Combined University Unions Bargaining newsletter – 14 May 2007

Funding

Last week, the Minister for Tertiary Education, Dr Michael Cullen, announced that $20 million of new funding will be provided through the University Tripartite Forum this year to “explore and create opportunities to increase the competitiveness of New Zealand universities, through recruitment and retention strategies in an international labour market”.

The language used by Dr Cullen was similar to that of last year, when $27 million was delivered through the same process and used to form the Government’s contribution to the salary component of the settlement of collective employment agreements.

The distribution of this new funding will form the basis of discussions between the vice-chancellors and the university unions, but it is our expectation that it will be similar to last year, including the basis for its division between academic and general staff.

Where to from here?

The University Tripartite Forum

This will meet in Wellington on 22 May to continue discussions on its agenda. These include:

• identifying sustainable approaches to university funding and resourcing that will deliver enhanced quality and performance to the university sector;
• considering approaches to improve sector-based productivity to enable increased contribution to university effectiveness;
• examining ways by which the participants might work together to strengthen the cooperation between universities, and business and industry;
• undertaking any other projects as agreed between the Minister for Tertiary Education and Tripartite Forum participants

Universities

Discussions are currently being initiated with the vice-chancellors to consider the implications of this new money and how a national settlement might be reached. Issues under discussion include:

• The allocation of the Government component of any proposed salary settlements
• The university-funded component of any proposed salary settlements
• The establishment of principles around paid time-release for local union officials (ie branch presidents, convenors and/or delegates) to undertake union work
• The establishment of principles to require genuine employer engagement for any problem-solving processes at each of the universities
• Maternity protection entitlements

National Bargaining Team

The national bargaining team will meet in Wellington on 23 May, following the Tripartite Forum meeting, to review progress to date and make recommendations on how to progress the bargaining process for the year. Further information will be sent to union members following this meeting.

Meetings

We are proposing to hold paid stop-work meetings in the fortnight commencing 18 June to report progress to union members at each university. Any proposed settlement will be presented at these meetings, following which formal ratification processes will be invoked.

The funding announcement made by Dr Cullen last week is a direct result of the initiatives taken by the combined university unions over recent years to resolve long-term funding and salary issues in the university sector. We are confident that, again this year, we will renew our collective employment agreement in a manner which gives a real gain to university staff.