Higher Education Battle Ground

We follow a tribute to Jack Mundey with a win for part time workers at McDonalds and a feature on the #NoConcessionsNTEU campaign against proposals by the NTEU national executive negotiated behind closed doors with Universties Australia and the Federal Government beginning in March with the onset of the covid-19 virus. The National Framework the NTEU national executive wants to take to the membership May 21 will they hope include the avoidance of stand-downs without pay; no new external appointments; redundancies to apply only where the work is ceasing permanently; asuals to receive the work where it is still required to be done; and superannuation payments to be maintained. If they can achieve these things then we would consider offsets that allow employers to implement some cost-saving measures in exchange, such as deferral of pay rises, limited fraction reductions and direction to work other duties.They say it is temporary, They say it is to save jobs. They say workers need to take a hit to keep the industry afloat. And despite the secret negotiations and the limited discussion hampered by constrains of zoom conferencing which gave dissenting voices only one minute to disagree or as has been alleged muting to ensure no discord the National Executive of the NTEU is going ahead with it's strategy of taking a national vote of membership May 21.I spoke to Liam Ward from RMIT in Melbourne about the #NoConcessionsNTEU campaign which has mushroomed around the country in response to the National Framework purposed.