Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 32

After TEU members at Weltec took a lightning strike across Weltec’s three campuses (Petone, Wellington and Auckland) earlier this week the union’s bargaining team was able to meet with the polytechnic’s chief executive. Because of those discussions, TEU members have suspended the threat of further strikes or other industrial action now for the rest of the week, and are hopeful that they will be back negotiating formally soon.

Before the strike on Monday Weltec employers wanted to increase staff weekly duty hours, remove all discretionary leave from new staff and tell existing staff how they can use their discretionary leave as well as claim the flexibility to require staff to work any hours between 7.00 am and 9.30 pm Monday to Sunday.

TEU organiser Phil Dyhrberg said the existing employment conditions are working well for Weltec and he is hopeful now that the two sides can reach a positive agreement.

“Last year Weltec had a surplus of $3.6 million. It got more revenue both from government and from other sources. It grew its asset base by $5 million. So there seems little financial reason for staff working longer working hours, the possibility of working late into the evening on Sundays, or less say for staff over how they use their leave.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. SIT academics retain core working conditions
2. Canterbury’s international student numbers slump
3. More investment needed in Canterbury University
4. Ten new trades academies

Other news

TEU’s boycott of Courses and Careers Day at the University of Auckland was averted in last minute negotiations after the university’s vice-chancellor agreed not to oppose an application by the union for facilitation by the Employment Relations Authority. Up until that point, the vice-chancellor had been opposed to facilitation, thereby slowing the negotiation process down.

New Zealand secondary schools are quietly being redesigned in a way that could make them dramatically more relevant to young people who are not heading towards university – New Zealand Herald

Yes, the public has a right to information about how public institutions are performing, but that information shouldn’t be stripped of meaning and context just so people can absorb it quickly and easily. That is unfair on the universities being ranked, and it is unfair on people who want a fuller understanding of how they are performing – Manawatu Standard

A further 50,000 people who live overseas and owe money on their student loans are going to be targeted by the Government. Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce says a target programme aimed at 1000 debt holders in Australia and has netted more $4.7 million in debt repayments. The programme will be extended to cover not only people in Australia, but also Britain – Radio NZ

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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.

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, the centre of learning and teaching and the bachelor of dance programmes.

TEU branch president John Prince says that since August 2007 there have been over twenty redundancy rounds at AUT, resulting in the closing of programmes totalling 5,100 EFTS and costing 120 FTE staff their jobs.

“One common theme with many of these redundancies has been the pressure from the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) on AUT to increase its Degree offerings and to reduce its Certificate and Diploma programmes,” said Mr Prince.

“Now that AUT has more than met TEC’s requirements this particular pressure should be reduced, but recent reviews indicate that AUT will continue to close more Certificates and Diplomas.”

TEU national president Sandra Grey says this amount of organisational change is not isolated to AUT.

“Reviews, restructuring and redundancies are happening constantly at most tertiary education institutions. Staff and students are not given a chance to show the new structure works before the next change proposal is already up for discussion.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Massey VC denies hoarding public cash
2. TEU membership grows
3. Careers Day boycott as Auckland dispute deepens
4. Waterfront vista, not academics, make universities world class?

Other news

Academics don’t want to say who should win American Idol or who should win an OSCAR – we are happy to leave that to the experts in those fields. Likewise, ‘managers’ of the tertiary sector should trust the professionals they hire to continue to ensure the quality teaching and research in New Zealand – Sandra Grey outlines why she thinks academic quality is under attack.

TEU members at Christchurch Polytechnic and Institute of Technology (CPIT) are taking strike action today. They are protesting about their employer not responding to TEU offers to settle the current bargaining. The polytechnic continues to want control over some of the staff’s leave entitlements, as well as wanting them to work more duty hours – TEU media release

The Benefit Card proposed by the National government will cost taxpayers – YouTube

District health boards have “clear marching orders” pushing them to provide healthcare rather than support learning and training, University of Otago health sciences pro-vice-chancellor Prof Peter Crampton says. Criticism of Dunedin Hospital’s relationship with Otago University could be levelled at any DHB hospital, he said – Otago Daily Times

Threats of legal action have been made to 45 Australian-based student loan borrowers who have a combined debt of more than $1 million. The debtors have been sent letters advising they have 30 days to make repayments or face prosecution. Inland Revenue will begin preparing statements of claim to be lodged in the New Zealand courts, after which judgments will be transferred for confirmation in Australian courts – Dominion Post

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 30

New Zealand universities are considering cutting a year from the traditional five-year programme for a Masters degree to try to compete with Australia in attracting international fee-paying students, according to TVNZ.

Some Australian universities offer a four-year course, compared with the usual five years in New Zealand. Many Masters degrees in New Zealand take two years to complete after three years of a Bachelor degree, while in Australia some universities allow a Masters to be completed in one year.

There are already many examples of one year masters programmes available in New Zealand but the new proposal could have consequences for the amount of research included in a thesis-based Masters, as well as challenging the traditional role of one year honours degrees.

But Professor Pat Walsh, from Universities’ NZ’s Committee of University Academic Programmes (CUAP), told TVNZ the current system is disadvantaging universities here.

“There is no doubt I think we all agree that it does disadvantage New Zealand universities in terms of recruiting international students.”

The idea is still being discussed by universities, and any recommendations would go to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA).

Co-president of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations Max Hardy told TVNZ he would need some convincing.

“It would be completely inappropriate for both domestic and international students to undermine the quality of our qualifications to get a quick buck from overseas students wanting a quick degree,” he said.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Two sacked lecturers at Victoria’s International Relations programme
2. National links benefits to job training
3. Sir Paul Reeves
4. Equity status to ensure equality for refugee students

Other news

The cost of study will go up yet again as borrowers are charged new fees in the Student Loan Scheme Act passed under urgency in Parliament yesterday. On the positive side, student representatives will celebrate good administrative changes in the Bill – NZUSA

Proposals to merge the Education Review Office and New Zealand Qualification Authority, and to transfer work within Vote Employment from the Department of Labour to the Ministry of Education will not go ahead at this time – State Services Minister Tony Ryall

International students may be able to bypass the immigration department when getting visas under a new scheme to increase enrolment. Immigration New Zealand chief executive Nigel Bickle said that “trusted institutions” could get the power to make visa decisions for students – as was done in Britain – The Press

Twenty-five postgraduate students took part in what Otago University officials said was the world’s first official university Twitter conference devoted to thesis-based research - Otago Daily Times

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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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 28

Staff and students at Victoria University are rallying today to protest plans to close down the university’s Crime and Justice Research Centre, and to disestablish two lecturer positions in the Political Science and International Relations programme. The university also plans to cut jobs in the Faculty of Education, creating unacceptable gaps in teaching and research.

“There is no financial case for closing down the crime centre. Worse, the university seems quite unaware of the immense contribution this centre has made, and should continue to make, to government legislation and policy in New Zealand. This is just academic vandalism,” TEU organiser Michael Gilchrist said.

“The changes in the political science programme will sack two very promising younger academics and limit academic choices for students.”

Management has not let the university’s Academic Board debate the current plans for academic re-structuring. TEU believes, according to law and the university’s own rules, this must happen before such significant academic changes can proceed.

So far, over 750 people have signed a petition to the vice-chancellor asking him to withdraw the change proposals and ensure that proper academic decision-making processes are followed, including taking advice from Faculty and Academic Boards on all academic matters.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Auckland academics reject university’s ‘best offer’
2. CPIT strike suggests a confused employer
3. Voluntary student membership may be just weeks away
4. Teaching awards honour for Auckland senior tutor
5. Minister launches review of industry training

Other news

Student Job Search has confirmed it will close its six university campus-based centres as part of a move to restructure its job recruitment operations online. A review of SJS operations had concluded the existing service did not meet the needs of students, as more and more of them went online to find jobs, he said – Otago Daily Times

Wellington City Council wants student concessions introduced on public transport and for bus and train commuters to pay a smaller share of fares. Victoria University of Wellington Student Association president Seamus Brady said Auckland offered student concession, while students in Palmerston North and Whanganui paid nothing. The high costs in Wellington made getting to class tough for cash-strapped students living in cheaper areas on the city fringes. – Dominion Post

Casual staff with PhDs could become the refuse of the Australian higher education system unless there is a commitment to building and maintaining a full-time workforce, a researcher in the field says – The Australian

Fewer than one in three Australian university staff has confidence in the ability of senior management at their institution, with 44 per cent saying the bottom line was of more importance than student outcomes – 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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 27

CPIT is seeking to make its staff teach more hours on more days across the year and give up weeks of leave. Tertiary Education Union (TEU) advocate Kris Smith says it is simply not fair for a polytechnic that has made large surpluses to do this, while not increasing staff pay since 2009.

“Staff at CPIT are already giving their all, including working long hours and extra days to help students through the aftermath of the earthquakes. But just because they are doing that now does not mean the polytechnic should take away their leave or their contractual right to a fair limit on teaching days and timetabled teaching hours” says Ms Smith.

Wanting staff to give up leave and to teach more hours and over more days will affect quality says Ms Smith. “Students are not asking for more classes over more days and hours, so why is the polytechnic trying to make its staff work these longer hours? Longer hours and less leave mean more workplace stress and unfair pressure on quality education.”

TEU members at CPIT are holding a paid stop-work meeting on Monday 1 August at 10 am where they will announce the result of an industrial action ballot taken in response to this proposed increase in workload. They will be arriving with placards protesting the polytechnic’s proposal to take their leave and increase their working hours.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Restructuring at Vic draws public opposition
2. International support for general staff rights
3. Government blocks public hearing on trade agreement
4. Paid recognition of Māori and Pasifika union leaders at University of Canterbury

Other news

With the Government’s cuts to refugee study grants about to come into effect, refugee students will need extra help and support, an agency says. Last year the Government cut refugee study grants from next year. The grants, which began in 2003, provided recipients up to $4000 a year for each year of their qualification – The Dominion Post

A priest working as a senior executive at the Auckland University of Technology has resigned after “accounting discrepancies” involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. Jonathan Kirkpatrick was chief executive of the AUT Business Innovation Centre and is now at the centre of a police complaint. – New Zealand Herald

The founder of a trades-focused education centre says Māori students thrive under its guidance. MIT’s director of external relations Stuart Middleton told Nine to Noon that students are doing far better than they would under the regular school system. He says the national average for Māori students getting level 1 NCEA or national certificate of educational achievement standards in Year 11 is 61%. However, Mr Middleton says under its system, they are achieving 80% – Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon

A church in Arizona and one in Kentucky are suing one another over the sale of an apparently unaccredited for-profit online university. The suits say that Child of the King Ministries, in Louisville, sold American International University to Church for the Nations, in Phoenix, last year. Child of the King says that Church for the Nations isn’t making the required payments. But Church for the Nations says that Child of the King made false claims about the university, including that it had accreditation, was affiliated with various other educational institutions, and had a base of foreign students who wanted an American degree.  – The Louisville Courier-Journal via Inside Higher Ed

Pressure to perform well in audits such as Excellence in Research for Australia and in international rankings has left universities juggling their budgets to cover an estimated $2.7 billion research-spending shortfall. “There is a clear trend of universities diverting more income to research in terms of their total operating expenditure” – 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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 26

Victoria University of Wellington is currently undertaking five separate change proposals affecting academic staff. Two of these are located in the Faculty of Education, where management claim there is a surplus staffing situation in the BA programme and in Technology Education. TEU is disputing the workload calculations used to support those proposals but also believes there are important academic implications associated with both changes. There are also two change proposals in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, one to Philosophy and one to Political Science and International Relations. The final proposal is to disestablish completely the Criminal Justice and Research Centre. TEU is launching public campaigns around both of these last two proposals. In total, the university proposes to disestablish seven academic positions, with many more academic and general staff jobs affected by the changes.

In the meantime, TEU has written to the university asking it to honour the requirements of both the Education Act and a university statute, which require that the academic board be consulted on all academic matters. There is no evidence that management has consulted the board on any of these proposals so far. This is despite a ‘note’ in the Consultation Policy on Employment Matters to the following effect:

“These processes (change management proposals) are not to be used for new, or changes to existing, academic programmes. These matters are to be dealt with through established processes at Faculty and Academic Boards.”

TEU has also launched an online petition to the vice-chancellor.

“Looking at the content of these proposals it is clear that there is simply not enough depth or breadth of understanding in management of the relevant academic matters to make for good decisions of this kind,” said TEU organiser Michael Gilchrist. “That is the reason for the statutory requirement for democratic processes such as Academic and Faculty Boards in which all members of the university can participate or be represented.”

• Fact sheet about Political Science and International Relations (PSIR)
• Fact sheet about the Crime and Justice Research Centre (CJRC)
• Victoria cuts technology education again
• Fact sheet about School of Educational Policy and Implementation (Technology Education)

Also in Tertiary Update this week

1. Otago University members quickly negotiate three percent
2. Minister plans further cuts for industry training
3. Report wants more jobs focus in secondary-tertiary transition
4. Global policy on vocational and educational training

Other news

Fears that families will no longer be able to afford early childhood education because of cuts in last year’s Budget are starting to become a reality. Latest figures show the cost of early childhood education increased by 11.7 per cent in the year to June – a rise the sector’s union attributes to government funding cuts – New Zealand Herald

The State Services Commission had announced Briton Lesley Longstone is the new chief executive of the Ministry of Education. Longstone is currently a director general within the English Department for Education and has 25 years’ experience in the education and employment sectors in the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. “Improving the life chances of all young people and the skills of adult learners will be my overriding ambition.” – Dominion Post

The CTU is objecting to Minister of Welfare Paula Bennett saying that the jobs are there for those with the right attitude when commenting on youth unemployment. Peter Conway, CTU Secretary said “in the last 5 years the rate of youth unemployment has doubled to 27.5 percent and it is simply wrong for the Government to say this is due to the attitude of young people.” – CTU

The University of Oxford has said the scandal engulfing News International will not prompt a rethink of its relationship with the company, which funds five academic posts including a Rupert Murdoch professor of language and communication – Times Higher Education Supplement

The National Quality Council has warned of a repeat trashing of Australian education’s reputation “if decisive action is not taken to improve the regulation of VET delivered offshore” – 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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 25

Ministry of Education statistics show the average surplus as a percentage of revenue at public tertiary education providers climbing dramatically from 1.9 percent in 2006 to 5.2 percent last year.

In 2006 public tertiary education providers made a combined surplus of $66 million on revenue of $3.5 billion. Last year the same institutions made a combined surplus of $280 million on revenue of $4.4 billion.

Public tertiary institutions are supposed to meet a benchmark surplus of 3 percent of revenue each year. By exceeding that benchmark by a further 2.2 percent last year the institutions pocketed nearly $100 million dollars more than they were required to.

The large surplus last year does not seem to be a one off aberration according to TEU National Secretary Sharn Riggs. “They have grown steadily each year since 2006.”

The public institutions that have generated the largest surpluses as percentages of revenue include Waiariki (16 percent) Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and SIT (13 percent each), WITT and UCOL (12 percent each), the Open Polytechnic, CPIT and Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (11 percent each).

“While we commend these institutions on careful and prudent management, we need to remember that surplus money is money that could have been spend saving jobs, teaching students and protecting quality education,” said Ms Riggs. “Too many good people have lost their jobs, gone without pay rises or been told to turn away students because of tight fiscal circumstances. It is galling to see that those circumstances were not so tight after all.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week

1. Negotiations across the nation
2. Voluntary student membership unlikely before election
3. Sleepover workers reject government offer

Other news

“Wanted: casual teaching staff. Postgraduate qualifications essential, PhD preferred. Minimum three hours work per paid hour; hours to be advised. No office provided. Three months work available; chance of more next year, after four months unpaid break.” Doesn’t sound very enticing, does it? But such is the lot of the sessional tutor — 70,000 in Australia, the NTEU estimates - The Melbourne Age

Two-thirds of English universities will have a maximum fee level of £9,000 and a third of them will charge the full fee for all courses. UCU said today that it was not surprised that all universities’ tuition fee hikes had been approved, leaving England as the most expensive country to study for a public degree – University and College Union

Almost a quarter of Australia’s universities expect to be over-enrolled by more than 20 per cent this year. And more than two-thirds of institutions began the year planning to take on extra students without any federal teaching subsidy to offset the cost. Australian universities are jockeying for position in next year’s demand-driven market. From next year, universities are promised teaching subsidies for every place they can fill – The Australian

Welsh ministers have been handed proposals for cutting the number of universities through mergers. A blueprint from the body that funds higher education would cut the number of universities in Wales from 11 to six. Education Minister Leighton Andrews, who last year said universities must “adapt or die”, is backing the proposals - BBC

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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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 24

TEU National President Sandra Grey believes that Universities NZ should take a greater leadership role in addressing the ageing workforce problem it has identified. Universities NZ has rightly identified that New Zealand universities need to recruit between 560 and 920 new academics each year for the next ten years to replace retiring academics. The peak body raised the issue a second time in its recently released annual report, after earlier publishing economic modelling research by BERL that suggested the ageing workforce is a threat to the future quality of university education and research in New Zealand.

“Universities NZ it knows what the problem is, now it needs to put pressure on its affiliate members to solve it,” said Dr Grey.

“The University of Auckland’s persistent attempts to drive down conditions for first time academics is the sort of behaviour that Universities New Zealand should be rejecting publicly.”

Creating an environment where it is more difficult to recruit and retain new academics in New Zealand hurts not just the University of Auckland but the entire university system said Dr Grey.

“The academic community places a lot of store on reputation. Universities NZ should be rightly concerned that the University of Auckland is hurting New Zealand’s reputation among those academics who are deciding whether to work here, Australia or further afield.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Tai Poutini finds new funding  stream
2. Waikato Uni’s vigilant health and safety rep
3. A century for Aoraki TEU
4. Minister embeds literacy in entry level courses

Other news

In 2012 UC is substantially increasing its funding for scholarships, including offering an unlimited number of new UC Undergraduate Entrance Scholarships of between $1000 and $3000 (paid in cash) to all those students who qualify. As an example, before they start their NCEA Level 3 studies, students who achieve merit at NCEA Level 2 will be on track to receive at least a $1000 scholarship when they commence their studies at UC – University of Canterbury

Tai Poutini Polytechnic chief executive Paul Wilson says he has been told his contract will not be renewed in January. However, his bosses initially denied that when approached by the Greymouth Star.

David Shearer to the Minister for Tertiary Education (05 Jul 2011): How many new construction related training places, if any, have so far been created at Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics as part of the Skills for Canterbury package? – Parliamentary written question

Local job markets have specific needs, and Brazil’s technical institutes—the number of which has nearly tripled in eight years—are working to fulfil them – The Chronicle

Almost everybody in Australia wants a well-funded higher education system, but few people are prepared to pay for it. That was a key message of an opinion poll released last week by the National Tertiary Education Union – The Melbourne Age

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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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 23

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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 22

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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 21

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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 20

Prime Minister John Key said yesterday that, if re-elected, a National-led Government would introduce further changes to employment law.

National Radio reported that the Prime Minister was reluctant to spell out what changes National might make to employment law, refusing to say whether they include further restrictions on collective bargaining. However, he says that trade unions will not be happy.

Journalists and unions are speculating that one likely post-election policy that a National-led government might introduce is their 2008 policy to enable workers to bargain collectively without having to belong to a union. After the 2008 election, the National-led government assured the Council of Trade Unions that it would not proceed with this policy during this term.

Peter Conway, CTU Secretary, said, “we have already seen a raft of changes including removal of appeal rights against unfair dismissal, restrictions on union access to workplaces and making the fourth week of annual leave tradable for cash. There is legislation in Parliament making meal and refreshment breaks negotiable and the ACC scheme is under sustained attack.”

“The Government should spell out the further changes they are planning so that voters have a clear understanding of what they are planning if re-elected.”

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says that the changes the government introduced last year are already encouraging some employers in the tertiary education sector to behave poorly towards their unionised employees.

“Some employers are already attempting to limit union members’ ability to meet with their union representatives. Some have refused to rule out using the 90 day fire at will provisions and some are trying to make it harder for unions to recruit new members.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Overseas academics warned off University of Auckland
2. Aoraki go ahead for one compressed course only
3. Few women in industry training after school

Other news

Ready2Go campaign update: Te Toi Ahurangi and National Council sing their support for the Ready2Go campaigners, while TEU NorthTec members launch their Ready2Go campaign with a barbeque for students.

If New Zealand universities are going to take world rankings seriously, they do need to act on the parts of the ranking methodology which they can control. The most obvious and influential of these is the student:academic staff ratio. They need to tell the government, which currently seems fixated on export education rather than high quality domestic tertiary education. The best thing it can do to promote New Zealand education providers overseas is invest in staff, and thus reduce the student: staff ratios, so that our universities have a chance climb up the rankings again – Sandra Grey blogs for Education Directions

Staff at the University of Auckland are threatening to stop teaching some classes and withhold students’ exam results as part of an on-going industrial dispute. More than 900 academic staff have voted to step up industrial action if a mediation meeting planned for this month is not productive, alarming students who are worried about the implications – New Zealand Herald

The Australian National University had to boost security for nine climate change scientists and administration staff following death threats. Universities in Victoria and NSW have also acknowledged threats to staff involved in the climate area. Universities Australia strongly condemned the threats as a fundamental attack on intellectual inquiry and National Tertiary Education Union president Jeannie Rea said public figures needed to “recognise that the debate around climate science could easily veer into dangerous territory” - The Australian

The negotiations between the Government and the SFWU/PSA over a settlement of the sleepover minimum wage dispute are continuing while the Supreme Court has set 7 September for the final round in the legal battle - SFWU

Let us not forget that ACC is still frequently acclaimed as a world-beating innovation. Making Accident Compensation insurance contestable has long been an ideological holy grail for both the National Party and the business sector, so the decision to open the workers’ account to private insurers comes as no surprise. But it’s hard to think of a less appropriate time to create more uncertainty in the relationship between business, workers, the insurance sector and the Government – The Listener

The Australian government has dropped the contentious system of ranking academic journals and assessing academics based on their ability to publish in the top-ranked publications. Previously, journals were ranked either A*, A, B or C -The Conversation

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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.

Thanks to nznationalparty at Flickr for the photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/nznationalparty/2408460153/in/set-72157600490030671/

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 19

Unitec’s annual report shows that the total amount it paid its academic staff last year fell $160,000 from the previous year.

However, in the same period salaries and short-term employee benefits for key management personnel increased by nearly 3.5 percent, and the new slimmed down council accepted average pay increases of more than 100 percent.

The 15 councillors in 2009 received a total of $99,000 (an average of $6,600 each). The eight councillors in 2010, who were appointed by either the minister or the council itself, received $116,000 (an average of $14,500 each).

Incredibly, the report counts the fall in academic salaries as an achieved target and notes the increase in general (allied) staff salaries represents an un-achieved target. It also reports that the student: staff ratio has climbed from 16.8:1 to 17.1:1 and that the academic staff turnover rate was 12.5 percent, or one in eight staff in 2010.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says that the falling overall pay for academic staff is the direct result of an institution that will not negotiate properly with its staff but instead was wasting public money on legal challenges over the collective agreement.

“It is simply unacceptable that Unitec management would let the overall rate of pay for its academics slide downwards because of its inability to negotiate a Unitec collective agreement with its academic staff.”

For more information check out TEU’s Ready2Go campaign on the website and Youtube.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Strike action intensifies at University of Auckland
2. Funding cuts are due to debt myth
3. ACC changes risky for tertiary institutions
4. CPIT helps launch trades academy

Other news

Yesterday Massey University publicised this New Zealand Herald story, ‘Taking breaks helps worker productivity’ by telling its Facebook fans “Take a break everyone – tell the boss I said it was ok ” Thanks Massey, we will make sure to pass that on to TEU members at your various campuses.

Legal action is about to begin against hundreds of New Zealand expats who have not made any effort to repay millions of dollars in outstanding student loans. From this week, authorities will start sending letters to Australia-based defaulters warning that legal action is being taken as a result of their on-going refusal to pay up - New Zealand Herald

A Wisconsin circuit-court judge has struck down a law stripping the state public-university system’s academic employees of their collective-bargaining rights after concluding that politicians violated open-meetings laws in passing the measure with too little public notice, the US Associated Press reports. The judge’s ruling is unlikely to resolve the matter, however, as the legal battle is likely to go to the state’s Supreme Court and lawmakers could opt to vote on the measure again.

The winners were announced today for a new fellowship that has sparked heated debate in academic circles for questioning the value of higher education and suggesting that some entrepreneurial students may be better off leaving college. Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, will pay each of the 24 winners of his Thiel Fellowship $100,000 not to attend college for two years and to develop business ideas instead – The Chronicle of Higher Education

The U.S. National Labor Relations Board has ruled that a union practice of displaying a large inflatable rat balloon at an employer’s premises to protest the labour practices of its non-union contractor is not coercive, and so does not violate U.S. labour law. The Board found that the balloon display did not involve any confrontational conduct, unlike picketing. Nor was the display coercive in other ways, the majority found. It observed that the union agents involved in the display did not move, shout, impede access, or otherwise interfere with the hospital’s operations.  Rather, the rat balloon itself was symbolic speech.

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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.

Tertiary Update Vol 14 No 18

TEU members at five polytechnics will launch a major campaign on Friday evening to convince their employers that it is time to give up the legal challenges and start bargaining for site collective agreements as the Employment Court agreed should happen.

TEU national president Sandra Grey TEU says members at Northtec, Unitec, Wintec, Bay of Plenty Polytechnic and Whitireia have all voted to negotiate employment agreements separately, so that they can have face-to-face conversations with their employer.

“We have a team of professional, democratic, local people ready to meet the employers. And members know what they want – a fair pay rise and no loss of working conditions.”

“But the management at the five polytechnics currently prefer to spend their time in court rather than negotiating face-to-face with their staff. Too much time and public money is being wasted by the employers.”

“Let’s get moving on this for the good of our students and for the good of education,” says Dr Grey.

TEU will follow up the national campaign launch with local campaign launches at each of the five polytechnics.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Budget equation = $300 less for every student
2. ‘Business as usual’ not realistic for Canterbury academics
3. Control over working conditions keeps McCaw in NZ

Other news

“If this new action does cause a reduction in the university’s performance-based research funding revenue, it will undoubtedly lead to staff redundancies” – University of Auckland vice chancellor Stuart McCutcheon threatens his staff, rather than negotiate with them.

The CTU has released a research summary showing the relationship between increases in the minimum wage and jobs. Bill Rosenberg said, “Employment growth appears to be much more strongly related to overall economic conditions than to a particular issue such as the minimum wage. This is what the evidence shows and it would help this debate if the Government and business lobbyists acknowledged that.”

Organisations that offer their employees higher levels of trust, cooperation, fairness and economic benefits are rewarded with increased productivity, according to research by Victoria University Economics Professor, Morris Altman

Otago Polytechnic recorded an operating surplus of $2.26 million last year, its best financial result in a decade. To cope with a gradual decline in core government funding over the past few years the polytechnic has cut costs throughout the organisation, including a review of all programmes, about 20 redundancies in 2008 and a further 23 last year – Otago Daily Times

We have recently responded to some questions from the Tertiary Education Union on education, government procurement and intellectual property issues in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiation. Those questions and our answers are published here as they may be of wider interest – Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

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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.