The passing of the marriage equality act last month reflects not only a change in New Zealand’s legal attempts to address discrimination against LGBTI people, but also a growing acceptance among a majority that ‘homophobia and gender identity discrimination is not acceptable. However many LGBTI workers still face discrimination in the workplace, including tertiary education [...]

TEU members at Auckland University of Technology are voting whether to ratify a new collective agreement. After months of negotiations, the union and the university have reached an agreement that includes a salary increase of 1.2 percent beginning on 1 January 2013. Union members will receive this pay increase 10 weeks before the university offers [...]

Tertiary institutions are releasing their 2011 annual reports and, despite falling government funding, most fared well financially. TEU’s national secretary Sharn Riggs says this bodes well for collective agreement negotiations, which start soon at seven of New Zealand’s eight universities. Victoria University reported a $14.5 million surplus (4.3 percent of revenue). AUT had a $9 million [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 15 No 8 Employment negotiations for thousands of university staff at seven of New Zealand’s eight universities will begin in three months’ time, and union members are already working out what the main issues they need to see addressed to improve their working life. One of the biggest issues facing many staff [...]

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 [...]

Education Minister Anne Tolley has announced the ten new Trades Academies, which are to open around New Zealand from 2012, providing practical skills training for secondary school students while allowing them to study for NCEA credits and tertiary qualifications. Mrs Tolley also announced this week that Christchurch is to have a new Trades Academy, and [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 31 In the last year, AUT has conducted seven separate staffing reviews. While three of these reviews reorganised the university’s management structure and did not result in redundancies, the other four identified 8.1 full time equivalent staff as surplus. The biggest job losses were in the certificate of health studies, [...]

Many TEU members will be joining the thousands of people expected to attend the state funeral later this morning for Sir Paul Reeves. Former Governor General Sir Paul was closely involved in New Zealand’s academic community as Visiting Professor at the universities of Edinburgh and Auckland and as Chancellor of AUT from 2005 until his [...]

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 [...]

Auckland University of Technology has just released annual report shows that student: staff ratios continue to rise. In 2008 there were fewer than 17 students for every full time academic staff member. By the end of 2010 there were nearly 20 students for each full time academic staff member. TEU national president Sandra Grey says [...]