BY MATTHEW EGAN
LISMORE — Students and staff at Southern Cross University (SCU) were angered to learn their vice-chancellor, Professor John Rickard, was paid a staggering $460,000 in 2002. According to the July 21 Sydney Morning Herald, this was double the figure he was paid in 2001.
Eric Bateman, chairperson of the SCU Student Representative Council said, "At a time when university students are facing a 30% increase in fees and when universities are being starved of funding, this is a slap in the face to students and the community."
Rickard is refusing to negotiate with staff unions over a new enterprise bargaining agreement, despite negotiations being due to begin in April. Instead he's offering two lots of 2% pay rises over the next year, and the commencement of negotiations next July.
Paul Gannon, president of the SCU branch of the National Tertiary Education Union said that the pay offer was less than inflation and that Rickard's refusal to negotiate left 30 issues that union members had drawn up for the negotiations in limbo.
Gannon said that the uncertainty about the exact salary rise Rickard had received (the university has denied it has doubled) highlighted the lack of accountability in university management: "As a public institution using public money, the circumstances and rationale for the renumeration of all staff should be public."
NTEU members will consider industrial action to force management to the table at a meeting on August 7. The union branch may call a strike to coincide with a national day of action for public education on August 27 that has been called by the National Union of Students.
The union has pledged to join students in upcoming rallies, which is opposing the linked issues of overpaid university executives, the lack of higher education funding, increasing fees and the lack of justice in wages and conditions for higher education workers.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 30, 2003.
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