TEU Tertiary Update

ITP STAFF TO VOTE ON ACTION OVER LEAVE AND WORKLOAD

Negotiations between employers and TEU members at the six institutes of technology and polytechnics covered by the ITP multi-employer collective agreement (MECA) have adjourned after the employers tabled an offer that proposes making all discretionary leave at the employers’ discretion and increasing the number of teaching days for academic staff. Union members will now meet in the next two weeks to vote on whether or not to take industrial action.

Union members and employers at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, NorthTec, UNITEC, Whitireia, WINTEC and WITT have been negotiating unsuccessfully now for several months. The employers requested the deferral of an earlier round of stopwork meetings and industrial action ballots so that they could “table a comprehensive offer for you to consider to settle the MECA” on 6 August”.

The tabled offer that day did not address any of the claims TEU took in to negotiations, other than the technical correction of changing the union’s name from ASTE to TEU. Instead it contained proposals to make significant cuts to existing employment workload conditions including making all discretionary leave at the employers’ discretion and increasing the number of teaching days from 185 to 204.

It also included a one percent salary increase with no back-dating and a 24 month term from the date of signing (in effect a term of at least 30 months) and a working party during the term of the agreement to identify ways to improve productivity through more flexible hours of work.

TEU national industrial officer Irena Brorens says that the proposal to increase teaching hours and up-end discretionary leave is a major concern for members across all ITPs.

“Academics at these six polytechnics are highly regarded but they cannot continue to provide the same level of teaching and learning when they are being asked to sacrifice the time they spend preparing, marking, assessing and researching so that they can teach longer and longer hours”.

ALSO IN TERTIARY UPDATE THIS WEEK:

1. TEC confused over Māori and pacific students
2. Spies breach academic freedom
3. Tolley looks to market to drive tertiary education
4. Staff seats on ITP councils threatened
5. Otago Uni threatens redundancies
6. Govt cuts to adult literacy
7. Job cuts at Melbourne University induce strikes

TEC CONFUSED OVER MĀORI AND PACIFIC STUDENTS

A TEC director has told the New Zealand Herald that it is a government priority to invest first in getting young students and Māori and Pacific students into tertiary education.

David Nicholson, the director of tertiary investment and monitoring at the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) was responding to comments by vice chancellors that they may have to turn students away rather than breach their TEC imposed EFTS cap and take unfunded students. Mr Nicholson said he recognised the difficult economic climate the capped funding system of tertiary funding presented. He said areas that were seen by the Government as a priority were invested in first and this included a focus on students who were under 25, as well as on strengthening the educational pathways for Māori and Pacific students.

TEU president Dr Ryan says this government sentiment stood in stark contrast to the actual effect of TEC policy which is forcing the down-sizing of the widely regarded Te Timatanga Hou course at the University of Waikato and Māori language courses at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi.

“While everyone is talking about giving opportunities to young people who would not otherwise be in study, the government’s EFTS cap, combined with TEC’s directions to universities to focus on degree and postgraduate teaching, is having exactly the opposite effect.”

“Ironically we now have universities devising ways to exclude students.”

The University of Auckland's vice chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon earlier told the Herald his university decided this year not to increase its roll numbers and was now selecting students with "high ability" for all its courses, with the aim of encouraging them through a graduate programme.

SPIES BREACH ACADEMIC FREEDOM

News that University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey has been spied on by the SIS, and that the SIS is now refusing to disclose what documents it holds has chilling implications for academic freedom according to Dr Kelsey.

“My experience since applying for my SIS file last November reveals two things: there is still no accountability for SIS actions in gathering intelligence on lawful dissent; and the SIS is apparently targeting academic critics of failed free market policies at a time when debate is needed most.”

It appears to the TEU that one of the reasons that the SIS is withholding Kelsey’s file when it has released files for other people is that it may not want to reveal its surveillance techniques and activities – that is, that it could have been electronically spying on Professor Kelsey while she was going about her paid work as an academic.

The Education Act confers statutory protection on academic freedom, defined as the ‘freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions’, and a responsibility to act as ‘critic and conscience’ of society. Moreover, there is an obligation on all government agencies to preserve and enhance academic freedom.

Kelsey notes that the SIS has a history of spying on academics. The file of economist Wolfgang Rosenberg dates back 50 years, and includes comments he made in the common room and his applications for academic jobs. Recent files of other academics focus on lawful activities undertaken in the course of their employment as academics, such as giving lectures, or participating in conferences.

Kelsey says that the effect of the SIS maintaining files on academics fulfilling their employment and statutory responsibilities sends a message that they may be spied on simply for doing their job.

TOLLEY LOOKS TO MARKET TO DRIVE TERTIARY EDUCATION

Tertiary education minister Anne Tolley has again told the sector that it cannot expect funding from her to cover the increase in students taking up tertiary study.

In a speech to the Higher Education Summit taking place yesterday and today Mrs Tolley told participants that New Zealand “cannot continue to meet the growing costs of tertiary participation by simply expanding the number of places in tertiary education.”

“We don’t have the financial resources at our disposal that we had in the recent past. We have to work smarter to find ways to do more with what we have.”

Mrs Tolley described her government's tertiary education priorities as simplifying the funding system, reducing bureaucracy, strengthening quality and accountability, supporting and encouraging students, and improving the interface between schools and tertiary education institutions.

Mrs Tolley described a policy that was being largely shaped by the global financial crisis:

“This government is extremely concerned about the impact of the recession on 15 to 19 year olds, particularly those who leave the education system early and are not in stable jobs. We are putting in place programmes, like the Youth Guarantee, to make sure we have good education and training options for these New Zealanders. Equally, we are concerned at the lack of progress that has been made by the sector on people completing degrees. The number and rate of degree completions in the last decade has not improved and this represents a wasted investment.”

Mrs Tolley prescribed the sector a reduction in central planning, increased flexibility and market incentives and a consequent increase in say to students and the economy in the provision of tertiary education.

STAFF SEATS ON ITP COUNCILS THREATENED

Late last month the government had it plans to reduce the governance boards of ITPs from their current 14-20 members down to eight leaked. Those eight members could comprise the institution’s chief executive officer, four ministerial appointments, one student representative and one academic board representative and one other member to be appointed by the council. The chair of the reduced council would be appointed by the minister.

TEU president Tom Ryan said that community stakeholders were bound to have some shared concerns about the government proposal and there was a need for consultation and discussion before September when legislation is likely to be introduced.

Dr Ryan says that the TEU is extremely concerned about “the very real possibility of the total elimination of specific positions on council for academic and general staff representatives”.

“But we are also deeply concerned that others in the community will be excluded from ITP councils, including local iwi and business representatives.”

“It’s absurd that the government seems to want to overturn a governance system just because it argues that there have been problems with a handful of councils. Most councils have worked tremendously well and ITPs want stronger links to groups in their community rather than having those links severed.”

OTAGO UNI THREATENS REDUNDANCIES

An email from the University of Otago’s vice chancellor, David Skegg, to 3000 staff last week warns of job cuts and programme closures as the university tightens its belt in anticipation of reduced funding in 2011.

In the email Dr Skegg tells staff that his management team has started analysing the implications of budget cuts for Otago. “It seems inevitable that we will face a real decline in our income from 2011 onwards.”

“I have appointed a Task Force to advise on possible responses to this situation… There is no intention to introduce measures such as a general freeze on new appointments or on the filling of vacancies… Unfortunately, however, it seems inevitable that we will need to contemplate some reductions in the numbers of academic and general staff. If this is to be done in a way that does not unduly increase everyone’s workload, we may well have to close some programmes.”

Responding to the news TEU president Tom Ryan told the Otago Daily Times that the Government's decision to cut tertiary funding during a recession was "bizarre economics" and if the Government did not change its mind, New Zealand institutions would "slip down the ranks internationally" and would have trouble attracting students, staff, researchers and research funds.

TEU deputy secretary Nanette Cormack who is currently leading the combined unions’ university bargaining team in employment negotiations says this is further evidence of the need for universities to commit to the unions’ ‘no compulsory redundancies’ claim.

“The government is making times tougher than they need to be, but the University of Otago, with a $25 million operating surplus last year and another $12 million for the first six months of this year, has options. It needs to let its staff know that it won’t be forcing people out of jobs unnecessarily.”

GOVT CUTS TO ADULT LITERACY

The New Zealand Herald reports that more than 500 adults in basic literacy and numeracy classes have had their funding cut from the end of this year, despite assurances that literacy and numeracy skills would be spared from budget cuts.

The country's main literacy organisation, Literacy Aotearoa, has lost all its funding for community classes in Auckland, the Waikato, Wellington and Dunedin. Family literacy programmes run by the City of Manukau Education Trust (Comet) and decile 1 school Finlayson Park School in Manurewa have also been cut.

Education minister Anne Tolley has argued that this year’s budget prioritises money for literacy, numeracy and foundation skills over other education initiatives because these offered the highest likelihood of helping participants go on to tertiary study or into the workforce.

The Government has increased existing workplace-based literacy funding from $11.2 million in the past year to just under $17 million a year in the next two years before it drops back to $12 million. But the intensive literacy and numeracy fund has been cut from $15.3 million to $13.9 million this year and will drop further to $10.9 million by 2012-13.

TEU president Tom Ryan believes that the government is playing a dangerous game letting its rhetoric drift from its policies.

“The government has been very clear that it wants to focus its limited education spending on things that it thinks are most valuable; literacy and numeracy, at the expense of many other proven tertiary, adult and community education courses. So when we see one of New Zealand’s largest national adult literacy providers closing programmes in our biggest cities we have to question the rhetoric.”

JOB CUTS AT MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY INDUCE STRIKES

Union members at the University of Melbourne have condemned the announcement of plans to slash jobs at the University. The announcement includes plans to reduce total staff by 220 positions restrict the renewal of fixed-term contract staff and a voluntary redundancy program to shed 100 permanent staff.

The announced job cuts come on top of restructuring in every faculty, school, department and unit at the University, and significant resultant job losses over the past two years.

“What is the urgency? The budget is projected to be in surplus at the end of this year.” said Ted Clark, President of the University of Melbourne Branch of the NTEU. “Staff and students are coping with the major upheaval caused by the recent restructuring of programs under the ‘Melbourne Model’ and now management are threatening a further slash and burn.”

“The Union is deeply concerned by this new style of corporate governance. The destruction of collegial decision making leaves the University workforce stressed and living in the dark when it comes to decision making.”

“Staff feel betrayed by this announcement. After working tirelessly to introduce the Melbourne Model the only reward appears to be more job cuts.”

Staff went on strike for four hours on Tuesday afternoon and are planning further protest action at the university’s open day on Sunday, followed by another four hour strike 3 September and a 24 hour strike on 16 September.

TEU National President Tom Ryan has written to NTEU members at Melbourne University wishing them well for their actions and negotiations.

“Please pass on our very best wishes to all NTEU members at Melbourne University. It is disturbing and unfair that your university would rather cut jobs than invest in opportunities for students to learn the knowledge and skills they need.” said Dr Ryan.

© Scoop Media