AUS-ASTE Amalgamation

Response from Mary Cain:

Morning Philip, doggedly (ahem) - point by point (almost) My views are based on having watched ASTE (& TIASA) trying to amalgamate with AUS since sometime in the early to mid nineties and so on...


On this matter, yes I am only interested in university staff - I think that discussions on funding of other educational sectors - or any public sector are a red herring and I am not going to be drawn away the central issue.

This proposal has nothing to do with what is good for university staff and everything to do with particular people's ambitions and other unions refusing to work to solve their problems of lack of clout for their members.

that you have any evidence to support your contention that low university funding is directly related to low polytechnic funding. There is very good evidence that the Tripartite forum - an AUS initiative as well as other work that has been done by our union - has led to more funding for the university sector.

I don't regards polytechs as either an enemy or a rival...what I do believe is that amalgamating with the polytechnic union (and this is the matter at hand, not the place of polytechnics - or any institution - within the education sector) will be of no benefit to AUS members It may be of value to polytechnic staff who are members of ASTE and it may be of benefit to others in their career development but no-one has yet come up with any real benefit for us in the amalgamation. (I would need something a lot more substantial than the hopes of individuals and a bunch of conditional clauses.)

With regard to salaries, I still contend that we have done much better than polytechnic staff. That has got nothing to do with numbers of members or potential members and everything to do with being able to make arguments as to the value of univeristies and university education within New Zealand, and on that point David Wiltshire is spot on.

I would be interested to know which of us are at a polytech level of pay and conditions? Yes we could all get restructured out of our jobs, we could also (those of us who buy lotto tickets) win the big one and walk out of our jobs, we could die at work - or even of boredom...none of that is reason enough to amalgamate with ASTE.

Personally, if I was restructured out of my job? Well, I would be nuts to speculate on that, but no, I wouldn't go to a polytech library...I see a beach somewhere...but don't tell HR!

Regards,
m