Bargaining and Industrial Action

The 2008 Massey University Combined Collective Employment Agreement was finally ratified and signed in November 2008.

• Massey members received a 4.53% increase for Academic staff members and 3.51% for General staff members.
• The University agreed to a new job evaluation scheme for General staff
• Working party on allowances and a retention strategy
• Additional university holiday at Christmas
• Flexible working conditions included in the EEO policy
• Trades and garden members reverted from”  40 to a 37.5 hour week

This year, MECA (Multi Employer Collective Agreement) bargaining has been initiated but has not progressed at all as yet as the Employer parties are unable to agree on a Bargaining Process Agreement.

Restructuring and Reviews of University Structures and Policies

After much discussion and consideration, the Massey branch was of the understanding that a document called “Human Resource Advice for Managers regarding Management and Implementation of Workplace Change” that was agreed to by the Employer and the Union over a year ago, was going to make the review and restructure process at Massey much more open and transparent. However this has not been the case, with reviews at the Wellington campus and Turitea site causing much distress to members and a great deal of input from the union to ensure proper process was followed. A lot of branch committee and organiser time has been invested into these review negotiations which is disappointing as we thought real progress had been made. Meetings with the Vice-Chancellor, AVC People, Organisation and Planning and the Employment Relations Manager occurred in trying to resolve the issues that arose from these reviews.

Generally however, the last twelve months have seen fewer formal reviews than in the past twelve months.

Redeployment as part of the review process is still an issue that has not been resolved satisfactorily and continues to cause concern for the Union. The employer continues to insist that all positions available after a review, be advertised widely, outside the university. The Union’s view is that these positions should be available for redeployment to affected staff in the first instance before being advertised outside the University.

Engagement with Employer/Council

Branch Committee members and our Organiser continue to have regular meetings with the Vice-Chancellor, AVC People Organisation and Planning and the Employment Relations Manager.

We first met with the VC prior to his formal start date. In October 2008 we established procedures for future meetings and agreed to meet 4 times a year between March and November. We have also arranged other meetings with the VC as required. Items on the agenda for these meetings have included redeployment, budget, implications for the Massey budget after the National budget was announced and managed attrition.

In 2008 the Union sent a letter to the Massey Chancellor requesting that the Joint Consultation Committee (Union and Massey Council) be reinstated. It has been discussed at Council but deferred to future meetings for a decision to be made.

Meetings with the then new AVC People Organisation and Planning (POD) resulted in the Union being given a copy of the Strategic Direction paper for POD. There has been discussion around joint education sessions and TEU input to some of the initiatives.

Regular meetings with the Employment Relations Manager cover mainly issues of concern to staff (workload, sick leave, managed attrition…); working groups that have been set up (allowances, redeployment, retention) and input to policy changes (Intellectual Property, PBRF…)

Professional Issues

TEU has made strong submissions to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) on the view of PBRF for 2012.”  The most contentious issue has been the release of PBRF individual scores to the Universities. In our submissions we opposed this measure, however, we are not opposed to individual members releasing their scores to the university.”  We want to put on record the work that Grant Duncan, TEU’s representative on the review committee, Jo Scott National Office research officer and all those members who made individual submissions.

Organisational Networks

Co-President General (Noelene White) attended the CTU Biennial Women’s Conference in August. This was a great opportunity to understand issues for women unionists over a wide range of employment areas.

Noelene has been a part of the Steering Group for the new job evaluation methodology that is being assessed for general staff at Massey University. Massey Auckland Organiser Jane Kostanich is also a member of this group. At the time of writing the benchmarked jobs have been evaluated according to the methodology factors. How these will be implemented will be Stage 2 of the project and as yet undecided.

Barry attended the final AUS Council Meeting in February this year. Subsequently he is the Academic Vice-president sitting on the TEU National University Sector Group and TEU National Council and is a member of the TEU Finance Committee.

Noelene has been the Massey representative on the TEU University Sector Group (USG) and the general staff representative from the USG on the TEU National Council. She will not remain on these groups next year.

The branch has agreed to support our Health and Safety representative to attend the National Tertiary Education Health and Safety conference this month

Employment Relationship Issues

Both co-presidents meet with the Organiser on a weekly basis. This is when we are updated on any issues that arise at Massey that we need to be aware of and any subsequent meetings we need to attend – meetings such as those with the AVC POD and ER manager as discussed above or with managers regarding reviews.

The Union now has a regular small speaking spot in the Big Picture presentation that occurs 2 or 3 times a year – the Big Picture is an orientation to the University for new staff.

We need to note here that there are issues that were to be dealt with in working parties from last years ‘problem solving’ (local negotiations) that are yet to be resolved, in particular allowances and a retention strategy which included research and study leave and having standard retirement provisions.

We have also requested a review of the short-leave provisions when overseas, however this is proving difficult.

We are also noticing more feedback from members regarding hours of work, workload, overtime and time-in-lieu. This needs to be monitored closely, so please feedback any concerns you have to branch committee members, or the Massey TEU organisers.

In one of our discussion with AVC POD, workplace stress at Massey was recognised as a significant health and safety issue for staff. It was decided a wellness plan would be developed in conjunction with the Union

Information and Communication

Communication channels internal to Massey consist of 2 email lists – one for members that is automatically added to when new people join, for information sharing purposes, and a voluntary one that members can subscribe to for the purpose of discussion and feedback. While the second list is not heavily used it has provided opportunities for discussion at times over the year.

Early in 2009 we ‘launched’ the new amalgamated union at all campuses. We provided a light lunch and the TEU General Secretary addressed the Manawatu campus launch.

May Day we organised a sausage sizzle to raise goods/funds for local food banks. We also took the opportunity to have a display that explained May Day and marketed TEU at Massey. We were able to raise $200 to share between the two main food banks in Palmerston North.

The branch decided to purchase TEU badges for all members of the Massey branch. These have been distributed with notices of the 2009 AGM.

Barry organised a candidate’s forum in 2008 at the Turitea site to bring together candidates running for election in the Palmerston North and Rangitikei electorates.

Finances

The Massey Branch continues to be in a healthy financial position. The branch has decided not to send any local funds to National Office until questions have been answered satisfactorily around signing authorities and investment plans for the fund.

This year we employed an accounting firm to review our accounts and we also agreed to set up an accounting system that ‘speaks’ directly to the bank so financial accounts can be produced quickly and easily on a monthly and annual basis.

The ASTE Massey Wellington branch has agreed to transfer their funds to the Massey TEU Account.

General Issues

Amalgamation of ASTE and AUS was a major issue for branches in the last 12 months. It has been a time of some uncertainty and ‘discovering as we go’ as to how these structures will work. The Massey Branch has been fully involved in the new structure having representation in all the sector groups and council. We hope that will continue into next year as well. The first full conference of the amalgamated union will be held in November.

Massey University is currently the only university to have agreed to a Pay and Employment Equity review.”  There has been a lot of discussion to date and we hope the review proper to start in the very near future. We encourage your participation in this review. The committee that will be set up to organise the review will have a union presence.

In summary, the year that’s been has been a busy year for the presidents and the committee. Amalgamation, reviews, bargaining and input to policy and ensuring union member’s rights are protected has been a time consuming activity.

Thank you very much to the branch committee and the TEU Organisers for the input and assistance given over the year. Particular thanks to Carol Seelye who has been a fantastic secretary for the last 3 years and treasurer as well as, for the last 2.

While Barry and I are standing down as co-presidents, we will still be active on the committee and in ensuring that the Massey TEU community is taken into account in matters that affect them.

Noelene White

Barry Foster

August 2009