Degree qualified tutors at Victoria University are earning less than the living wage. TEU’s Adam Craigie says these tutors, some of whom have masters degrees and are studying towards doctorates, have a starting pay rate of $17.54 an hour. Recently Charles Waldegrave, of the Family Centre Social Policy Research Unit, calculated that the living wage is $18.40. [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 16 No 4 TEU is calling on tertiary education employers to back the Living Wage campaign, saying that too many employees working at tertiary institutions are on wages and salaries that make it hard to care for a family. TEU’s national president Lesley Francey says many tertiary education employees, such as library [...]

Victoria University’s vice chancellor Professor Pat Walsh surprised a few Wellingtonians this week when he announced he would not be seeking a third term as vice-chancellor at the university. Chancellor Ian McKinnon told the Dominion Post that the university would shortly begin looking for a replacement. He credited Pat Walsh with increasing the university’s profile on [...]

Māori and Pacific Island students are being used by Victoria University of Wellington to justify its bid to increase fees, reports the Dominion Post. However Ivy Harper, Tumuaki of Te Mana Ākonga (National Māori Tertiary Students’ Association) has denounced the bid saying Māori and Pasifika students should not be used by any tertiary institution to justify [...]

The Labour Party’s tertiary education spokesperson Grant Robertson says the government’s decision to strip student representation from the Board of the Tertiary Education Commission and to abolish the Learner Advisory Committee is undemocratic. The national student body NZUSA found it had lost its seat just as two universities, Victoria and Massey, made bids to the [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 15 No 36 The current round of fee rises that university councils are announcing is another sign the government’s cuts to education are unsustainable says TEU’s University of Auckland branch president Paul Taillon. The universities of Auckland, Lincoln and Waikato announced this week that it would increase fees by 4 percent next [...]

New Zealand’s public universities are letting big business and overseas political lobbyists dupe them into endorsing bad education policy, says TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs. The universities of Victoria, Auckland and Canterbury all held or are holding public meetings this week where USA charter schools proponent Mike Feinberg will get a platform to argue his [...]

Tertiary Update Vol 15 No 33 Union members at Victoria University of Wellington won an extra week of paid parental leave when negotiations concluded with their employer last week. Members will get to vote on whether to ratify the new agreements next week. TEU organiser Nicki Wilford said that achievement, and an agreement from the [...]

TEU and the PSA are currently negotiating new collective agreements at Victoria University of Wellington for academic staff, general staff, Faculty of Education academic staff, and research assistants and research fellows Below are documents listing the union and employer claims. Union claims for negotiations, 11 June 2012 TEU-PSA claims for VUW negotiations 2012 Victoria University of Wellington’s proposals VUW Proposals – [...]

“Removing promotion criteria and academic leave from our collective agreement means the university will not need to negotiate with us in the future. If it wants to make changes to these important employment rights, it will no longer need to agree with us first,” said Victoria University Academic Sarah Proctor-Thomson. Sarah Proctor-Thomson’s comments follow a [...]