Summary of USyd EBA agreement
The NTEU has provided an 11-page “explainer” of the EBA and made the wording of the clauses available.
You can find the explainer in the email sent to members on 2 June 2023 entitled “Final Agreement clauses for review”, or in this Yammer post. Please consult them for further details.
The following is a short summary of the terms of the enterprise agreement.
Pay
Sign on payment: $2000 all staff (not pro rata) end of June 2023. (Subject to timing of agreement endorsement.)
Cumulative 18.2% pay rise over the life of the agreement. (Compounded this is 19.55% or 3.98% per year)
Pay increase end of June 2023 of 4.6%;
Pay increase end of June 2024 of 3.75%.;
Pay increase end of June 2025 of 3.75%;
Pay increase start of June 2026 of 4.0%
Leave
New Leave Provisions: Gender Affirmation Leave, Menstruation and Menopause Leave, Assisted Reproduction Leave, Natural Disaster Leave.
Improved Leave Provisions: Compassionate Leave, Domestic and Family Violence Leave, Emergency Services Leave, Parental Leave. In particular, the employment period to qualify for 36 weeks’ parental leave has been halved to one year.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment
Target of Indigenous employment rates in parity with the general population over the course of the agreement; agreement to “proportionate employment” (all parts of the University, with representation across continuing, fixed-term and casual roles to reflect that of other employees); establishment of a dedicated Joint Consultative Committee to monitor Indigenous employment; development of Cultural Safety policy; recognition of cultural load, language allowance.
Change Management
Improved consultation processes, consideration must be made of impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, workload implications must be considered, management must consult staff and measure the impact of changes. Where appropriate any review should be conducted by an external person, without conflicts of interest.
Medical Retirement
Payment increased from 4-8 weeks to six months’ salary.
Concessional Days
Must seek volunteers to work on concessional days and give six weeks’ notice.
Annual leave
Improvements to when it can be taken and provisions for the Union to track problems.
Bullying
Minor improvements to help stop bullying.
Disability and Lived Experience
New provisions allowing monitoring and review of disability employment, gathering and reviewing data over the course of the agreement.
Fixed-term and casual conversions
Agreement strengthens the restrictions on management’s ability to reject conversions.
Mental Health Management
Managers must undergo mental health training.
Sick leave for casuals
Provision for five days’ paid sick leave for casuals. (This is a first for the higher education sector.)
Professional staff
Workloads to be regularly reviewed, new workload committee, positions cannot be abolished without consideration of workloads. Vacant positions and leave must be factored into workloads. Extended redeployment period (nine months) for HEO 1-7. HEO 8 and above and academic staff retain their current redeployment period.
Flexible work
Improved provisions to support professional staff working from home. Limitations on management requiring use of flexitime rather than paying overtime.
Internal staff vacancies and reclassification
Agreement retains internal advertising for roles up to and including HEO 7. Internal candidates up to and including HEO 5 must be offered the position if they satisfy requirements. Introduction of “eligibility lists” for unsuccessful internal candidates that would allow them to be appointed to other suitable positions in the University. Pay increments preserved in new positions. If a position is downgraded due to restructuring, staff retain their existing classifications.
Right to disconnect
Staff do not have to respond to emails, Yammer posts, phone calls, etc, outside office hours.
Professional Development Fund
Fund increased to $2.2 million, with improved management.
Performance metrics
Staff performance evaluation will be limited only to the staff member’s individual performance.
Academic workloads
40/40/20 remains the default for academic staff, except by agreement with staff members. Workload committees retained, new process introduced where workload models cannot be agreed. New appeal process against unreasonable workloads.
Education Focussed Academics
Numbers capped at 25% of academic staff. “Reasonable” normative expected workload allocations to be developed within 12 months of agreement. A 10% reduction in education focused teaching load for two years for Levels A and B (and Level C staff who have not held a substantive academic position for two years), with capacity to request one-year extension; right to transition to a balanced (40/40/20) position after four years, plus a calendar year’s notice, provided: (a) the staff member has developed an approved research plan; (b) they have met expectations for research and GLE relative to opportunity; and (c) this has been approved by Dean and DVCE/DVCR, where such approval cannot be unreasonably withheld. The ability to transition to 40/40/20 prior to this through agreement with management; plus staff will have access to review workloads via an independent three-person committee.
Academic Casuals
Decasualisation: 330 new ongoing roles, 110 of these roles will be 40/40/20 with 50% of them (55) to be pathway roles for existing casuals into 40/40/20 positions. The successful staff will have a 40/40/20 allocation from the start of their employment but will have reduced research expectations as early career researchers. 220 of the roles will be education-focused roles. 25% of these roles will be specifically designated for internal applicants. The University will reduce the percentage of casual academic staff as a percentage of total academic FTE by 20% from 2021 numbers.
Payment for all hours worked
Provision that states casual academic staff must be paid for all work they are required to perform. The Agreement will include an additional provision that allows academic casual staff to have any work allocation, or lack of allocation, reviewed so that no unpaid work will be demanded. Minimum two-hour engagement when required to attend campus. Definitions in the agreement of lectures and tutorials updated, to avoid misclassification.
PhD Fellows
Gives PhD students the possibility of obtaining a three-year fixed-term role instead of undertaking rolling casual contracts. Students will have the option of casual roles or applying for a Fellowship. Management will use the equivalent of the casual academic staff calculations in the allocation of hours for teaching.
Centre for English Teaching Schedule and VET Teaching Schedule
Minor improvements to VET schedule: transfer of all ongoing staff off funding at Centre for English Teaching to continuing-contingent positions and onto the professional conditions in the rest of the agreement (‘Schedule 5’).
Why vote yes for this EBA agreement? Find out here.
