Smart Strikes to Disrupt University of Canterbury

10 August 2005

Smart Strikes to Disrupt University of Canterbury

Industrial conflict at the University of Canterbury escalated today with members of the Association of University Staff (AUS) agreeing on a raft of new measures to advance their claim for the crisis in university salaries to be addressed.

A new approach, dubbed a “smart strike” by the AUS, the campaign will cause significant disruption to the final week of the third term.

The actions include:

- Staff will not teach for up to 8 hours in the coming week, striking a lecture at a time.

- Staff will not submit end-of-year exam papers that are normally collated at this time.

- Staff will not submit students’ final grades to Registry.

- Staff will withdraw from participation in the current PBRF round.

- Staff will not implement Catalyst, the new student services software package.

- Staff will withdraw their co-operation with academic committees and ignore compliance requests from management.

- Staff will work to rule, go slow, and refuse any overtime work.

- Staff will clog communication networks of the Vice-Chancellor and senior management.

AUS members have each lost two days pay in strikes to date, and have been denied a pay increase that non-union members have been receiving.

AUS Canterbury Branch President, David Small, said that this anti-union tactic is serving to increase the resolve of staff at the university, the majority of whom are union members.

Dr Small accused the Vice-Chancellor, Roy Sharp, of maintaining an irresponsible silence in the current dispute. “Roy Sharp is at the helm of a public institution that is an important asset to the people of Canterbury”, he said. “The people of this region are entitled to know why he is driving it onto the rocks by pushing university staff to unprecedented levels of alienation”.

ENDS

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