Melbourne staff to strike for a week over pay and workloads

Students at Australia’s top-ranked university face a week of rolling strikes amid acrimonious negotiations around a new workplace agreement.

National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members at the University of Melbourne are planning seven days of industrial action with an institution-wide stoppage from the afternoon of 28 August. Members in the arts faculty, library, student services and art and law schools have vowed to walk off the job for up to seven days.

The NTEU blames the action on administrators’ refusal to engage with the union’s “reasonable claims” around job security, workloads, flexible working arrangements, a “fair” pay rise and a limit to restructures. National president Alison Barnes condemned the university’s “shameful” approach after it was obliged to compensate staff for A$45 million (£23 million) in underpayments.

“Universities need to abandon approaches like Melbourne’s to enterprise bargaining,” Dr Barnes said. “It’s seriously out of touch with the universities accord which is rightly pushing institutions to become exemplary employers.”

NTEU Victorian division secretary Sarah Roberts said bargaining at most of the state’s universities was “way behind where it should be”, as evidenced by industrial action at their open days. “It’s time for common sense to prevail,” she said. “Return to the negotiating table and make some progress.”

Melbourne branch president David Gonzalez said “recalcitrant” executives were stalling negotiations. “Staff don’t take any strike action lightly, especially not for an entire working week. We have been left with no choice.”

A Melbourne spokesman said the university was negotiating in good faith and had already reached in-principle agreement on some matters. He said bargaining had “typically been protracted” across the sector.

“We have responded to the union’s claims but have not accepted them all,” he said. “We are shortly entering into a phase of intensified negotiations…to resolve the sticking points.”

The spokesman said Melbourne had voluntarily raised salaries twice “in genuine recognition” of staff’s efforts. “It has never been our preference to withhold wage adjustments until a new agreement has been negotiated, given that the bargaining process can take…considerable time.”

The university said it respected staff’s rights to strike or eschew strike action. It said it would keep students informed about effects on their classes.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com