Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 12

TEU members at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa are dismayed that their employer is offering them less annual leave than members of both the wānanga’s in-house union, TUIA, and kaimahi on individual agreements.

Kaimahi at the wānanga are entitled to the legal minimum of four weeks annual leave. But kaimahi who are members of TUIA, or on individual agreements and do not belong to a union, are entitled to a further three days of annual leave to use between Christmas and New Year, so long as they have 12 or fewer  days annual leave accrued.

TEU Te Pou Tuarā, Lee Cooper, who is currently involved in negotiations for a new collective agreement, says TEU members feel that the wānanga is not being a fair employer and it is treating kaimahi differently because of their union membership.

“It seems just because TEU members choose to belong to an independent democratic union the employer at the wānanga is offering them three days fewer holidays than their peers. This simply isn’t fair.”

In most tertiary education institutions five weeks, rather than four weeks leave, is the standard, so our members’ claim is not excessive.

In a letter to TEU the wānanga has confirmed that it has made a deliberate choice to “maintain some differences in its collective agreements”.

“Why would an employer decide that one group of kaimahi is allowed to spend more time with their whānau just because of which union they choose to belong to?” asked Mr Cooper.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Minister criticises academic
2. Weltec staff worry about being locked in to Rimutaka
3. Auckland  vice-chancellor feeling the pressure
4. Minister supports six week teacher training course
5. Aoraki to offer high speed trades-training
6. Don’t leave Christchurch to train trades on its own

Happy Pink Shirt Day

Pink Shirt Day aims to show that bullying is not OK and we will not tolerate it. By encouraging the people of New Zealand to wear a Pink Shirt on 14 April 2011 we can help to raise awareness of bullying and show the massive number of people who support taking a stance against bullying and believe that bullying should not be tolerated anywhere no matter what the reasons or circumstances are. We often think of bullying as a school problem, but it is also far too common in workplaces.

Other news

TEU members at Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT) have ratified a new single employer collective agreement.

The Education Amendment Bill (No. 4), which last night passed its first reading in Parliament, brings changes to the oversight of private training establishments (PTEs) involved in export education, says tertiary education ministerSteven Joyce. The bill aims to give NZQA stronger powers to monitor, investigate and enforce the compliance of PTEs and raises the threshold for PTE registration.

Helen Kelly, President of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions provides a comprehensive account of one of last year’s most contentious industrial disputes, the Hobbit film dispute between Warner Brothers and actors who belonged to Actors Equity union.

La Salle University has suspended Jack Rappaport, a statistics professor at its business school, amid an investigation of allegations that he hired strippers to perform lap dances during an extra credit seminar he held on “the application of Platonic and Hegelian ethics to business,” – Inside Higher Ed

Malawian authorities have indefinitely closed two campuses following protests by students and lecturers aimed at pushing for the restoration of academic freedom. The action has seen three academics fired and 17 students arrested – University World News

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TEU Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. You can subscribe to Tertiary Update by email or feed reader. Back issues are available on the TEU website. Direct inquiries should be made to Stephen Day.