100 signatures reached
To: Vice Chancellor Peter Rathjen
Students and Community Support UTAS Staff
We invite UTAS students and the broader community to join our members in encouraging University senior management to finalise a single, high-quality Staff Agreement that makes real improvements in job security, workload management protections and superannuation equity.
The Staff Agreement which defines the pay and conditions of University of Tasmania staff, including teachers, researchers and professional staff, expired in June 2016.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and University management have been negotiating a new agreement for 14 months. But in recent months, management have shown great reluctance to progress bargaining or improve conditions.
NTEU members have voted to approve and are currently considering a range of industrial actions designed to focus management’s attention on bargaining, some of which will affect students.
Withholding their labour – including teaching and transmitting student results – is the only way NTEU members have left to influence conditions.
Why is this important?
Staff at the University care deeply about the students they teach and support.
But difficult conditions, insecure work (including casual contracts without student consultation hours), excessive workloads and salaries which cut the real pay of staff make it difficult to deliver quality teaching and student experiences.
It is not too late. Management can still avoid high-impact industrial action by making positive steps to finalise a single, high-quality staff agreement for all staff.
As students, future alumni, and members of the University of Tasmania community, we need your support to show that staff working conditions are student learning conditions.