Branch President's Report

Branch President’s Report
Canterbury Branch AGM of AUS
26 October 2006

David Small

Colleagues,

We have come to the end of a momentous year. It has been a year of some significant achievements, some unfortunate losses and some new challenges. The three issues I’d like to discuss today are: College of Arts Campaign, the MECA campaign and the merger with the college of education.

The early part of the year was dominated by senior management’s assault on the arts at Canterbury. Flush with a $9.2 million dollar surplus, and in the absence of an academic rationale, the Vice-Chancellor insisted that the College of Arts increase its rate of surplus (contribution margin) by an amount that would require radical cuts including forced redundancies amongst academic staff.

This move was roundly condemned. It was widely recognised as ill-considered, unnecessary and being pursued with indecent haste. It struck at the heart of what it means for an institution to call itself a university.

Although management insisted that redundancies would be a last resort, it became increasingly clear that they were in fact a preferred option. This, we were told, was the way the university would be run in future, an ongoing process of nibbling round the edges. Management makes the decisions and the rest of us obey, but only for as long as our services are required.

Management steadfastly paid no heed to the many persuasive and well-documented arguments pointing out what a bad decision they were making. We organized a national panel to review the proposals which met on campus for two days. The debate surrounding this issue brought the Minister for Tertiary Education (Michael Cullen) to meet with us (and the University) to listen to our concerns. The University tried to stifle debate by, for example, refusing to provide basic figures about comparative contribution margins across the whole university. When we followed this up with the Ombudsman, the Vice-Chancellor told him that the figures did not exist; the figures that were the entire basis of the university’s financial crisis. That despite a large surplus the university can go on to claim that redundancies were unavoidable.

At one level, the AUS campaign against the College of Arts cuts was a failure The final implementation plan barely deviated at all from the original change proposal. Management stuck to their guns, made the cuts they wanted, and hoped that the message that staff would derive from this, and any other management plans we opposed, was that resistance is futile.

At another level, however, it had many positive elements. It galvanised and unified the entire university community. Students bypassed the UCSA and organised against the cuts. Community groups from Canterbury and further afield expressed their opposition. And staff, even those who were the supposed beneficiaries of the cuts, came together in a way that I have never seen before at this university.

There is now a deep rift in this university. The Vice-Chancellor stands isolated from his staff, convinced that only he and SMT know what is best for the University of Canterbury and that the rest of us are out of touch with reality and living in the past. Time and again, over the past year, we have seen this man-alone model of management. It was shown at the VC’s Forum early this year and at his second one last week. And it was unmistakable in the staff survey we conducted during the year, in which only around 12% of academic staff agreed with the proposition, that the Vice-Chancellor is a good leader of this university.

As staff, we want to feel a commitment to and a pride in our university. But the longer we are excluded from decision-making and treated as mere units of revenue, the longer the University of Canterbury will be without a heart or soul.

On a more positive note, this year saw the first fruits of our long campaign to address the salaries crisis in New Zealand universities. The tripartite forum involving government, the AUS and the vice-chancellors (with Roy Sharp, by all accounts, playing a leading and constructive role) saw the first of what we hope will be a series of direct injections of government funding into university salaries. This is a very significant breakthrough, and a tribute to the effectiveness of the AUS on each of the campuses and nationally. After years of campaigning and some quite protracted and acrimonious industrial action, we now have a mechanism and a degree of political will to begin to address this very serious problem.

This has meant that for the first time in many years we have been able to secure a substantial salary increase and have not had to engage in industrial action to get it. It is also a crystal clear demonstration of the value of the union. At Canterbury, we still enjoy one of the highest rates of union membership in the country. But the cuts in the Arts and the endless rounds of Reviews have resulted in a loss of members. We need to recruit more members and, with such an obvious direct benefit to staff from our MECA campaign, now is a very good time to ask your colleagues to join. I am sending out a letter to everyone who joined Canterbury in 2006 and is still a non-member.

The third issue I would like to address is the merger with the Christchurch College of Education. This was formally approved this year and will officially occur on 1 January 2007. In anticipation of the merger, however, there have been numerous restructuring plans and reviews, the latest of which was released only two days ago. This has had a major impact on many staff, in the library, in the school of education, in IT, in student services and in many other areas. It is also clear that the merger will create ongoing disruption and uncertainty in the coming year or two.

For the AUS, one of the most significant aspects of the merger is that we will have on campus a large number of members from our sister union, the Association of Staff in Tertiary Education (ASTE).. This has occurred at most other universities as well and is part of the impetus behind a broader discussion about the future relationship between AUS and ASTE. Essentially the question being addressed is whether the changing tertiary landscape calls for a change in the relationship between the two biggest tertiary unions. Put simply, the issue is whether the two unions should merge. This will be an important area of discussion in the coming year, and one that we want members to actively engage in. We are holding a pre-National Conference meeting of members on 14 November to discuss this issue and other issues prior to conference.

Finally, I would like to thank all of those who have contributed in so many ways to the work of the AUS at Canterbury over the last year.

I’d like in particular to thank those who have served on the branch committee and are now stepping back. Manja Pieters, Andrew Maples, Ghazala Anwar, Megan Clayton, and Bill Rosenberg.

I’d also like to thank all those who have agreed to join or continue their involvement in the branch committee.

I’d also like to thank our staff - Sarah Walters and Carol Grant who’ve worked in the office, Marty Braithwaite (National Office) and Cindy Doull (Lincon Organiser) who are very helpful to have around, and especially Matthew Fitzsimons our organiser. This has been an incredibly busy year with a constant stream of reviews and, in addition to the usual number of personal cases the organiser works on, many more cases of negotiating severances.

On that note, I’d also like to pay tribute to those members who have been forced in various ways to terminate their employment with the university in the past year. Many of us have lost valued colleagues. We wish you all the best in your lives beyond the university.

For me, I began serving as Branch President by sharing the position with Tanya Gant. For the last two years, I have held the position on my own. A few weeks ago, I was elected to be Academic Vice-President of the AUS nationally (thanks very much to those who voted for me). So this year, I will be sort of sharing and sort of handing over the role of Branch President to the very capable hands of Jack Heinemann. I am very grateful to Jack for agreeing to increase his involvement in this way and I trust that he will find the position as rewarding as I have.

As I noted earlier this has been a year of some significant achievements, some unfortunate losses and some new challenges. If we can continue to find ways to celebrate our achievements and learn from our losses, we will remain vibrant and healthy and in a good position to meet the new challenges before us.