AUS-ASTE Amalgamation

Response from Philip Ferguson:

Helen wrote:

The strength of AUS is and remains its university focus. How can we continue to make our arguments as effectively for better funding for university salaries, when we also have to make the argument for polytech funding? Lets be clear about this, despite the current rhetoric about differentiation in the tertiary sector, the polytechs etc are still our competitors for funding.

I think this is a fairly negative way of looking at funding. Shouldn't we actually reject this type of competitive model and actually argue for the funding that universities and polytechs need rather than try to compete for resources. There are massive budget surpluses - it's not like we have to compete for scarce resources.


Having us united should put us in a stronger position to argue for more for both polytechs and universities. Having us in separate unions works against staff in both polytechs and universities, because it tends to force us to compete for funding often to the detriment of both.

This closer association with polytechs may have a particularly negative effect on claims for academic salaries...

There are two problems here, surely. One is the relatively low scale of salaries for academics in NZ, compared to overseas. And the other is that the gap between academic and general staff salaries is actually widening, because the major demands in relation to pay are for academic rather than general staff.

A combined union would hopefully continue to fight for improvements to academic salaries but also recognise the essential role of general staff members and fight for serious pay rises for general staff members.

AUS is proud of being a member-driven union (although, it must be asked who is driving this merger proposal? It certainly isn't the membership). A larger union, where the membership is even further from the national decision-making bodies, runs the very real risk of becoming out of touch with its members.

I agree that this is a concern. However, what we need here is to ensure there are democratic structures throughout the union.

Smaller doesn't necessarily mean more democratic or less bureaucratic. The key, surely, is that members actually want to participate in the union and guard their rights, regardless of whether the union has 1,000 or 100,000 members.

I'm more concerned about the union cosying up to the government and letting Labour off the hook too much and the kind of 'nod and a wink' relationship parts of the union leadership seems to have with the Labour cabinet. We need complete political independence if the union is to function effectively. That seems to me to be a major challenge we face and, again, that applies equally whether we are one union or several.

If, like me, you oppose the amalgamation you must VOTE NO in the ballot.

I'll be voting YES because we have common interests with polytech staff and we can further those interests best by being in a common union, instead of competing in different unions.

Under the current proposal a 65% threshold of those who vote will be enough to decide this ballot i.e. there is no minimum turnout of the membership required-10% of the membership voting could make this decision for the rest of us. Shouldn't there also be a majority of branches in favour of the proposal before we make such a radical change?

I think this is a fair point. If only ten percent voted, then a merged union would start off with a great deal of ill-feeling in the air. So I'd favour some better formula than just 65 percent of whoever voted.

Philip Ferguson
Bridging Programmes