ASTE Press Release

PRESS RELEASE – EMBARGOED UNTIL 1:00 A.M. THURSDAY, 10 MAY 2007

On Thursday, 3 May, after over 6 months of fruitless bargaining for a new Collective Agreement, ASTE members voted by an overwhelming majority to authorize their union, ASTE Te Hao Takitini o Aotearoa to invoke strike action if it was unable to reach a settlement with CPIT. On 4 May CPIT management heard ASTE’s proposal for a settlement and on 7 May, made a revised offer. Management were advised to reconsider and produce a better offer. They did not.
The offer CPIT made consisted of staged increases that are worth the equivalent of just under 2.4% per annum over a 27 month Collective Agreement.
CPIT’s “offer” is linked to “must have” demands such as new staff accrued sick leave limited to 90 days while everyone else has 260 days, no consultation with staff or ASTE regarding changes to structures, staffing or work practices affecting existing staff, and reducing the parental grant for staff who return to work early.
Academic staff tend not to use sick leave for “the smaller things” but definitely rely on it for serious illnesses such as major stress (an occupational hazard), heart disease, cancer, strokes, etc. To attack the sick leave of hard working staff is a disgrace, especially when savings, more imagined than real, could not surface until at least 10 years after such a change, and then only if the new staff member took no sick leave in the last 9 years!
Further, CPIT is not acting equitably in terms of its stated ability to pay. One group has been given increases of over 3% per annum, while ASTE members have been offered increases worth less than 2.4% per annum. This has nothing to with ability to pay and everything to do with divide and rule tactics.
CPIT’s stance is also way out of line with what other Polytechnics have paid to their staff, the average being 3.25% per annum, with no claw back of terms and conditions of employment.
This is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most aggressive employer stance taken in the whole of the tertiary sector in many, many years, and is reminiscent of the bad old days of the Employment Contracts Act. We are appalled at the attitude displayed as well as the claims demanded. At a time when staff have displayed total loyalty, they are being told that they can only get a fair pay increase if they give up sick leave for new staff and make other concessions.
It is all the more appalling that this is happening at a time when the institution and its staff should be pulling together in one direction for the common good of all. CPIT can continue to attach its staff, or it can work with them to fight for a fair deal and additional resources for publicly funded tertiary our sector.

Mike Dawson
ASTE: Te Hao Takitini o Aotearoa
8 May 2007
027 444 2894
mike@aste.ac.nz