General staff sector group meeting, 13 August 2010

13 Oct 2010 / Comments Off / in General staff/by TEU

18 October 2010

The general staff sector group met on 13 August in the TEU national office, and as usual we had a full agenda to work our way through.

Here is a summary of some of the issues we have been discussing…

Industrial/bargaining: We are grappling with how issues affecting diverse occupational groupings of general staff can best be represented in bargaining. We would welcome ideas from members about processes that might assist with this, as well as any comments you might like to make about priority issues for you as a general staff member.

Members may be interested in learning about what the University of Auckland branch have been doing with their “Fair Pay” campaign. Find out more at www.payfairly.org.nz

Conference policies: We spent some time reviewing the draft conference policies and made a decision to amalgamate the two policies on job evaluation that the sector group developed into one policy. We’ll talk more about how we would like to progress the job evaluation project later in this newsletter…

General Staff Award: The group discussed the possibility of developing a union award similar to the academic freedom award that was developed by the AUS. The idea is still in an embryonic form, but the award could be something along the lines of ‘service to education and defending professional integrity against external pressures in the interests of the public’. A smaller group from the sector group will be doing some more work on this idea so watch this space!

Job evaluation project

Some of you may have participated in the TEU online survey about general staff experiences of job evaluation. We received some very useful information from the survey, which has been used to inform the development of the job evaluation policy. We are looking ahead to what else can be done to ensure that job evaluation models and processes are fair, equitable and effective. The next piece of work we will be undertaking is developing an ideal claim for the union’s consideration as a national claim, which reflects the principles of TEU policy. Of course this is based on the assumption that our policy remit is endorsed by conference!

If you haven’t already read the summary report from the online survey, go to this link on the TEU website http://teu.ac.nz/2010/10/summary-of-the-report-on-the-general-staff-job-evaluation-survey

Conference 2010

Remember to give feedback to your branch chair on the conference policies which are on the TEU website. The general staff sector group has developed a policy on job evaluation, and there are several other significant policies that need to be considered before conference.

If you are interested in attending conference, contact your branch chair who will be able to tell you what places (if any) are available for your branch. The dates for the conference are 8^th and 9^th November, and it will be held at the Brentwood Hotel in Wellington.