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Prime Minister proposes anti-union laws if re-elected

Prime Minister John Key said yesterday that, if re-elected, a National-led Government would introduce further changes to employment law.

National Radio reported that the Prime Minister was reluctant to spell out what changes National might make to employment law, refusing to say whether they include further restrictions on collective bargaining. However, he says that trade unions will not be happy.

Journalists and unions are speculating that one likely post-election policy that a National-led government might introduce is their 2008 policy to enable workers to bargain collectively without having to belong to a union. After the 2008 election, the National-led government assured the Council of Trade Unions that it would not proceed with this policy during this term.

Peter Conway, CTU Secretary, said, "we have already seen a raft of changes including removal of appeal rights against unfair dismissal, restrictions on union access to workplaces and making the fourth week of annual leave tradable for cash. There is legislation in Parliament making meal and refreshment breaks negotiable and the ACC scheme is under sustained attack."

"The Government should spell out the further changes they are planning so that voters have a clear understanding of what they are planning if re-elected."

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs says that the changes the government introduced last year are already encouraging some employers in the tertiary education sector to behave poorly towards their unionised employees.

"Some employers are already attempting to limit union members' ability to meet with their union representatives. Some have refused to rule out using the 90 day fire at will provisions and some are trying to make it harder for unions to recruit new members."

Also in Tertiary Update this week:

1. Overseas academics warned off University of Auckland
2. Aoraki go ahead for one compressed course only
3. Few women in industry training after school
4. Other news

Overseas academics warned off University of Auckland

TEU is asking academic unions around the world to warn their members to be wary of transferring to the University of Auckland because of the vice chancellor’s efforts to remove from the academics’ collective agreement some major conditions around research and study leave, disciplinary procedures and time spent in professional activities outside the university. TEU is recommending that any academic staff thinking of relocating to the University of Auckland should contact the TEU before making a final commitment.

TEU national secretary Sharn Riggs has notified overseas tertiary education unions that appointees to the university from overseas should be aware that "this is a serious and protracted dispute about important conditions, in which university management is intransigent. The dispute may well escalate in coming months. New employees may be offered an individual agreement on the new terms as part of their offer of employment from the university. That agreement may include the four percent and the additional week's holiday offered to non-union staff by university management. Once in the university, joining the union may lead to a loss of the four percent and the weeks holiday. In other words, new academic staff may find themselves in the invidious position of having to take a cut in their anticipated salary in order to be a union member and have access to the disputed conditions."

Mike Jennings from the Irish Federation of University Teachers has replied:

"Thank you for alerting me to this thoroughly disreputable and distasteful behaviour on the part of the vice-chancellor of the University of Auckland. I will certainly bring it to the attention of all members of IFUT.

I am sure that internationally academics would stay well clear of a university which treats its faculty members so shoddily."

The Australian and UK unions have responded in a similar vein.

Aoraki go ahead for one compressed course only

The Timaru Herald reports that Aoraki Polytechnic is not going to introduce one of its proposed compressed trades courses.

The polytechnic had initially proposed a compressed building course as a way of providing more tradespeople for the rebuild of Christchurch. The proposal would have halved Aoraki's 34-week carpentry, general engineering, and brick, block and paving programmes so they would take six months instead of a year to become qualified.

Aoraki has now withdrawn its application to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) for approval for the course because the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation did not support compressed carpentry training.

However, Chief Executive Kay Nelson says that a compressed course in general engineering will proceed because it had the full support of Competenz (New Zealand Engineering, Food and Manufacturing Industry Training Organisation) and NZQA had approved it.

"Pending student numbers, the polytechnic was on track to run a compressed course in general engineering," she told the Herald.

TEU organiser Kris Smith, told the paper that she was surprised that the compressed course in general engineering had received support.

"There is definitely a need for skilled tradespeople in Christchurch, but I am not sure whether this course would be the right mechanism to deliver the right outcomes," she said. "I would be interested to know their rationale for approving one course, but not the other."

"We are concerned there will not be enough industry placements available, and wonder whether they will be able to find enough adequately qualified staff to run the course," she said.

Earlier, TEU members had expressed concern that there are limited local spaces available for work experience, and had questioned who will teach the compressed trades programmes given these are specialist programmes and the present tutors already have full classes and full workloads.

Few women in industry training after school

A Ministry of Education study that looks at the destinations of young New Zealanders after they leave school suggests that young women who did not achieve university entrance are less likely to undertake further study than men. The study looked at 19-year-old students who had left school, who gained some credits in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) at school but less than NCEA level 3, and who did not meet the university entrance requirement.

It considered the likelihood of a student choosing a destination from a range of post-secondary school activities—no further study, targeted training, lower-level certificate study, industry training, Modern Apprenticeships, and non-degree study at level 4 or above—diplomas and certificates at level 4.

The student found that 38 percent of these women undertook no further study after school compared to 35 percent of men. The women who did study were more likely than their male peers to study a lower level certificate or a diploma but significantly less likely to take part in industry training (9 percent compared to 23 percent).

The study's author, Ralf Engler, says:

"Only for European males is there a change in the most likely activity with the attainment of NCEA level 1 [will be some type of further study], and this is to be involved in industry training. As we have noted, to be eligible for industry training, a person needs to be in employment. The types of work that include industry training are mostly trades, which are male dominated. And European males are more likely to be in these jobs."

Other news

Ready2Go campaign update: Te Toi Ahurangi and National Council sing their support for the Ready2Go campaigners, while TEU NorthTec members launch their Ready2Go campaign with a barbeque for students.

If New Zealand universities are going to take world rankings seriously, they do need to act on the parts of the ranking methodology which they can control. The most obvious and influential of these is the student:academic staff ratio. They need to tell the government, which currently seems fixated on export education rather than high quality domestic tertiary education. The best thing it can do to promote New Zealand education providers overseas is invest in staff, and thus reduce the student: staff ratios, so that our universities have a chance climb up the rankings again - Sandra Grey blogs for Education Directions

Staff at the University of Auckland are threatening to stop teaching some classes and withhold students' exam results as part of an on-going industrial dispute. More than 900 academic staff have voted to step up industrial action if a mediation meeting planned for this month is not productive, alarming students who are worried about the implications - New Zealand Herald

The Australian National University had to boost security for nine climate change scientists and administration staff following death threats. Universities in Victoria and NSW have also acknowledged threats to staff involved in the climate area. Universities Australia strongly condemned the threats as a fundamental attack on intellectual inquiry and National Tertiary Education Union president Jeannie Rea said public figures needed to "recognise that the debate around climate science could easily veer into dangerous territory" - The Australian

The negotiations between the Government and the SFWU/PSA over a settlement of the sleepover minimum wage dispute are continuing while the Supreme Court has set 7 September for the final round in the legal battle - SFWU

Let us not forget that ACC is still frequently acclaimed as a world-beating innovation. Making Accident Compensation insurance contestable has long been an ideological holy grail for both the National Party and the business sector, so the decision to open the workers’ account to private insurers comes as no surprise. But it’s hard to think of a less appropriate time to create more uncertainty in the relationship between business, workers, the insurance sector and the Government - The Listener

The Australian government has dropped the contentious system of ranking academic journals and assessing academics based on their ability to publish in the top-ranked publications. Previously, journals were ranked either A*, A, B or C -The Conversation

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TEU Tertiary Update is published weekly on Thursdays and distributed freely to members of the Tertiary Education Union and others. You can subscribe to Tertiary Update by email or feed reader. Back issues are available on the TEU website. Direct inquiries should be made to Stephen Day.

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