Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson is proposing extensivechanges to employment law, which include allowing employers to walk away from collective agreement negotiations. Cabinet approved the changes this week and they will likely go before Parliament this year.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says the changes will have a huge impact upon people working in tertiary education.

“Removing the employer’s duty to conclude bargaining is among the worst of the changes – it would mean that we would probably not now have collective agreements in place at the ex ITP-MECA branches – Wintec, NorthTec, Unitec, Whitireia, and Bay of Plenty Polytechnic. It may also have prevented us resolving the long-running dispute at Auckland University last year. Under these changes the employers would have simply been able to say that they had tried their best but could not reach agreement. The effect of that would be that all our members would be sitting on individual agreements with no ability to collectively negotiate a pay increase or changes to their conditions.”

The government also intends to remove a provision that guarantees all new employees will be employed on the terms and conditions of the collective agreement for the first 30 days of their employment.

Ms Riggs says this will mean that new workers (who may not know or be told that there is a collective agreement in place at their institution) could be offered any employment conditions at all.

“We know now that employees usually stay on the conditions to which they are first appointed. If those are no longer the union negotiated conditions then new employees could be appointed on conditions that undermine the union conditions. This will enable the employer by default to introduce new conditions into the workplace – for example they could slowly erode timetabled teaching hours.”

The minister, Ms Wilkinson says that the changes are modest and pragmatic, and will increase productivity, and help create higher paying jobs.

However, the Council of Trade Unions says the changes being considered are the worst attack on workers’ rights since the 1990s and will give employees few options. The CTU says the changes would have enabled Ports of Auckland employer to walk away from collective agreement negotiations and proceed with redundancy plans.

Ms Riggs agrees.

“These law changes threaten to de-unionise tertiary education employees, and drive down pay and employment conditions. They are bad for productivity and worse for any vision New Zealand has of being a high-wage economy.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Petition to keep university councils democratic
2. MIT nixes fundraising BBQ
3. Budget 2012 preview
4. Commission agrees with TEU’s PBRF advice

Other news

Tomorrow is Pink Shirt Day, an international campaign aimed to raise awareness about the power to prevent bullying. Pink Shirt Day aims to reduce bullying by celebrating diversity and promoting the development of positive social relationships.

Canterbury University students are plan to hand a petition against the proposed closure of three arts courses to vice-chancellor Rod Carr tomorrow and say they will not leave his office until he receives the document. You Are UC student group spokesperson Morgan Hodgson said that on Friday the group would hold a “petition crawl” at the university, ending up at Carr’s office - The Press

Australian National University management has backed away from its plans to ”spill” the positions of 32 of its tenured and permanent academic and administrative staff at the School of Music, bowing to union pressure to use formal redundancy provisions instead. The decision came as 1000 music-lovers crowded into ANU’s Union Court yesterday to protest against the proposed cuts in one of the biggest and loudest rallies in the university’s history -Canberra Times

Contrary to the Heraldeditorial, the biggest factor in the University of Auckland’s slip in world rankings is not student numbers. From 2006 to 2012, Auckland’s THE ranking fell from 46th to 82nd, yet student numbers increased only nine percent. At the same time, Government funding slowed to below the rate of inflation. Without proper investment, New Zealand academics will continue to move overseas for higher wages, research cannot be adequately carried out and students cannot receive the best tuition - Arena Williams and Sam Bookman

The University of Canterbury’s school of music is in crisis and needs to rapidly reverse a student decline to survive, a new report says. To fund a wages’ bill of $1.4 million, the school needed more than 180 fulltime-equivalent students. It had 85 this year. The university said yesterday there was no possibility the music school would close. “This city lives and breathes music and we know the school of music is a critical part of the music community,” pro-vice-chancellor Ed Adelson said -The Press

A part time student at the University of Canterbury says the university’s plan to close its theatre program will cost her $4000 of fees for a degree she can no longer complete. Sarah has told the student campaign You are UC:

“If I was a single teen or in my early 20s, I could move to Wellington, Auckland, or Otago to complete my Theatre degree. But this is not my situation. I am married, I have 3 children, I own a home in Christchurch, moving to suit the degree I want to achieve is not in the realm of possibility for me. The only reason I started a degree at Canterbury was so I could become a High School Drama teacher. If this closure goes ahead, I will have spent $4000 towards a degree which I will be unable… to complete at Canterbury University.”

Meanwhile the Christchurch Press reports that corporate culture at the university may be choking creativity. Reporting on the change proposal to close theatre and film studies The Press notes:

“[T]he issue at the moment, the document goes on to say, is not that Arts courses are weak or unsustainable, but that the College of Arts offers more courses than it can support on current and projected income.”

“In short: there is nothing wrong with the affected courses but someone or something has to go. It also becomes clear that this thinking actually pre-dates the earthquakes, as the proposal says [Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the College of Arts, Prof] Adelson has been engaged in his strategic process for 18 months.”

The Press reports that that TEU has filed papers with the Employment Authority seeking a compliance order. Essentially, the filed papers charge the university with not following its own rules around academic process.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Will there be jobs for science graduates?
2. Joyce wants less representation on university councils
3. Massive student protests shake Quebec
4. Massachusetts replaces teacher educators with video highlights

Other news

Instead of rethinking whether performance measures work in the tertiary sector, the government has set up a performance exercise looking at student retention and completion. For tertiary institutions the quickest route to achieving in this exercise is making sure students pass their courses. The simplest way to ensure students pass is to put pressure on academics to elevate grades (and in a few isolated cases this is already beginning to happen in a range of institutions across New Zealand) – Dr Sandra Grey on Kiwiblog

What we’re saying, though, is that once you’ve used your 200 weeks [of student allowance], that’s the end of it. Currently, you can get exemptions for long programmes, as they call them, or for master’s or PhDs. But when somebody’s getting to the point when they’re doing a master’s or a PhD or a long programmes where they’ve perhaps done one degree and they’re going to do another degree, they are going to have a good income when they leave, and therefore they should be able to pay off a student loan - Steven Joyce on TVNZ Q&A

Universities NZ welcomes the Minister of Tertiary Education, Skills & Employment’s indication over the weekend that there will be a modest increase to the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) in this year’s Budget as it is an effective system for supporting the wide-ranging contributions made by university research - Universities NZ

39 percent of fraud in both tertiary and local government sectors went un-investigated by police. Some 38 percent of respondents in councils and 37 percent in polytechnics and universities said they were aware of a case of fraud in their institution within the past two years – compared to a public sector average of less than a quarter - Radio NZ

Saudi Arabian students have been banned from studying in Christchurch because of earthquake fears. Students sponsored by the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education cannot get government-funded scholarships in Christchurch this year -Stuff

Confronted with the biggest crisis since the 30s, the trade body for British sociologists proudly displayed its engagement by enumerating articles in the Journal of Niche Studies. All this is a long way from that letter of 1981, let alone Keynes. Perhaps it shows how far academics have been forced to conform to their research assessment exercises and turn out measurable output - The Guardian

TV3′s new Sunday morning offering, Three60, is sponsored by Massey University in a deal some sources say could be worth around $50,000. Professor Malcolm Wright, Massey University’s head of journalism, appeared onThree60 to discuss the Rupert Murdoch saga. The sponsor became the commentator. In doing so, the tertiary institution got more buck for their endorsement dollar than if they had flashed a logo on screen at the commencement of the show – which they did. Is this part of the deal? - The New Zealand Herald

The prime minister, John Key, and the minister of tertiary education skills and employment, Steven Joyce, this week foreshadowed several tertiary education budget initiatives.

Mr Joyce told Radio New Zealand that he would be shifting funding away from humanities and commerce towards maths, science, engineering and technology.

“We pay a higher subsidy for humanities and commerce than the Australians do, we pay a lower subsidy for science and engineering.”

“That tends to mean that universities are a bit more biased towards those other subjects because we end up paying, probably, a little bit more than they need to encourage those subjects and not enough for the science, technology and engineering subjects,” Mr Joyce said.

His statements follow a Tertiary Education Commission edict to tertiary institutions to increase enrolments next year in science, technology, engineering and maths and, if necessary, to cut other courses to do that.

Meanwhile Mr Key told business leaders it would be another zero budget, and, to help achieve that, people with student loans, who currently pay back 10 cents for each dollar they earn, will have to pay them back faster.  Then Mr Joyce said that the government would cut allowance costs by ensuring allowances are targeted at those in the early years of study and to those that can least afford it.

NZUSA president Pete Hodkinson said that any cuts to allowances would reduce access, denying New Zealanders an opportunity to improve their lives, and would lead to greater debt.

You Are UC, the student campaign against cuts to the College of Arts at the University of Canterbury, is holding a barbeque complete with theatrical entertainment to protest against the cuts today. You Are UC will also becollecting signatures for a petition against the cuts. The protest starts at midday on the arts lawn outside A Block on the University’s Ilam campus.

The petition calls for an immediate halt to the College of Arts Change Proposal to cut three programmes saying the business case contains flaws and students have not had the time or information needed to take part in consultation.

You Are UC opposes the cuts recently announced to the College of Arts. Morgan Hodgson, a spokesperson for the group, said that You Are UC is concerned about the integrity of the process the University is following, and what it will mean for future potential cuts; including those in other departments.

“In dealing with a short-term funding crisis, there is long-term damage being done to the educational opportunities in Christchurch.”

“Theatre and Film Studies, for example, usually makes a profit for the university. Cutting it is bad for the balance sheet and bad for education. One of the American studies lecturers losing his job receives a Marsden Fund grant, which brings the university hundreds of thousands of dollars – money the change proposal does not account for.

“We want the university to revisit its case for change, and start a new consultation with robust figures,” said Hodgson.

Also in Tertiary Update this week

1. Student fees rise faster than inflation
2. Joyce entices Saudi students with ultrafast broadband
3. Teacher education scheme delivers too late
4. 1 in 6 students in financial distress

Other news

All five colleges at the University of Canterbury are said to be making hard choices and many more cuts are on their way. In the School of Commerce, the Management Science and Operations Management major has been under review since the beginning of March, and students and staff were given just over two weeks for input on this proposal. Only last year, students were informed suddenly that the Masters of Social Work degree was being cancelled indefinitely. Students that wanted to continue studying in this programme were notified that they would either have to return to undergraduate study or try to cross-credit their points. Other courses are being ‘taught out’ in the College of Education and rumour mill is running as to what could happen within the Colleges of Engineering and Science -Canta

Act leader John Banks has made an attack on “middle-class welfare”, urging National to bite the bullet and restore interest rates to student loans - New Zealand Herald

It is important for universities to engage with businesses if they are to produce relevant research, says Massey University’s newly appointed Professor in Innovation and Economics - Massey University

Charter schools supremo Catherine Isaac has signalled her education pilot could be run by for-profit organisations. The former Act Party president told the party’s annual conference yesterday that “for profit” organisations are not allowed to run schools in the UK. “That is being seen as a mistake and as something they want to change,” Ms Isaac said -Stuff

The University of Otago has denied “gaming” the system in order to appear higher on league tables which rank their quality of research performance and says it has “nothing to hide” over the way it takes part in the process - Otago Daily Times

Liam Burns, the president of the British National Union of Students, is calling for university lecturers to be forced to acquire teaching qualifications to ensure that students paying tuition fees are getting the most out of their degrees -The Guardian

The cost of a United States university degree has left people wide-eyed for decades but student debt has now mushroomed into a nightmare for Americans with potential to explode as the next major US financial crisis - The Australian

Exasperated by rising subscription costs charged by academic publishers, Harvard University has encouraged its faculty members to make their research freely available through open access journals and to resign from publications that keep articles behind paywalls -The Guardian

New Zealand has a funding system that rewards universities for training PhDs but discourages the employment of post doctorates. That is the criticism of Dr Melanie Massaro, author of an open letter to the government last year, challenging the government to create better employment opportunities for new and emerging researchers. Dr Massaro was speaking this week at a New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS) conference. After outlining the struggle to cross the post-doctoral void to full employment, Dr Massaro compared post-doctoral fellowships to helicopters that carry PhD researchers over the void, to a position where they are able to compete with the overseas- trained scientists arriving on the international jumbo jet.

“We need more helicopters and we need them urgently.”

Dr Massaro’s challenge was exemplified later that night on TV3 with the story of Oxford University doctoral graduate Jo Chapman who has been unable to find permanent work in her field of expertise since returning to New Zealand.

Last week Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce responded to some of these concerns by proposing changes to the Rutherford Discovery Fellowships to repatriate overseas post-doctoral researchers and ensure post-doctoral researchers within New Zealand have sufficient opportunity to stay in the country.

Science reporter Peter Griffin said the general tone at the conference seemed to be that the minister’s changes were “merely tinkering at the edges” and they don’t address the deeper issue that opportunities for emerging scientists including those wanting to come back to New Zealand to continue their careers, are very limited, and that New Zealand underspends on postgraduate fellowships to the detriment of the science system.

Mr Griffin said that emerging scientists still had numerous issues with the newly established Rutherford Discovery Fellowships, including that the fellowships were available to scientists more advanced in their careers, potentially shutting out early and mid-career scientists who need financial support from beyond a scientific institution while they establish themselves in research.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. PBRF rort is fault of system, not universities
2. Brains are draining earlier
3. Secrecy around student loan budget changes
4. Growing pacific student numbers creates challenges
5. Casualisation, high workload key to Australian universities’ success

Other news

Last week Tertiary Updateincorrectly reported that Dr Jane Millichamp worked at Otago University’s Department of Psychology. She actually works in Psychological Medicine at the university’s Dunedin School of Medicine. We apologise to the University of Otago, and to readers, for the error.

The University of Canterbury announced last week it had awarded a UC Teaching Award for 2011 to six recipients including associate professor Peter Falkenberg (Theatre and Film Studies), whose department the university is currently in the process of closing. Deputy vice-chancellor Professor Ian Town congratulated Dr Falkenberg and said he would receive his award at a ceremony early next month. Hopefully he will also receive news that he still has a job?

Robert Birnbaum from the University of Maryland writes tongue-in-cheek onnew ways to rank universities. Suggestions include The ‘Jeremy Bentham system’ which would rank institutions, according to the level of happiness they provided and the ‘Olympic system’ — head-to-head feats of physical prowess amongst senior administrators. The problem, he notes, is that we get what we measure.

Almost 250 University of Otago students were suspended last year for failing to pass an adequate number of papers as the university increases its focus on producing quality students, vice-chancellor Prof Harlene Hayne says -Otago Daily Times

Education experts have questioned National and ACT claims that charter schools will lift achievement in disadvantaged pupils. The study by 12 Massey University academics suggests the schools will cause more harm to those it intends to help - Stuff

TEU has just won a significant employment authority case that challenges the use of confirmation at Otago University.

The employment authority found yesterday that the University of Otago breached Dr Jane Millichamp’s right to natural justice and its own duty of good faith when it failed to confirm her as a lecturer after ten years on a fixed-term employment agreement.

Dr Millichamp began as a Psychological Medicine lecturer at Otago University in 1998 but was subject to confirmation – an employment agreement where academics go on long-standing trial periods while the university assesses the academic’s suitability for the position. TEU has long argued that confirmation is an unfair and illegal use of fixed-term-employment trial periods. Confirmation is currently only used at the universities of Auckland and Otago.

Dr Millichamp’s department was in disarray during her confirmation period because, among other reasons, her head of department, Dr Colin Bouwer, murdered his wife. There were a number of workload pressures that meant her teaching load grew significantly. The university extended her confirmation period several times, until 2007, at which point the university chose not to confirm her because it did not believe she had published a sufficient quantity of research. Instead, it offered her the choice of dismissal or going from being a lecturer to a teaching only fellow.

Dr Millichamp appealed but the university rejected her appeal.

TEU then took a case for her through mediation and then to the Employment Authority. The authority finally heard her case in 2010, but the authority member who heard the case resided in Christchurch, and the files for the case were lost in one of the earthquakes.

The authority has recently retrieved its files and finally found in favour of Dr Millichamp. The authority found that the university failed to follow its own appeal process by referring her appeals back to the original review committee rather than a new independent appeals committee. Added to this, Dr Millichamp was not permitted to appear before the review committee to give evidence on her research and was not told about two people who gave evidence against her, nor was she given a chance to respond to their allegations.

TEU deputy secretary Nanette Cormack said the case is an important win for academics on fixed-term agreements.

“Confirmation is unfair – it is not fair to employ people on trial periods that can last up to a decade with no employment security. In addition, it is also unfair to decide people’s futures and make judgements about them without first giving them a chance to tell their own story and respond to allegations that others have made.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Turia quiet in tertiary education role
2. Member’s bill to extend paid parental leave welcomed
3. Lobbying bill could end secret tertiary education lobbying
4. Domestic students staying loyal to CPIT

Other news

A student coalition has formed to oppose the cuts to University of Canterbury programmes. “You Are UC” condemns the consultation process, as university management has still failed to release to students the details of their proposed changes - You Are UC

The Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust has issued its spending priorities for the next three years. The trust distributes up to $3 million per year by way of grants from a $70 million investment fund, to encourage growth in the agri-business sector. Chairman Jeff Grant says three-quarters of that funding traditionally goes to Lincoln and Massey universities. But the bulk of the funding will now be directed to commercial ventures, focused on market access - Radio NZ

Since the 1970s, a radical shift has been occurring in higher education, as growing numbers of institutions turn to contingent (or adjunct) faculty to cut costs, while keeping pay as low as possible for the support staff who keep campuses running. Students suffer, as the number of available services are reduced, class sizes increase, and educators are less able to provide direct assistance and mentoring to the students they are there to teach. Now, employees in higher education are fighting back, and facing real challenges from administrations when they do - Salon

Tertiary education, science and innovation minister Steven Joyce today announced the appointment of three new convenors to the Marsden Fund Council. The new appointees are Dr Ian Ferguson, who will convene the Cellular, Molecular and Physiological Biology Panel; Professor Jari Kaipio, who will convene the Mathematical and Information Sciences Panel; and Professor Robert Hannah, as convenor of the Humanities Panel. The minister has also appointed Dr Grant Scobie for a second term as Convenor of the Economics and Human and Behavioural Sciences Panel - Hon Steven Joyce

An unholy alliance is slowly forming between traditionalist defenders of the university as an “ivory tower” and market-obsessed modernisers determined to transform higher education into a consumer good. Both have come to the – mistaken – conclusion that the idea of the public university must be abandoned. For very different reasons, of course -The Guardian

A Texas community college district’s move toward standardised and electronic textbooks has raised the hackles of faculty members, who say the process threatens academic freedom and instructor autonomy because individual sections will be limited in their ability to have individual book requirements - Inside Higher Ed

Tertiary Update is our weekly bulletin about news in the tertiary education sector from the perspective of people working in the sector.

Mere days into its stewardship under a new vice-chancellor Lincoln University is proposing to restructure its Faculty of Commerce and make five senior tutors redundant.

The change proposal document states that the university wants to disestablish all existing senior tutor positions in the faculty. A new 0.5 FTE administrative assistant will help to undertake the administrative tasks of eight senior tutor positions (of which three are already vacant).

The university will also transfer the teaching-related tasks of senior tutors to teaching assistant positions (currently referred to in the Faculty as casual tutors) that work closely with, and report directly to course examiners.

Lincoln management says casual tutors would usually be suitably qualified graduate students or senior undergraduate students but non-students may also be appointed to the role.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs said she is concerned that this proposal may be the start of increased casualisation of the academic workforce at Lincoln.

“Not only is the university reducing the number of staff with no effort to also reduce workload, it is also replacing good, permanent jobs with casual, insecure ones.”

“I have concerns about the job security of academic staff who have invested time into developing teaching resources that may then be used by less qualified casual staff to cover their teaching requirements.”

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Govt signals another austerity budget
2. Joyce rejects call to prevent UC closures
3. TEC outlines its goals for 2013
4. Aussie uni comparison site ‘must be treated with caution’

Other news

University of Canterbury pro-vice-chancellor of the college of arts, Prof Ed Adelson, released his change proposal for the college of arts. The change proposal calls for the termination of American Studies, Cultural Studies and Theatre and Film Studies programmes. On Wednesday 28 March students were given their only public opportunity to have their voices heard. Here is a video of some of those voices.

People with student loans going on their big OE will have to start repaying their loans after just one year and provide Inland Revenue with a contact in New Zealand to help track them down - New Zealand Herald

At a time when society needs genuine regeneration, facilitated and encouraged through high quality public education, many of the so-called ‘reforms’ in education seek to portray teachers as simple transmitters of skills, and schools as institutions established to produce made-to-order students for the job market. In this context, families become education consumers, neatly fitting into market segments divided by their socio-economic level -Worlds of Education

Wisconsin’s controversial Republican Governor Scott Walker will face a recall election on 5 June over a new law he championed that strips public sector and tertiary education unions of most power, becoming the first U.S. governor to face a no-confidence vote in nearly a decade - Reuters

Photo of Eric J Stone (TEU) and Terry Mita (TIASA) at Moerewa with a ute full of food that union members at NorthTec collected together to support Affco workers locked out by Talleys. Laurie Nankivell the MWU Shed Secretary on the picket line was pleased at the solidarity shown by education unions. Some of these workers have not had work for five weeks.

Nine full time-equivalent staff will lose their jobs and more than 150 students will lose their majors and programmes at the University of Canterbury according to an announcement by the vice chancellor, Dr Rod Carr this week.

The vice-chancellor told staff at the university this week he intends to disestablish theatre and film studies, American studies and cultural studies programmes.

The university has said it will consult on the change proposal until 4 May this year.

TEU denounced the decision, and branch presidents from around the country have called upon the minister of tertiary education, Steven Joyce, to intervene.

An open letter from those branch presidents said Mr Joyce’s inaction in Christchurch threatens a broad and diverse education for local Cantabrians, but says he still has time to intercede.

“We believe it is not too late to act to save these programmes and the opportunities for students in these majors. Canterbury needs, now more than ever, a broad and diverse tertiary education that provides opportunities for all its potential students,” read the letter.

Theatre and film studies department co-ordinator Associate Professor Sharon Mazer told the Christchurch Press she was in shock about the proposal and would fight for the programme’s survival at every level.

The closure of the department would have a negative impact not only on the university’s academic integrity but also on the cultural life of the city, especially post-earthquake, Mazer said.

“At no time in our city’s history has it been more in need of ways of telling our stories and coming together to make a vibrant community,” Dr Mazer told the Press.

Some staff have alleged that the programmes under threat now are same ones that university management was targeting before the earthquake, and that management is simply reintroducing a radical change agenda that the university community previously rejected.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Will it be ‘Hello AHELO’?
2. VUW accused of rorting PBRF rankings
3. TEU members will not accept job casualisation in bargaining
4. Manukau negotiations conclude in one day

Other news

Christchurch’s earthquakes have had a big impact on the number of international students studying in the city with a 37 percent  drop in 2011, latest figures from the Education Ministry show. Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Steven Joyce says the results were expected. “The earthquakes in Canterbury have severely impacted the number of people from overseas wishing to study in Christchurch, “ Mr Joyce says.

Senior Consultant to Education International, the global federation of teachers’ unions, David Robinson tells National Radio’s Chris Laidlaw why he is unhappy at the way universities are being refocused for the purposes of commercial enterprise rather than academia and scholarship - Radio New Zealand

Reports indicate that, in recent months, the University of Bahrain has dismissed at least 117 of its academic staff and expelled more than 400 students for participating in demonstrations against the government or posting related links on social media sites - EducationInternational

The Tertiary Education Union is just one of many unions that has backed the Ports’ workers from the beginning, and national president Sandra Grey says the latest decision from the Ports is a step in the right direction - Te Waha Nui

When some University of Michigan graduate student research assistants started a drive to unionise about two years ago, they never imagined that their campaign would result in the governor signing a bill to prevent them and other graduate research assistants from organising at public universities in the state - Inside Higher Ed

Canada’s largest university, York, accepted a $30 million gift last year from a non-partisan think tank. Despite assurances by the think tank, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, that academic freedom at the public university will not be affected, the national professors’ union and more than 200 York faculty members fear otherwise. The key complaint about the gift has little to do with the money, but instead with the fact York agreed to give the think tank a formal role in selecting faculty – a break from the tradition in Canada and the United States of not letting donors decide who is hired - Inside Higher Ed

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 is increasing workloads because of staff numbers not keeping pace with student numbers. TEU members across all seven universities will be claiming employment protection for staff whose workload increases because of redundancies or restructuring.

The nationwide claim says if within six months of a review, restructuring or management of change process concluding, employees believe that their workloads are excessive, or that staffing levels are not sufficient, they may request a review of their workload. If the review finds that workloads are not safe, equitable, or reasonable the university must take appropriate steps to remedy the situation.

TEU university academic vice-president John Prince says the short-term effect of reviews is stress and job losses, but the long-term effect, if reviews are poorly conceived, is increasing workloads.

“We want an assurance that the many reviews currently taking place are not just about cutting staff numbers and shifting all the existing work onto those staff who remain.”

Employment negotiations will begin at the end of June for staff at the universities of AUT, Canterbury, Lincoln, Otago, Massey, Victoria and Waikato.

If you have a workload story to support TEU’s negotiations, leave a comment below.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Restructuring affecting 500 workers
2. New super ministry to manage commission
3. Farewell Ray Fargher
4. Auckland ports back down on contracting out
5. Aussie tutors join the ‘Precariat’ workforce
6. International trade agreement akin to asset sales

Other news

There is a nasty narrative creeping into the national conversation New Zealand is having about education these days, that of the superhero teacher. If you’re unfamiliar with the plot line, it goes something like this. There is a massive achievement gap in academic achievement and this gap is because of bad schools. Since teachers are the most important things in schools, if the schools aren’t delivering then it must be because teachers aren’t delivering. Enter the superhero teacher - Teaching the Teacher

A Cambridge student was suspended from the university for two-and-a-half years today for his part in a protest during a speech by the Universities Minister David Willetts. The “unprecedented” sentence handed down to Owen Holland, a PhD student in the Faculty of English, came on the same day as students marched in London and walked out of institutions across the country to demand Mr Willetts’ resignation - The Independent

A private computer training institute with hundreds of students has gone bust owing more than $8.3 million in tax, penalties and interest. Computer Power (NZ) Ltd, which runs Computer Power Institute campuses in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland, was put into liquidation in the High Court at Wellington this week. The institute has about 750 students including about 150 international students. The 47 staff have been paid until the end of the month - Dominion Post

An Indian immigration consultancy claiming to operate in NZ (and actually operating in India) has used a murdered US student’s image in their marketing (seemingly lifted from the Internet). It works with, among others, Canterbury, AUT, BOPP and Unitec - ED Blog

TAFE has hit the wall in Victoria’s open training market, with unprecedented private college growth relegating the public provider into minority status and throwing its financial viability into question. Details from an unpublished quarterly report from Skills Victoria, which shows that TAFEs now have less than half of the government-supported enrolments, emerged the day after Prime Minister Julia Gillard said states needed to protect their TAFEs -The Australian

The government’s approach to performance based research funding is a quarter of a billion dollar corporate welfare scheme according to Scoop journalist Gordon Campbell.

Mr Campbell published an article earlier this week,Marketing the Mind: How the tertiary sector in New Zealand is being hi-jacked into the service of commerce, where he explores the financial pressures on the tertiary education system. In it, he notes that the Tertiary Education Strategy 2010-2015 says, “We will ensure that the Performance-Based Research Fund recognises research of direct relevance to the needs of firms and its dissemination to them…”

“University research apparently, is to be funded in part at least on its demonstrated ability to disseminate its research findings to business,” says Campbell. “Given the exceptionally low level of investment in research and development made by the private sector in New Zealand….the aim would appear to be to turn tertiary institutions into the research arms of commerce, as taxpayer funded forms of Corporate Welfare.”

TEU te tumu arataki Cheri Waititi agrees.

“It is not just performance funding for research where the emphasis has shifted too far towards providing what private individual businesses want. The minister is currently trying to pick winners among students, courses, research projects and institutions based on which ones he thinks will best meet the needs of private business.”

“Education is not something where you can pick winners before you start. You have to give all ideas and all students an equal chance to thrive. Otherwise, it is not true education – it is just, as this article notes, corporate welfare,” said Ms Waititi.

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Economics super-ministry may swallow TEC
2. Joyce wants to publish graduate income data
3. Big budget changes for student loan scheme
4. Iranian lecturer faces execution for receiving email
5. Phoenix rises from Christchurch Rubble

Other news

Alan Ginsberg wrote that he had seen the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness. We are seeing the best minds in our universities destroyed by increasingly complex form filling - The Conversation

In 1869, Irish physicist John Tyndall posed a basic scientific question: why is the sky blue? In searching for an explanation, Tyndall discovered that light is scattered in the atmosphere by dust and large air molecules in a way that causes the eye to see the colour blue. His discovery of these properties of light eventually led to the later development of a number of important but wholly unanticipated innovations, including lasers and fibre optics - The Ottawa Citizen

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said he expected the number of ITOs to fall from 33 down to anywhere between six and 10 within two years -Dominion Post

In the universities of Athens, the city where Plato taught and Cicero studied, campuses are covered in anarchist graffiti, stray dogs run through buildings and students take lessons in Swedish with the aim of emigrating - The Financial Post

A group of international students say they are thousands of dollars out of pocket, and afraid for their safety, after a dispute with a Waikato education facility. Two former Waikato Institute of Education (WIE) students say they have only found the courage to speak out now because another institute is controlling their visas - Waikato Times

Unions are increasingly concerned that the round of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), which completed after nine days today in Melbourne, Australia, are heading in dangerous directions. A trade union lobby team at the nine-day negotiation session just concluded in Melbourne has also warned of negative impacts on jobs, incomes and working conditions. The unions have drafted a Labour Chapter to be included in the Agreement -International Trade Union Confederation

One in three workers questioned in a survey say they are required to be available to their employer 24 hours a day. The recruitment company that did the survey of about 400 employees throughout the country says it shows a growing trend for work to spread into private life -Radio New Zealand

TEU members supporting stevedores at the Port of Auckland last weekend