Phil Andrews, Melbourne
On May 20, the national executive of the National Tertiary Education Union voted to accept a heads of agreement (HoA) at Swinburne University, which ties increases in staff pay to an increase in the number of full-fee paying students. Under the agreement, staff would be guaranteed a 15% pay increase, with any further increases being contingent on increases in the number of full-fee paying students.
This is the first time that an agreement has explicitly linked full-fee paying students and staff salaries. Despite management's claim that the agreement is based solely on increases in the number of full-fee paying international students, this distinction is not made in the HoA.
Not only does this mean that the union is buying into the federal Coalition government's privatisation agenda, but the university's prediction that revenue from student fees will increase from $50 million to $106 million in three years is completely unrealistic. Staff have had the wool pulled over their eyes.
The national executive's decision to accept the agreement signals a significant retreat by the union's leaders from even a pretence of defending public education and challenging the federal government's recent round of attacks on higher education.
Driven by education minister Brendan Nelson and the federal government, universities are now allowed to substantially increase the number of domestic full-fee paying students and to impose increases in HECS fees of up to 25%. Not surprisingly, this precipitated a cascade of university councils doing just that, despite a vigorous campaign by the NTEU and student unions.
By accepting the Swinburne agreement, the NTEU has implicated itself in the drive to privatise the higher education sector and delivered a slap in the face to all those students who have campaigned against the fee increases.
This is not the first time contingent-based pay has been introduced into university enterprise bargaining agreements. Melbourne University staff have had their pay linked to university profitability in the last two enterprise bargaining rounds.
However, there have been moves within the union to have such contingent-based agreements, which undermine the union's pattern-bargaining strategy, stalled until all other agreements have been signed off. The 2003 NTEU national council meeting strongly supported a motion to organise a campaign to reverse contingency at Melbourne University.
While Melbourne University branch activists, led by Socialist Alliance members, have been campaigning vigorously against any portion of pay increases being contingent on university revenue in their next enterprise bargaining agreement, national and local branch leaders have been undermining them by pursuing this Swinburne agreement.
The union has now legitimised contingent-based pay deals in the eyes of all those university managements which have yet to finalise their agreements. The wall has been breached and there is no doubt that university bosses will now be more confident in backing away from guaranteed pay increases in favour of productivity-base deals.
Fortunately, there has been resistance. Although the May 19 NTEU's Victorian division executive passed the Swinburne agreement 9 votes to 4, the Victorian representatives on the national executive split, with four of them voting against the Swinburne deal. One of the Victorian representatives voting against the deal was Monash university branch president and Victorian division vice-president Carol Williams, who is also a Socialist Alliance member. Unfortunately, the only votes against the deal on the national executive were from Victoria.
At the Victorian division executive meeting on May 28, Williams moved a motion that the division not agree to any more contingent agreements. Although the motion was defeated, the 15 to 10 vote showed there is significant opposition to contingency-based pay agreements among members.
After the meeting, Williams said: "Any way you cut it, contingent wages are used as a political tool. If the target is reached and the salary increase is passed on, then the full salary could have been guaranteed in the first place. If the target is not reached and the salary increase is denied, then it was a poor prediction and should never have been agreed. If however, the target is not reached but the salary increase is still awarded, then this is the most cynical of all, as management clearly had the capacity to guarantee the increase and merely used the tool of targets and contingency to tie the workers in to the political agenda of the institution."
The next step for activists on all campuses where agreements have not been finalised is to campaign to ensure that their NTEU branch does not accept any contingency-based wage rise.
[Phil Andrews is a Monash university branch NTEU national councilor and a Socialist Alliance member.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, June 9, 2004.
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