A film fundraiser organised by Northtec and its TEU branch has raised $1000 for Te Puna o te Aroha Whangarei (Māori Women’s Refuge). Northtec and its TEU branch were proud to present Te Puna o te Aroha Whangarei with the donation just in time for Christmas. The Northtec members of TEU were thrilled with the [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 15 No 41 TEU members are holding protests and meetings at polytechnics around the country today to convince the government to put more money into foundation studies education at polytechnics. The protests coincide with media coverage (from Auckland’s New Zealand Herald to Dunedin’s Otago Daily Times) of the millions of dollars the government has [...]

Data from the Tertiary Education Commission shows that government funding for metropolitan based polytechnics has fallen by 1 percent between 2010 and 2011, but it fell by a massive 11 percent, or $32 million, for regional polytechnics over the same period. With the exception of Eastern Institute of Technology, which merged with Tairāwhiti Polytechnic last [...]

Minister for tertiary education, skills and employment, Steven Joyce, has continued to appoint people to multiple polytechnic councils. Malcolm Inglis, who is the current deputy chair of UCOL council will now also take on the role of deputy chair of the WITT council for a four year term. Malcolm Inglis is a management consultant providing [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 15 No 21 Annual reports from twelve of the country’s 18 polytechnics show that the government is drastically cutting funding to polytechnics, and especially regional community polytechnics. Across the 12 polytechnics that have released their 2011 annual reports government grants fell 4.4 percent or $17 million. The polytechnics that have been the [...]

Tertiary institutions are in a constant state of restructuring says TEU deputy secretary Nanette Cormack. Last week TEU’s national council heard that there are 59 reviews affecting 500 jobs currently underway across 17 different tertiary education institutions. “500 members are about 5 percent of our membership. When one in twenty people are having their job [...]

TEU members at NorthTec will vote shortly on a new collective agreement to replace the one that expired in November 2010. Between then and now, all new staff at NorthTec have been covered by an individual agreement with lesser working conditions than the expired collective agreement. The proposed new agreement will give union members a [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 46 NorthTec is currently trying to cut working conditions and extend teaching hours for its staff, when most other polytechnics around the country have come to amicable settlements with their staff in the last two months. NorthTec, one of only two remaining ex-MECA ITPs yet to settle with its TEU [...]

The employers at the five Ready2Go polytechnics (Whitireia, Wintec, BOPP, Unitec and NorthTec) have now finally agreed that they are indeed ‘ready to go’ and have agreed dates to negotiate with their respective TEU members. The first, Whitireia begins negotiations tomorrow (Friday) and the last gets underway on 3 August. Weltec has joined these five polytechnics in [...]

7th July 2011 Office of the Ombudsman PO Box 10 -152 The Terrace Wellington   Dear Sir/Madam On 6th May 2011 the TEU wrote to chief executives at five institutes of technology/polytechnics with whom we have been engaged in bargaining for a multi-employer collective agreement [Northtec Polytechnic, UNITEC, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, Winted and Whitireia [...]