Week 7: June 16-17
Summary
Week 7 of bargaining focused on academic workloads, decasualisation, and proposed new employment categories. Productive discussions occurred on the NTEU’s workload claims, with some movement toward compromise on workload governance processes. However, disagreement remains over the Union’s proposal that Workload Allocation Policies be based on evidence of how long work actually takes, and measures designed to prevent excessive workloads during peak teaching periods.
The most contentious issue was Management’s proposal to create three new categories of employment: Teaching Associates, Industry Education Specialists, and Postgraduate Fellows. The NTEU argued that these proposals cannot be properly assessed without workforce modelling and expressed concern that they could weaken the research–teaching nexus and existing academic career structures. While Postgraduate Fellow roles attracted cautious interest as a developmental pathway for HDR students, the proposed Teaching Associate role generated strong scepticism, with the Union questioning why existing Education-Focused roles could not be adapted to achieve decasualisation objectives.
Wednesday’s discussions on professional staff matters were generally more constructive. Topics included a potential pilot of classification “broad banding” to improve career progression, proposed changes to secondment arrangements, increased funding for the Professional Staff Development Fund, and the management of vacant positions. The NTEU emphasised that prolonged vacancies contribute to workload intensification and secured a commitment from Management to revise aspects of its counter-proposal.
Tuesday: Academic Staff Matters
The outcome of Tuesday’s discussion is … unclear.
At the most mundane level, the Union reported on sideline discussions regarding Schedule 1 (causal pay rates and definitions), where Management have suggested a number of definition changes and the collapse of clinical casual positions into one generic grouping. The NTEU met with Management’s Subject Matter Experts with our own casual staff experts and raised a range of questions about the proposal.Some suggestions appear to be comparatively straight forward clarifications of the Schedule, but it is unclear if the clinical roles can be effectively and fairly captured in a single set of generic descriptions. Management have committed to provide additional information and discussions will begin in earnest in approximately one month.
Productive, genuine bargaining occurred on the NTEU academic workload proposal and management’s response. The Union identified that some of management’s proposed adjustments to our draft clauses are acceptable, some can be negotiated towards “meeting in the middle” (particularly around processes associated with the Academic Workload Monitoring Committee), and others require movement from Management if they are going to get up. The most significant of these is management’s rejection that Workload Allocation Policies (WAP) should be based on empirical evidence. That is, the workload allocation formula should be based on an actual assessment of how long it takes the average staff member to do the work, to the standard (“excellence!”) required. While this seems like a no brainer (that a University as a place of higher learning and research, would be a proponent of Evidence-Based Policy Making (EBPM)), the Bargaining Team were very interested to see how the University would justify the inclusion of this in the Agreement. This did lead to some odd discussions of whether an hour is an hour for different people, but we may have determined that Management is concerned about how evidence would be collected and employed.The Union has agreed to consider alternative wording that make both the nature of evidence more specific and indicate how that will be employed in WAP development.
Observers of the ever-lasting FASS workloads policy development process will know that this is particularly relevant in making it clear that WAPs need to allow people to undertake their work within a 37.5 hour average week, not a Dean’s budget envelope. People live in a world of hours. This connected to a detailed discussion of our “maximum 45 hours” in any given week proposal – something that aims to ensure that, even in the peak of semester marking, everyone gets at least one day off a week. Management rejected this claim in the first instance, but the topic was the subject of further elaboration and discussion around the intent of preventing peaks of overwork. This led to a detailed discussion of how workload allocation operates “on the shop floor” and that this would mean localised consideration for the implications of assigning units of study to staff, especially those – like Education-Focussed roles – where there might be multiple units with large numbers of students to mark.
Unsurprisingly, the most contentious matter of the day was the University’s new three categories of employment (Teaching Associates, Industry Education Specialists (“IESs” was “ITSs”), and Postgraduate Fellows.
Union representatives emphasised that they could not properly assess the proposals without modelling and workforce data, including the number of positions envisaged and their relationship to existing academic roles. The NTEU expressed scepticism about the package, arguing that the proposals risk undermining the research–teaching nexus that has long characterised academic employment. The Union also emphasised that this discussion cannot exclude consideration of our decasualisation proposals, as well as having a key relationship with our proposals to improve the working conditions of Education-Focused (EF) staff. On the latter topic, Harry Maher joined the Team as a Subject Matter Expert on EF-related matters.
The three roles were discussed in some detail, starting with Postgraduate Fellows. HDR students currently undertake about one-third of casual teaching, and the Union is interested in the extent to which these roles (building on existing roles in the Agreement) could allow for whole-of-year continuity of pay and conditions, but ensure that the roles are truly “developmental” (supporting the professional development of research postgraduate students). More information will be provided by management and the Union has asked SUPRA for their view on this role to add to the mix.
The other two roles certainly attracted more sceptical questioning from the Union. Management estimated only very low demand for IES roles (circa 32 persons), leading to a discussion of the actual merits of the creation of such a radical new category of employment. The NTEU proposed that these roles be linked to Schedule 1 discussions as there is a community of casual staff who feel that their professional experience is not rewarded in the current Schedule (which tends to delineate only between those with PhDs and those without).
The creation of Teaching Associates as a new category of employment, where academic work is separated from development into EF and balanced academic roles, was discussed in detail. Following the development of EF roles as a means of decasualisation in previous Agreements, the Union was unclear why yet another category of employment is necessary and probed management about their flexibility to address this issue through existing types of employment. Management appear most committed to these roles, and signalled that this issue might be the one they hold up the resolution of other matters for. The Union will develop a counter proposal here, but the parties are wide apart and the discussion was – at times – rancorous.
Overall, the NTEU has concerns that the roles are all excluded from academic workloads policies – creating continuing positions that are workloaded through the casual pay rates appears to be hard to justify.
Finally, our improved clauses for EF staff were presented and discussed, primarily by our Subject Matter Expert. This focused on our proposals intended to improve career progression, address inconsistencies in workload allocation across faculties, and reduce pressures associated with research requirements. Union representatives highlighted widespread concerns about high teaching loads and uneven treatment of EF staff across the University. The NTEU has proposed reducing the total teaching allocation for EFRs to a 60% (down from 70%) – management are clearly linking this claim with their teaching Associate claim. Management responded by noting the strong success rate of EF promotion applications and expressing interest in further discussions around workload allocation, conversion pathways, and research expectations. The conversation reflected a broader debate about how teaching-focused academic careers should be structured and valued within the institution.
Tuesday was a long day.
Wednesday: Professional Staff Matters
Wednesday bargaining was truncated due to the NTEU and Management’s appearance at the Fair Work Commission over a dispute about the current Agreement (for a summary of that process, see [here]).
Compared with Tuesday, the general tenor of the discussion was generally productive, with the NTEU demonstrating active bargaining around a number of proposals brought forward by Management and the CPSU. These included:
- A proposal for a pilot during the next Agreement period of a trial of “broad banding” professional staff positions. This would allow us to explore the problem of limited progression opportunities experienced by some professional staff through positioning roles across a number of HEO levels and permitting progression from one level to another in the same role. The Union would be vigilant that any programme of this type would not take roles currently at higher level down a band when they become vacant, but there is the possibility that a mutually agreeable pilot can be developed that would explore the benefits and pitfalls of this approach.
- Some updates to the classification assessment clauses of the Agreement. While framed in terms of updating and streamlining the Agreement, the NTEU raised a number of questions for clarification to ensure the current quality of classification and rights of review are not degraded.
- A discussion of proposed changes to the secondment provisions of the Agreement. Management expressed concerns about the current provisions on this matter, and most of Wednesday was spent discussing this in detail. Key issues focused on the level of performance necessary to permit staff to access secondment, and a proposal to allow Management to automatically convert a secondee into a role if it becomes vacant. The Union recognises the difficulties some staff have in applying for roles they may have been working successfully in for some time. However, we raised concerns that this might exclude people from open roles who might not have been interested in the secondment process but would apply for a continuing job. This is a question the Bargaining Team identified would need input from NTEU members, as the change would create possibly disadvantage staff looking for internal roles, but not willing to take up secondments.
- Increased funding of the Professional Staff Development Fund was discussed, and it appears that there is general agreement that the Fund has been effective, successful and popular, and that additional monies are required.
More back-and-forth occurred when it came to the NTEUs proposals around unfilled professional staff roles. Management rejected the claim to advertise vacant positions within a short window following them becoming vacant, but instead had proposed a mechanism of reviewing unfilled roles and informing staff of decisions made with regards to these roles (which may include their dissolution). Management and the NTEU discussed this in some detail, as the focus on notification did not get to the core of the NTEU concern: that unfilled roles in some areas produced workload intensification and that the filling of roles is a core workload issue for professional staff. The NTEU wants to avoid the position where we are left to raise disputes over unfilled roles that intensify work, and Management’s proposal might lead to increased industrial disputation. After some time, Management undertook to revise some of their proposal and the Union identified a range of areas in the current draft that might be misapplied – such as around the use of eligibility lists. The Union will propose wording allowing sensible exceptions to be made in this area (for example where there is no eligibility list or the available list is unsuitable to the role).
