A massive rank and file revolt in May this year defeated an attempt to cut academic workers’ wages by the largest amount since the depression of the 1930s. The proposal to slash pay and conditions was primarily promoted not by employers or the state but by the leadership of the National Tertiary Education Union.
The NTEU officials’ “National Jobs Protection Framework” would have changed its members’ enterprise agreements (EAs) with university managements able to cut pay by up to 15 per cent and severely water down various rights, including consultation over workplace changes. It was formulated by a committee which included three vice-chancellors and was endorsed by the federal education minister Dan Tehan.
But, on 26 May, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that “The university staff union’s plan for a national framework for campus-by-campus wage negotiations [was] derailed just days before it was due to go to a ballot of all members”.
The rank and file revolt influenced the reluctance of many vice chancellors to sign up to the Framework. As the chief of the universities’ industrial cartel put it, there were vice chancellors who “are concerned that the opposition being shown … by elements of the NTEU itself will result in the deal being defeated at staff votes”.
