CPSU NSW remains committed to representing Professional Staff interests
2 September 2021
At the last bargaining meeting held 31 August 2021, the CPSU NSW asserted that only Professional Staff should have a say on Professional Staff conditions. A single agreement will deny us that right. We know that a large number of Professional Staff are not happy with having a single agreement.
There are still a large number of universities who have separate agreements.
Conditions of employment for both Professional and Academic Staff should be equal, but only if the condition applied is not a reduction of a current entitlement. We level up not down.
The reasons provided in the Provost鈥檚 recent email for a single agreement, (that is, to provide consistency of entitlements for professional and academic staff; and to reduce the administrative costs and complexity of having different processes for different categories of staff) can be achieved without resorting to having a single agreement. The university has benefited from these inequities and it has not been an issue in previous agreements.
Reduction in Job Security and other conditions
The CPSU NSW also made it clear to the university that we hold grave concerns about the reduction in job security and other employment conditions. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Proposed changes to Consultation and Dispute resolution clauses.
- Removal of the requirement to consult with unions when proposals Policy documents are made
- Reduction in voluntary separation (VS) and redundancy payments. UTS is proposing to cap VS to 52 weeks, down from a cap of 78 weeks. As well as capping redundancy payments to 16 weeks, which is down from 38 weeks.
- No commitment to extra money for Professional Staff Development.
Creation of a new 鈥淗ybrid Position鈥. - Parental leave qualifying period to be extended from 40 weeks to 12 months (52 weeks).
- Maximum leave balance for staff required to take directed leave reduced from 40 to 20 days.
- The possibility of an extension to an end of year shut down.
- The removal of ordinary hours of work span of hours.
- Simplified probation, with no review process.
- Removal of Process Review Committee clause.
- Restricting Long Service Leave to be taken at full pay only, instead of having an option of taking it at half pay.
To be clear the CPSU NSW UTS bargaining team continues to be committed to the outcome of separate agreements at UTS.
The CPSU NSW agenda is membership driven. We will inform the membership of bargaining issues and outcomes. Our meetings are democractic, all participants have a say. We encourage strong membership feedback.
TO MAINTAIN A PROFESSIONAL STAFF AGREEMENT
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Professional Staff: Worth Every Cent!
UTS CPSU NSW Branch Committee
President
Rosa Bow
Vice President
Mark Christopher
Assistant Secretary
Andreas Dalman