TEU members have successfully negotiated a collective agreement at a third polytechnic that was part of the old ITP MECA. The Whitireia New Zealand Collective Agreement was ratified, at a stopwork meeting this week, with 98 percent of members voting in favour of the new agreement.

TEU national advocate Irena Brorens says the real benefit for members, apart from finally getting a pay rise after such a long time, is that they are back on a collective agreement after nearly a year of being on individual agreements.

“It has been a long and difficult dispute with Whitireia, in a tough political environment.  We’re glad it’s over and people will finally get some more money before the end of the year.

Union members and the polytechnic have agreed to a two year term with a pay rise of two percent  and a $1500 lump sum payment pro rata for the first year and two percent for the second. As at Unitec, duty hours will change to 37.5 hours a week and some discretionary leave will be converted to time that Whitireia can direct. (One week per year from next year and a second week from 2013 for some employees). Whitireia will compensate union members with an extra 2 percent pay for each week converted from discretionary leave, and Whitireia will not direct those weeks for classroom teaching duties.

“We believe that this is the best settlement we can achieve in the current circumstances and with the history of this long dispute,” said Ms Brorens.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. 28 jobs go in ‘rightsizing’ exercise at MIT
2. Campaign softens cuts at Aoraki
3. Students oppose TEC cuts to pre-degree funding

Other news

Is there really no money available for tertiary education “in the foreseeable future”? The fourth in TEU’s series of election charts about what is going on in tertiary education – TEU

A long-running employment agreement dispute at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology could soon be resolved with a staff vote on a revised offer. About 200 TEU members at CPIT have been protesting against moves to extend teaching hours and cut leave. When negotiations reached a stalemate last month, both parties entered mediation and CPIT presented a revised offer. TEU organiser Phil Dodds said CPIT’s new offer was a “win-win” for both sides. – Christchurch Press

New Zealand’s top science and technology honour has been won by a woman for the first time. Christine Winterbourn from Otago University has been awarded the Rutherford Medal by the Royal Society for discoveries in free radical biology – Radio NZ

The UK Conservative-led government is introducing primary legislation that paves the way for full-scale privatisation of the higher education sector despite a lack of public support. There is a need for a multi-level campaign to stop this as it will destabilise and tarnish the entire sector – University World News

The New Zealand lamb processor, CMP, a subsidiary of ANZCO Foods, has brutally locked out 111 workers at its plant in Marton, New Zealand, in order to force them and their union, the New Zealand Meatworkers Union, to sign off on pay cuts and unacceptable changes to terms and conditions. Send a message to ANZCO Foods demanding an end to the lockout and a return to the bargaining table – IUF

“The singing sirens of Lorelei have distracted ITPs from time to time. Those sirens have come in the guise of degree teaching and research and just like those women of the Rhine, have lured the providers onto the rocks. The search for parity of esteem is not simply a desire to be the same, and where technical and career providers have attempted to pursue a sameness with universities, the result has been rather threatening to the mission of the very provision of the kinds of education and training that mark the ITP providers as being different from the university.” – Stuart Middleton

“If you hear [in the discussion of the Transpacific Partnership trade agreement] echoes of light-handed regulation that brought us leaky buildings, Pike River, finance company collapses and weak liability for oil disasters like the Rena, and new subsidies and labour laws for Warner Bros to keep the Hobbit in New Zealand, you are spot on.” – Dr Jane Kelsey in the New Zealand Herald

The University of Canterbury has reached the midpoint of its three-year collective agreement and is negotiating to make variations to that collective agreement on issues not involving pay or money. The university has agreed to TEU claims to extend coverage to a larger group of general staff. It seems likely that the CPI adjusted pay rise for TEU members at the university will be five percent. (TEU members agreed that their pay rise for the second and third years of their three-year collective agreement would be based on CPI.)

TEU members at CPIT are disappointed by claims from their employer to ‘buy’ their discretionary leave and their workload limit on duty weeks off them with an offer of 4 percent and 2 percent over two years. Negotiations are continuing there.

TEU members at Weltec are also facing claims to remove their discretionary leave. Their employer wants to phase out discretionary leave by 2014, remove it entirely from all new staff employed before 2014 and, remove quarterly timetabled teaching hour limits and some entitlements to professional development. In return, Weltec is offering its TEU members 1.5 and 1.5 percent for two years. Staff are discussing, among other things, whether to take industrial action in response to the employer’s offer.

Academics at the University of Auckland have all been moved onto individual agreements on 30 June after their collective agreement expired over a year ago. Those 954 members will now be meeting on Wednesday 27 July to consider their employer’s latest offer and the TEU’s counter offer, and to decide whether to send the employer’s offer to ratification. In the meantime, industrial action and picketing continues at the university.

Negotiations are also underway or about to start at NMIT and Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, Massey University and Auckland University of Technology. TEU has initiated for its first ever allied (general) staff collective agreement at AUT.

Office of the Ombudsman

PO Box 10 -152

The Terrace

Wellington

Dear Sir/Madam

On 6^th 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 Community Polytechnic].  Our correspondence requested information about consultancy fees paid to Martin Jenkins and Associates (for the period 1^st March 2009 to 30 November 2010) and legal fees paid to Buddle Findlay (for the period 1^st February 2010 to 30^th April 2011).  Both firms were used to provide services during bargaining.

The institutions have responded indicating that they will not release this information, citing sections 9(2)(b)(ii) of the Act.

In addition the union requested information from the 2009 and 2010 institution budget allocation for salary increases that were not spent, due to there being no percentage increase negotiated in these years (excluding a $700 lump sum payment to TEU members in December 2010).

The institutions have also declined to provide information for this part of our request and have indicated the reason for this is because of the need to carry out commercial activities or industrial negotiations without prejudice or disadvantage (citing sections 9(2)(i) and 9(2)(j)of the Act).

We would like your office to review this refusal to disclose information.  In relation to our request for information about consultancy and legal fees paid for services during bargaining, our view is that as publicly funded institutions, the ITPs are required to be accountable for expenditure in relation to this funding, and therefore that these figures should be publicly available.

Regarding the second part of our request (information about budget savings as a result of no salary increase), our view is that this request will not prejudice or disadvantage the process of bargaining, but again simply ensures the institutions are being accountable for use of public funds.

We look forward to your response in regards to this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Irena Brorens

National industrial officer

Email: irena.brorens@teu.ac.nz

Attached:

TEU letter to Whitireia Polytechnic ITP 6^th May 2011

Bay of Plenty Polytechnic response to TEU 2^nd June 2011

The five polytechnics that have, until last week, refused to negotiate site-based collective agreements with their staff members have also so far refused official information requests to disclose how much money they are spending on legal fees and consultants in their efforts to avoid negotiations.

However, recently printed annual reports at two of the smaller polytechnics, Whitireia and Northtec, suggest that the amount could be significant.

NorthTec’s 2010 annual report shows that it spent over $500,000 more on consultants and legal fees than it did in 2009 – up 195 percent from $286,000 to $844,000. Meanwhile the 2010 Whitireia annual report shows an increase in consultants and legal fees of $52,000, up 18 percent on 2009.

Neither report details how much, if any, of that amount related the polytechnics respective on-going dispute with their own staff.

Northtec’s report shows that it spent $269,000 less on salaries for its academic staff in 2010 than it did in 2009 but it also spent an extra $650,000 on redundancy payments (up 340 percent from $188,000 to $834,000).

The result is academic staff numbers have fallen for the third year in a row. So, as the annual report itself notes, payroll savings of $1.1 million have been offset by the added expense of third party contractors, additional redundancies and early retirement expenses due to major restructuring during 2010.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says NorthTec has not saved any money but it has lost skilled staff.

“For Northland this means many skilled academic staff are now either out of work, or have not had a pay rise of any significance for over three years. Unsurprisingly, NorthTec taught fewer students last year than it did in 2009; which is shame, given the need for young people to be learning trades and helping solve the current skills shortage in Northland.”

Last week after the Court of Appeal has ruled the five polytechnics must bargain separate collective agreements, they announced that, despite all already having their own internal human resources teams, they would all be hiring the same external consultant, MartinJenkins and Associates, to negotiate on their behalf.

Also in Tertiary Update this week

1. Ministry of Education told it lacks ‘shape’
2. University of Auckland proffers its ‘best offer’
3. PM hawks education in India
4. Victoria cuts technology education again

Other news

In 1978 and 1981 a government was elected despite getting fewer votes than its main political opponent. No wonder we switched to MMP. It’s fairer – YouTube

Following comments last week by Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) chief executive Alastair Thompson, the CTU is now inviting union members to email the EMA directly asking it if it is serious about the pay gap between men and women, and what it intends to do about it – CTU

NorthTec and Te Wananga o Aotearoa (TWoA) have signed a lease that will see TWoA shifting its base of operations in Whangarei onto NorthTec’s Raumanga campus. The tertiary institutes also signed a memorandum of understanding that will allow TWoA students to move into NorthTec courses once their own courses have finished – The Northern Advocate

The requirement of a perfect score – 100 percent – to get admission into one of India’s leading colleges for commerce has highlighted the severe shortage of good quality higher education institutions in the country - University World News

England will move to a higher education system that is 25 per cent demand-driven and favours the brightest students and the cheapest providers, under proposals in a white paper released yesterday – The Australian

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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.

The Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that five polytechnics must bargain site-based collective agreements with their staff members who are union members. The five polytechnics – NorthTec, Unitec, Wintec, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic and Whitireia – had refused to bargain site-based agreements after union members voted in February that was the type of collective agreement they wanted, and not a multi-employer agreement as the employers wanted.

The decision is another major legal victory for TEU members, who have been vindicated by the courts virtually every time they have had to contest a point of law with these five employers.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs said belonging to a large national union means these members are able employ the best possible legal representation and to take their employers in the highest courts.

“We have been able to do that” she said, “but it begs the question as to how these employers can justify the use of significant amounts of tax payers’ money on legal fees pursuing this issue.”

“The decision confirms what TEU members had always believed – that they should not be made to negotiate a collective agreement in a form that they did not want. ”

“Our members can finally get on with the important business of negotiating a collective agreement. They just want what members at WITT recently got – a fair pay rise and no loss of core working conditions.”

TEU members are continuing to sign a petition, already signed by over 500, calling on the employers at the five polytechnics to put aside their costly legal challenges and negotiate a collective employment agreement on their site.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Public tertiary institutions employ private lobbyist
2. Tertiary education costs rise dramatically
3. Engineers needed to build ultra-fast broadband
4. Commission sets research targets

Other news

The Pay Equity Challenge, a coalition of business and community groups and unions, is welcoming Catherine Delahunty’s new Equal Pay Bill as an effective  way of dealing to the wage gap between men’s and women’s pay. “This bill modernises our approach to equal pay, and will help to give women the information they need to ensure that they are being paid fairly,” said coalition spokesperson Rebecca Matthews.

Massey University has decided not to appeal an Employment Court ruling that requires it to share information with staff whom it chooses to dismiss or make redundant during a restructuring process.

About 14,000 final-year students from across New Zealand’s eight universities will be surveyed this year – and again in two, five and 10 years’ time. Commissioned by Universities New Zealand and supported by government funding, the study aims to determine the ongoing impact of a tertiary education on graduates’ lives – Universities New Zealand.

When South Korea’s governing party revived a plan to “halve” tuition fees and supply extra public funding for students, it might have expected a warm welcome from an education-focused society with one of the highest university participation rates in the world. Instead, it served only to exacerbate existing discontent over high fees. Students from about 400 institutions joined a strike last week, taking to the streets instead of attending classes – Time Higher Education Supplement.

A European university group has unleashed a damning assessment of the most popular university rankings, claiming they ignore up to 99 per cent of the world’s 17,000-odd universities and incite some to manipulate or even misrepresent data. It says the best-known global rankings discourage diversity, with the top 500 place getters essentially pre-determined – The Australian.

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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.

The Court of Appeal ruled today that five polytechnics must bargain site-based collective agreements with their staff members who are union members. The five polytechnics – NorthTec, Unitec, Wintec, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic and Whitireia – had refused to bargain site-based agreements after union members voted in February that was the type of collective agreement they wanted, and not a multi-employer agreement as the employers wanted.

The five chief executives refused to bargain the form of agreement union members had voted for, with legal challenges first at the Employment Court and then the Court of Appeal.

TEU members, whose collective agreement expired in November 2010 and have not received a pay rise of any significance for over three years, are delighted that this latest legal victory means they can now begin negotiations.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs said the decision confirmed what TEU members had always believed – that they should not be made to negotiate a collective agreement in a form that they did not want.

“This means our members can finally get on with the important business of negotiating a collective agreement that gives them a fair pay rise and no loss of core working conditions.”

Over 500 TEU members have signed a petition in the last week calling on the employers at the five polytechnics to put aside the costly legal challenges and negotiate a collective employment agreement on their site.

For more information:

Sharn Riggs, TEU national secretary, 027 443 8768 or 04 801 5098
Stephen Day, TEU communications officer, 021 2900 734 or 04 801 4792
http://www.teu.ac.nz

A petition calling on the chief executives of Whitireia, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, NorthTec, Unitec and Wintec to start negotiating with their staff is drawing a steady stream of signatures since it was launched yesterday.

Since being abandoned by the Western Institute of Technology in Taranaki (WITT), which settled a collective agreement with its staff in a matter of hours and then went on to declare a record surplus, the five polytechnics have continued to stall and challenge legal rulings rather than negotiate fair collective agreements with their own staff.

However TEU members at the five polytechnics have now launchedReady2Go campaigns -including NorthTec where staff hosted a free barbecue for students and Whitireia, where nearly fifty staff sent a written invitation to their chief executive inviting him to come to the negotiation table.

The petition, which TEU members from universities, wānanga, polytechnics and other institutions around the country have been signing, calls on the five chief executives to negotiate a site-based collective agreement with the union members on their site for the good of their students, and for the good of education.

You can sign the petition here.

In other news, TEU made an official information request to each of the five polytechnics asking for how much public money they have spend on legal fees and consultants in their attempt to avoid bargaining site-based agreements with TEU. Unitec has subsequently responded by refusing to provide this information on the grounds that it would unnecessarily prejudice its commercial position.

Also in Tertiary Update this week

1. Exam time earthquakes create more uncertainty
2. Whitireia and Weltec want one-stop wellyshop
3. Cashing up annual leave
4. Interest-free loans for economically important courses
5. Equity support for refugee students

Other news

WITT had reason to celebrate last week as it coupled a graduation with the announcement of a record revenue surplus of nearly $3 milion. Chief executive Richard Handley thanked staff for their contribution to this. This comes after years of trying to claw back from a dire financial situation – Taranaki Daily News

Rather than cutting wage rates, for which there is scant evidence of employment benefits, we should be improving education, training and employment pathways. Are caps on tertiary enrolments and policies discouraging tertiary institutions from increasing their level 1-to-3 certificate enrolments – both also introduced in 2008 – disadvantaging … young people? - Dr Bill Rosenberg in the Dominion Post

In just 15 years, expenditure on research in Australian universities has more than doubled and now accounts for 63 percent of all spending. And 28 out of 36 universities could now be classified as research-intensive, given they spend more than 50 percent of revenue on research activities – The Australian

The NSW government will need to consider opening up its TAFE system to full private competition, but there is no concrete proposal at this stage. Last month’s federal budget promised an additional AU$1.75 billion from next year to jurisdictions prepared to sign up to a more ambitious and market-oriented reform of their respective public training systems – The Australian

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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.

However, Roger Sowry, who is already chair of both polytechnic councils, says that the two institutions are not merging, but operating as a strategic partnership.

“This journey started with Weltec and Whitireia exploring a range of options for working more closely together to benefit students, the community and industry, and to support the economic development of the Wellington region,” Mr Sowry said.

Mr Sowry says that this strategic partnership includes the establishment of a common Academic Board and a Shared Services Centre to provide infrastructure and support services (like information technology, enrolment, payroll and libraries) for the two Institutions.

Mr Sowry told Newswire that the proposal may save $2 million a year, and will mean some overlapping courses will be “rationalised”.

Each Institution will however continue to be managed by their own chief executives and executive teams. The two polytechnics are now seeking feedback on the proposal and will be consulting until 31 July. The consultation document and feedback form is available on Weltec and Whitireia’s websites or by calling the institutions.

TEU National President Dr Sandra Grey says that TEU will be making sure staff voices are heard during the consultation process.

“The Greater Wellington region is actually a number of distinct but large communities, including the Porirua basin and the Hutt Valley which Whitireia and Weltec have successfully served for decades. We are not opposing change but one of the most important outcomes in this not-quite-merger is that the needs of those two individual local communities are respected. It would be a shame if in the drive for what Mr Sowry refers to as a ‘one-stop shop for industry’ local people in their local communities lost their local polytechnics.”

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When you fill in this form your name will be added to the petition below and your message will be emailed to Alan Hampton (Bay of Plenty Polytechnic), Rick Ede (Unitec), Don Campbell (Whitireia), Mark Flowers (Wintec) and Paul Binney (NorthTec). Remember to keep your message polite and professional.

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