NTEU UoN Branch Submission – AWAM POLICY REVIEW CONSULTATION REPORT AND 2027 GUIDANCE NOTES

AWAM POLICY REVIEW CONSULTATION REPORT AND 2027 GUIDANCE NOTES

NTEU BRANCH SUBMISSION, 6 OCTOBER 2026

This submission responds to the AWAM Policy Review Consultation Report, proposed changes to the AWAM Guidance Notes, and the associated trial of a new teaching workload calculation framework in three Schools (Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences; Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy; and School of Engineering) in 2027. These proposals stem from a broader review of the University’s Academic Work Allocation Policy first adopted in September 2022. The Review takes place in a context of sustained staff dissatisfaction with the allocation of workload across the institution. It also occurs in the wake of significant public criticism of the University’s management of psychosocial risk linked to unreasonable workloads: see for example New South Wales University sector inquiry; the 2025 Australian Universities Census on Staff Wellbeing; and ‘Run out of options’: University of Newcastle union members to strike. Importantly, these changes were catalysed through the most recent round of enterprise bargaining where NTEU members from the University of Newcastle branch centred the issue of workloads as the most critical area for reform.

The NTEU welcomes several revisions to current policy and practice outlined in the Consultation Report and Guidance Notes:

1. Hours-based modelling of teaching. Though the current Academic Work Allocation policy expresses workload as a percentage of annual working hours, it offers no formal mechanism to quantify the actual number of hours required to perform specific tasks. In the teaching domain, teaching effort is instead approximated using wide student enrolment bands, which significantly underestimates the time required to deliver courses. The new teaching workload calculation framework replaces these bands with a more granular count of the constitutive elements of teaching, such as preparation time, teaching delivery, marking, consultation, and placement coordination. This reflects the requirements of the 2026 Enterprise Agreement.

2. Concessions for new Level A and Level B appointments. The consultation documents propose an additional five per cent service allocation for Level A and Level B academics during their first year of appointment. The Branch supports this equity measure for early career academics.

3. Recognition of colonial load. The consultation documents propose an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led process to document and recognise additional administrative duties undertaken by Indigenous staff. The NTEU Branch Committee welcomes this proposal and notes that management support for increased employment targets would modify some of the burdens carried by existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff.

4. Service roles and fractional appointments. The consultation documents propose ending the prorating of leadership and engagement roles when held by part-time staff. Instead, the staff member will receive full recognition for the time it takes to complete the leadership and engagement work. The Branch supports this equity measure for staff on fractional appointments.

5. Academic Workload Oversight Committee. The consultation documents refer to the creation of an Academic Workload Oversight Committee. The Branch is broadly supportive of a university-wide process to review workload policy, provided its operation is suitably transparent and inclusive and does not duplicate the role of the Staff Consultative Committee outlined in Schedule 8 of the Enterprise Agreement.

While supportive of the proposals above, the NTEU continues to have significant concerns regarding the alignment of the section 23.4 of the Enterprise Agreement and the University’s AWAM policy and procedure. Section 23.4 states:

AWAMs will set a maximum and minimum teaching requirement in line with the following:

(a) generally, a balanced work allocation for a ‘teaching and research’ academic will be 40% ‘research and innovation’, 40% ‘teaching and learning’, and 20% ‘leadership and engagement’;

(b) where clause 23.4 (a) does not apply, work allocation will include a minimum of 20% for ‘research and innovation’ (inclusive of staff undertaking within time PhD study) and a minimum of 10% for ‘leadership and engagement’, applicable to continuing ‘teaching and research’ and fixed term staff on appointments greater than two years

Several elements of the consultation documents appear to contradict the operation of 23.4(a), which we read to stipulate a default 40/40/20 workload allocation for academic staff not identified as either teaching or research intensive:

1. No ‘fixed workload profiles’. The Consultation Report indicates that the fixed workload profiles identified in the current policy would be replaced by ‘individual allocations’ that ‘reflect the work undertaken across each domain, within the minimum requirements set by the Enterprise Agreement.’ This is an opportunistically narrow reading of section 23.4. By eliminating the ‘balanced’ profile on which clause 23.4(a) rests, it elevates 23.4(b) as the dominant clause, guaranteeing staff allocations of only 20% research and only 10% leadership and engagement (essentially, a teaching intensive profile). Our position is that this  contravenes the Enterprise Agreement.

2. Allocation of Leadership and Engagement. Though the Leadership and Engagement domain is yet to be fully modelled, the consultation documents state that staff will be allocated a baseline of 10% Leadership and Engagement workload. Allocations beyond 10% will be apportioned according to recognised leadership and governance positions, such as Deputy Heads of School and Program Convenors. While some leadership positions may attract an additional 20-30% in addition to the 10% baseline, each School will be subject to a 20% cap averaged across its staff profile. This alone suggests that the 40/40/20 balanced allocation set out in Section 23.4 will not ‘generally’ apply, as it will not be possible for all staff to reach a 20% allocation once leadership and governance allocations are accounted for.

3. Allocation of Research Workload. While the Research domain is also yet to be modelled, the consultation documents suggest both a retreat from a default 40% research allocation and a concerning conflation of research workload allocation with the assessment of research performance:

• Default research allocation. Minimum standards of research performance (required under current policy to qualify for a 40% allocation) are to be abolished; staff will instead be allocated a percentage in the range of 20-70% based on ‘demonstrated research capacity’. There is also some implication that there may be a cap applied at College level (a written answer in the Town Hall Q&A document refers to an ‘available College research allocation’).
• Allocations to reflect work hours. As set out in 23.2(a) of the Enterprise Agreement, the research component of a staff member’s workload allocation represents the amount of time reasonably required to undertake the research work. For a 40% research allocation, ‘677.64 (40% of 1,694.1 = 677.64) is approximately the number of hours it should reasonably take the Academic Staff member to undertake the research and innovation component of their role.’ Using performance metrics as a proxy for hours of work, and applying these metrics retrospectively to justify a future research allocation, contravenes these principles. Research performance metrics are also known to involve psychosocial risks and equity implications, in addition to distorting academic incentives. Further detail and transparency on the allocation of academic research workload are warranted.

4. Clarification of Research and Leadership and Engagement Allocations. The consultation documents state that individual workloads will be calculated in a set sequence: first research, then leadership and engagement, and finally teaching. While the Branch welcomes the move to an hours-based calculation of teaching effort and acknowledges the work involved in the 2027 teaching trial, research and leadership and engagement allocations will bear directly on the amount of teaching staff are required to undertake. Clearer indications about the position of the Working Group on the calculation of these allocations across all three domains of academic work and their relationship to Section 23.4 (a) of the Enterprise Agreement are urgently required.