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Lawyers lead
UWS
award negotiations
The National Tertiary Education Union is“ surprised” that the University of Western Sydney is appointing lawyers to lead discussions for a new enterprise bargaining deal.
Janet Falloon, NTEU( UWS) president said although universities have the right to appoint lawyers to bargain for them this is the first time an Australian university has done so. Staff at the University of Sydney and the University of New England are already threatening to increase industrial action over enterprise bargaining following successful applications to Fair Work Australia by the NTEU.
The NTEU UWS branch is questioning the university for appointing lawyers from a corporate law firm given the recent course and staff cuts at UWS. At the end of last year UWS made major cuts to courses and units in many schools resulting in a number of voluntary redundancies.
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Falloon said the rationale for these cuts to courses, units and staff was the lack of money available to schools within the university. She said staff are already feeling“ pretty bruised” from the cuts to humanities, commerce, arts and economics courses and staff and that this move does nothing to restore their faith in management.
“ If the university was being honest and transparent about the reasons for such cuts the spending of money to employ a corporate law firm to bargain for the university seems to be not about the university’ s core business,” Falloon said.
She said the process of staff cuts is ongoing and assumes that there may well be forced redundancies in some areas if the numbers of voluntary applications do not increase.
The NTEU will be bargaining with lawyers appointed from Maddocks, as allowable under the Fair Work Act. In response to the NTEU’ s statements, UWS said:“ In order to ensure enterprise bargaining is a priority and taken forward in the timely fashion that all parties desire, the university has appointed Bruce Heddle and Darren Gardner, both of Maddocks law firm, as the university’ s bargaining representatives in accordance with section 176( 1)( d) of the Fair Work Act 2009.
“ This mirrors the participation of the industrial officers of the NTEU and CPSU, who are staff members of the unions’ central offices.
A UWS spokesperson said:“ The university is committed to involving and updating staff throughout negotiations and will host further forums in February as well as provide links to a dedicated bargaining website and other avenues for feedback prior to the commencement of negotiations.” ■