UTS will be celebrating International Women’s Day with a major in-conversation event spotlighting young women, discussing challenging systems and amplifying underrepresented voices. But this message doesn’t seem to have made its way to UTS management, as staff continue to call for crucial parental and reproductive health rights in their current bargaining negotiations.
To highlight the contradiction between statements and action, staff at UTS will be taking industrial action on Friday 6 March, outside the event, bringing their children and families for a “Pram Jam”, to call for stronger parental and reproductive health support and entitlements.
When it comes to paid parental leave entitlements, universities like Monash, Swinburne and Victoria University lead the pack, offering staff the equivalent of 36.8 weeks of paid parental leave. UTS by comparison offers just 26 weeks. Staff have advocated that these amounts are insufficient for contemporary circumstances.
Perhaps most shocking is UTS’ leave entitlement for pregnancy loss before 22 weeks, for which there is no special provision. In this instance, parents can only access the same existing personal and sick leave available to all staff. Staff would like to see this entitlement at 2 weeks paid leave for loss or termination before 13 weeks, and 6 weeks paid leave for loss or termination from 13 to 22 weeks.
Staff at UTS are also denied their full Super entitlement of 17.5% paid on periods of unpaid parental leave. This particularly disadvantages women setting them behind in their accumulation of super because they have taken time off work to raise children.
Staff have been calling for a distinct 15 days paid reproductive health leave. Instead, they are expected to exhaust all their sick and personal leave.
UTS lists ‘equity, diversity and inclusion’ as their core values, and their ‘Gender Equality Action Plan 2025 – 2030′ claims to make support for staff who are parents a priority, however the glaring gaps in parental and reproductive health rights for staff tell a vastly different story.
In communications with staff, UTS management have continued to cry poor as a way to justify financial decisions. However, the institution budgeted to spend a whopping $37M in Operational Sustainability Initiative costs in 2025, including over $9M paid to KPMG consultants that year. They also quietly extended Vice Chancellor Andrew Parfitt’s almost $1M contract and are set to see their cash reserves grow to $371M by [2030] after paying off a $300M bond.
Quotes attributable to Dr Sarah Attfield, NTEU UTS Branch President:
“Improving staff leave provisions is critical for improving the lives of women at UTS. We know that better paid parental leave provides financial and career stability for women, it increases women’s participation in the workforce, and closes the gender pay gap.
“Management clearly aren’t listening to the ongoing public criticism of universities being run like businesses. UTS isn’t a business, it’s an academic institution, a public good. It’s time for UTS to get its priorities straight.
“After the turmoil and deep trauma staff experienced in 2025, we came into the new year with renewed hope and genuine openness for collaboration with management. But recent interactions have only showed us they’re still not willing to listen to their own staff. Have they learned nothing?”
Quotes attributable to the NTEU UTS Staff Parents and Carers Working Group:
“It has been incredibly disheartening to see how management disregards the concepts of equity and inclusion. They sign on to statements of equity principles but do not follow through in practice.
“Simple things like flexibility in parental leave to allow for families to access leave as fits their family structure are summarily dismissed as not in the interest of the university. Management have also, at a moment’s notice, ceased funding for UTS childcare, with the rationale that childcare is not something that benefits every staff member so therefore we should not be funding it.
“If UTS were a corporation in 1986, this management team would be fantastic. However, UTS is a public institution and the current year is 2026. From what we’ve seen over the past few years, the UTS leadership team is completely unfit to lead UTS or any other modern public institution.”
Quotes attributable to NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes:
“Too many university staff suffer in silence through period pain, endometriosis, pregnancy loss and menopausal symptoms because managements refuse to acknowledge these as workplace issues.
“UTS is offering no additional leave for pregnancy loss and telling staff to exhaust their sick leave before asking nicely for more. That’s a disgrace that tells you everything about their attitude to gender equity.
“If universities don’t get serious about parental and reproductive leave, they’ll be sending a devastating message to women across a feminised sector.”
