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

The Melbourne Age reports TAFEs (Technical and Further Education institutions) are reeling after the government announced drastic cuts to fee subsidies. The cuts will lead to sharp fee increases for students and are expected to result in courses being abolished and job losses.

The Victorian Government cut the government subsidy for most vocational courses after demand burgeoned in recent years. The subsidy, originally expected to cost the government $900 million this financial year, has surged to $1.3 billion. Spending will be cut to $1.2 billion next financial year.

The government has slashed funding for up to 80 percent of courses — some from $7 down to as little as $1.50 an hour – and abolished extra funding to cover TAFEs’ obligations as public providers.

TAFEs will receive the same level of funding as private colleges, which typically pay lower wages and offer less in student amenities, such as libraries, and services such as childcare.

Holmesglen and Bendigo TAFEs immediately sent out internal memos warning their staff of cuts.

Australian Education Union state president Mary Bluett said rural TAFEs were particularly vulnerable to closure or amalgamation.

“Wodonga will struggle, as will Barwon South West TAFE and some of the Gippsland campuses,” Ms Bluett said.

“There is even talk about handing over TAFE facilities to private providers for them to run programs.”

The Victorian Government said TAFE funding rates would be brought in line with private-sector providers, boosting competition and choice.

“The government will work with TAFEs to develop new business models and leverage their established strengths in a more competitive training market,” the budget paper said.

TEU’s academic vice-president for the polytechnic sector, Richard Draper and national secretary Sharn Riggs have sent a message of solidarity to Australian Education Union members in the affected TAFEs, saying the new budget initiatives are short sighted and hugely damaging.

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.

The port had planned to make 292 workers redundant and contract out their jobs after a long-running industrial dispute. The Employment Court held a hearing on Monday into the dispute. That put a stayon the 292 redundancies that the ports company had announced.

Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe told TVNZworkers were “thrilled” by the decision and that it meant they can return to work under their collective agreement.

The president of the Council of Trade Unions, Helen Kelly, told Radio New Zealand the company is clearly nervous about its redundancy plan.

“Obviously the port has considered its legal position; last week there was no turning back, next minute we’re turning back and we’re into bargaining, which suggests they’ve had a reversal of their view that what they were undertaking was lawful.”

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs said the turnaround for the port was an important moment not just for the wharfies but also for all union members.

“The port wanted to casualise its entire workforce. When it did not get exactly what it wanted it tried to sack its entire workforce and replace them with contract workers. If the Port gets away with that sort of behaviour workers all over the country, including in tertiary education, will be at risk of increased casualisation and job-insecurity,” said Ms Riggs.

State services commissioner Iain Rennie told Dr Coleman in his recently released briefing:

“Personnel cost growth in the State sector has been relatively contained in recent years, with industrial settlements of between 1–2 percent becoming the norm. This has been higher than the forecasts built into the pre-election economic and fiscal update, which forecast personnel costs to grow at an average of 1.1 percent. Future settlements of between 2.25 and 2.5 percent are starting to be reached in bargaining – putting significant pressure on agencies.”

Mr Rennie said the commission is working on mechanisms “to manage these pressures over the next 1–3 years” and the commission will discuss those mechanisms with the minister.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs said the commission was mistakenly treating state sector pay and especially tertiary education pay rates as an economic drag rather than an investment in strong public sector and strong communities.

The Taranaki Daily Newsreports that student enrolments at WITT are up by 50 percent compared to this time last year and chief executive Richard Handley is attributing PEI’s demise to part of that increase.

PEI announced its closure last month after it failed to secure significant funding from the Tertiary Education Commission because of its below par course completion rates.

Mr Handley told the Daily News that there would be would be teaching jobs at WITT available for many of the staff at PEI who lost their jobs last month.

“PEI staff are now being identified by WITT as internal staff when they apply for jobs so there is more opportunity for them to be employed.”

He said many teaching jobs were only advertised internally if there were skills within WITT to cover the position and under the changes that would include former PEI staff.

“We have advertised seven jobs externally and extended the application closure date to allow PEI staff time to apply and we also have about five internal jobs they will be able to apply for.”

Mr Handley said he welcomed all interest from PEI staff and students and where appropriate PEI staff were encouraging their students to enrol with WITT.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs said there were real benefits for ex-PEI teachers who found jobs at WITT, because they would now have the choice of belonging to a union that offered a collective agreement that protected working conditions and pay.

“Those staff have been through a lot but now, hopefully, with the chance to belong to a strong national union they will have greater job security and protection.”

She also applauded WITT’s CEO on his decision to treat these staff as internal applicants.

Academic staff who are members of TEU will be voting on a new collective agreement over the next two weeks after their negotiating team reached an agreement with the vice-chancellor today.

Academics at the university are currently all on individual employment agreements, after their collective agreement expired earlier this year. Academics had to undertake a sustained and determined campaign of industrial action over the past year. Three days of facilitated bargaining before the Employment Relations Authority earlier this month helped the two sides reach an agreement.

The new agreement will include a set of principles or “collars” to govern those issues that had been at the heart of the dispute between union members and university management -  policies on research and study leave, academic standards, grades and criteria, outside work, and a revised discipline procedure. If university management wishes to alter the existing policies, any new policy will have to comply with those principles. The overall effect is to remove some details regarding these policies from the agreement, but strengthen the principles that govern those policies.

The review of the research and study leave, academic standards, grades and criteria and outside work policies will be subject to a process that involves TEU. The vice-chancellor also recognises more generally in the settlement that the union has a role to play in the academic governance of the university and provides mechanisms by which TEU can exercise that role.

TEU members will also receive a 4 percent salary increase and a $2,000 (gross) lump sum payment, which will be in lieu of back pay. A further 2 percent salary increase will be paid from 1 February 2012. This is significant because that it is the first time in five years that a salary increase has been negotiated during bargaining by the union and not been announced by the vice-chancellor to non-members outside of the bargaining. Annual leave will increase to 5 weeks (inclusive of Easter Tuesday and the last weekday before Christmas).

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Government’s new tertiary policy punishes failure
2. ‘The vandals at the gate’
3. Rally calls for education to be election issue
4. Two South Island polytechnics settle new collective agreements
5. Auckland general staff vote on new ‘fair’ pay model

Other news

Although good reasons can always be put forward for more bureaucratic requirements, university management must be wary of possible downsides on staff morale and effectiveness. All the time spent here can be time not spent researching and teaching – Otago Daily Times editorial

Minister for Tertiary Education, Steven Joyce, has confirmed the merger of Whitireia NZ and Wellington Institute of Technology (Weltec) councils. “It is an exciting development that will provide opportunities for the institutions to work more closely together for the benefit of students right across the Wellington region,” says Mr Joyce

Photos of Te Uepu hui on 20 November and TEU annual conference 21-22 November

The University of California chancellor has apologised to students for police use of pepper spray against campus protesters in a standoff captured by video and widely replayed on television and the internet. The pepper-spraying last week led to the suspensions of the campus police chief and two officers, and thrust the normally quiet, conservative and mostly apolitical UC Davis campus to the forefront of anti-Wall Street Occupy protests nationwide – The Guardian

“[University] Rankings are a lot like political polling and research in this respect – they can be a useful indicator of performance and add a sense of sporting competition to media coverage, but trouble emerges if they become the central motivator of decision makers,” Monash University vice chancellor Ed Byrne has warned – The Australian. 

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Authorised by Sharn Riggs, Tertiary Education Union, 8th Floor, Education House 178-182 Willis St, Wellington 6011.

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.

Statistics New Zealand attributed this rise to recently settled collective employment agreement increase for secondary school teachers.

Secondary teachers with a level 7 qualification and recognised teaching qualification now have a starting rate of $47,023 and a top rate of $71,000. By comparison, the starting rate for an adademic staff member at NorthTec, for example, is $41,649 and a senior academic staff member at NorthTec has a top rate of $68,521.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says what the statistics show is that sectors that are highly unionised, such as in education, are getting more consistent, and higher, pay rises on average than other sectors.

“But there is still some way to go in the current environment where too many employers in tertiary education are using pressure from the State Services Commission as an excuse to keep pay rates low.”

More broadly, CTU economist Bill Rosenberg warns that the 2.0 percent increase in the Labour Cost Index for the year to September means that wages are still falling behind price increases. Prices increased 4.6 percent in the same period, including about 2.1 percent due to the GST increase.

Dr Rosenberg noted, “56 percent of people got pay rises in the last year. Those who did got a median rise of 3.0 percent and an average of 3.6 percent. So those people who got a rise didn’t keep up with the rise in prices.”

“Some people have had compensation for the rising prices from tax cuts, but this was heavily weighted to higher incomes. People on lower incomes will be feeling the effects of the price rises much more strongly,” said Dr Rosenberg.

Statistics New Zealand has noted that students who left tertiary education with level 5 to 7 certificates or diplomas earned 16 percent more than high school leavers did. Meanwhile leavers with level 4 certificates earned only four percent more.

However, TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says it is important that Treasury recognise that the question is it raises is mostly one about New Zealand’s low wage economy.

“A comparatively high proportion New Zealand’s population have tertiary education qualifications compared to other OECD countries,” says Ms Riggs. But many of them are sub-degree level qualifications, and employers in New Zealand simply are not paying enough for the quality of teaching and learning that goes into those qualifications.

“What we do not want to see is Treasury blaming employers’ unwillingness to pay for people’s qualifications as a reflection on the quality of those qualifications or the people teaching them,” said Ms Riggs.

“Most countries that have low levels of private return on tertiary education tended to be with high levels of economic equality, such as Denmark, Sweden and Norway, so a low level of private benefit from tertiary education should not necessarily be a bad thing, because there are also massive public benefits from tertiary education. However, unlike those countries, it is not high overall wages and salaries that are driving a low level of private return on tertiary education, but low overall wages.”

“The solution lies with employers and politicians, not teachers,” said Ms Riggs.

Ms Kelly said “the policy meets New Zealand’s obligations to the International Labour Organisation.  Around the world, the reduction of the right to collective bargaining is directly correlated  with the growing gap between rich and poor and the decline in living standards for working people.”

“The policy announced today will give workers the genuine choice of being covered by a collective which will directly relate to the standard terms and conditions already established  in the industry and employers within an industry that use exploitative terms and conditions to compete with good employers, will no longer be able to do that,” said Ms Kelly.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs said the concept that every industry and sector has a set of minimum working conditions and basic working rights is “simple fairness” and will, at long last mean bad employers are not rewarded at the expense of good employers.

“It would have a positive impact in the tertiary education sector” Ms Riggs said.

Labour Party Leader Mr Goff said the current system is not working:

“The super wealthy have increased their wealth by $7 billion and top chief executives received pay rises well above inflation,” he said.

“But the vast majority of Kiwis were worse off than they were three years ago, with Statistics New Zealand indicating last week that inflation rose 9 per cent and incomes rose only 2.5 per cent in that period.”