The Agreement: It’s time to bank what we have won

This EBA improves our already high workplace standards. It includes the highest wage offer in the sector, paid sick leave for casuals (an industry first), 20% decasualisation for academics meaning 330 new ongoing jobs, improved workload controls, the best provisions to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment in the sector, the right to work from home and extensive new leave provisions.  

We have not won our claim completely. The union wanted to cap Education Focused Academics (EFAs) at 20% of the teaching workforce. Management insisted on setting the cap at 25%. But for these people we’ve won new protections including joint union-management oversight, prohibitions on excessive weekly hours and a 10 percentage point cut in workloads for two – and up to three – years for new Level A, B and C EFAs. 

This is not our preferred position – but 20% versus 25% is not a point of principle, it is a question of degree. Even so, this EBA is better than the legacy of our last agreement, which left us with no cap on the growth of Education Focused roles, no oversight mechanism and no effective appeal rights for excessive work hours.

Make no mistake. If we don’t endorse this agreement now, management takes control of the process. A non-union vote and/or arbitration will be forced upon us, perhaps with worse conditions and a lower pay rise. Either way, we lose as a union.

It’s time for the membership to take control of the branch

At the last members’ meeting we voted overwhelmingly to conditionally endorse the agreement. This was subject to specific changes relating to First Nations employment and Education Focused academics. Those conditions have now been met. But, scandalously, the two dominant factions on Branch Committee, including the President, have refused to accept the members’ wishes, and are seeking to overturn them.

We must stand up to this attempt to supress the will of the membership.

The choice before us: It’s time to get things done or delay, delay, delay

The new agreement creates a range of new rights and protections. But we now have work to do: appeal committees to form; new workload standards to enforce. There is a whole new Joint Consultative Committee for First Nations employees to establish.  And there is, of course, a $2000 sign-on bonus and immediate wage rise of 4.6% to get.

The agreement is not perfect. No agreement ever is. However, rather than bank our gains, recruit new members and organise for future improvements, two narrow factions want to pursue more strikes in an ongoing cycle of diminishing returns. Because the Branch Committee factionalists dither on how to finalise the agreement, every week of delay defers our capacity to fight back on workload. And each week an HEO 7 and Academic B (for example) is missing out on about $100 a week in higher pay.

Conclusion: It’s time to put members first

The two dominant factions on Branch Committee are more interested in arguing with each other over who is more militant rather than working to strengthen us as a collective. They have engaged in a long squabble on Twitter, Red Flag, Solidarity and their own blogs. We’re sick of it.

Members have made their views clear. Our campaign and the Bargaining Team have achieved an agreement that delivers real gains and prepares us for the future. It’s time to tell Branch Committee factionalists to get out of the way and let us get on with making the University a better place.

Vote yes to endorse the EBA on 13 June.

Download a Word Doc of this page here.

To see a summary of the USyd EBA agreement content, click here.

To read about what the USyd NTEU branch president got wrong in his June 2 newsletter, click here.

To learn more about the three factions in the USyd NTEU branch committee, click here.