international student numbers. It expects a $4.5 billion revenue shortfall as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The move towards industrial action comes just a day after Mr Morrison urged everyone to “put down their weapons” and end the tribalism that has stymied industrial relations reform for decades.

In a speech on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Morrison said unions and employers had signed up to an accord-style compact to overhaul Australia’s industrial relations system and he had given them until September to present solutions to the government.

But by Tuesday night, Dr Barnes said the NTEU would be stepping up its campaign against vice-chancellors and the government, and took aim at Education Minister Dan Tehan.

“Dan Tehan and his colleagues have completely abandoned higher education at a time when $4.5 billion in revenue has disappeared from Australian universities,” Dr Barnes said.

“NTEU members will now continue to ramp up their campaign against the federal government and the vice-chancellors who have abandoned their workforce.”

NTEU National Councillor and Fightback spokesman Liam Ward said that universities were “coming for us” and members would continue “resistance on the ground so we can fight for every dollar and every job”.

“We’re not going to stand by and let mass sackings run rampant through our workplaces,” he said.

The NTEU has also criticised the government’s decision to change JobKeeper eligibility rules for some private universities – including Bond University, which has applied for the scheme – while effectively blocking access to their public counterparts. The union stepped up its pressure on JobKeeper after revelations of a $60 billion accounting stuff-up.

Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter defended that decision, saying the government had to draw a line around expenditure because “all expenditure is borrowed money”.

“Well there had to be a line drawn around the way in which JobKeeper was applied and obviously universities, public universities were out,” he said.

“We also have competing concerns, which is to not borrow so much money that a future generation of Australians ends up with lower job growth, because they've got higher taxes having to pay it back.”

Mr Tehan has rejected suggestions the government is abandoning university workers, citing an $18 billion funding guarantee that ensures funding for universities based on expected domestic enrolments before the coronavirus pandemic.

He has said the funding guarantee was the "number one priority" for universities during negotiations.

Andrew Norton, professor of higher education policy at the Australian National University, said it was not surprising that universities were taking the opportunity for structural reform.

“If you have to make cuts, universities will protect the things that are the greatest long-term value and cut things of lesser value,” Mr Norton said. “Things some people might think should have been cut in the past, but which were not worth the political grief.

“On the other hand, there are things such as construction projects, some of which might be valuable for the university in the future, which are being postponed because it's relatively easily contractually.”