Protected Industrial Action - Join us and win a better deal
Key links:
On May 1, 2023, VU
NTEU members delivered our log of claims to management. One year later, after
the NTEU bargaining team has done a vast amount of work preparing, researching
and presenting the urgent need and rationalisations behind member’s important claims
during negotiations with management. VU management has made no concessions
on our reasonable demands for secure jobs, flexible work, and fair and safe
workloads.
NTEU
Members have given repeatedly given reasonable arguments for why these changes
are necessary but management hasn’t agreed. It is therefore the bargaining
team’s recommendation that management’s unwillingness to negotiate on key
claims is unacceptable, leaving members with no option but to take protected
industrial action.
Remember only NTEU members that are covered by the Victoria University Enterprise Agreement 2019 can take part in protected industrial action. Encourage your colleagues who aren’t yet members to join so they can participate in the Final Friday actions. The bigger the turnout, the stronger the message we’ll send to VU management that VU staff demand real improvements to our rights and entitlements! Please see the Protected Industrial Action FAQ for more info.
Ongoing Protected Action - happening now!
Members will make statements while working explaining why members of NTEU are taking industrial action. This is a form of protected industrial action (Questions about industrial action? Get answers).
We especially encourage all teaching staff to share this information with their students and sessional teaching teams.
Download templates, slide decks, zoom backgrounds and more to assist you in taking this action from our comms pack (view it here).
Protected Actions - coming soon!
Strike!
If we still can’t get a satisfactory movement from management we will undertake protected industrial action on the Wednesday 5th June to stop work all NTEU members at VU.
Why are we taking these actions?
You may be reading management's bargaining updates and thinking that everything is progressing fine and on time. However, in September 2024 it will be two years since our 2019 Agreement expired. After over a year of attempting to bargain with VU Management we feel that we have no option other than to strike. We are in this position because:
- VU Management have repeatedly made it clear that they only want to maintain the 2019 Agreement with no substantive improvements for staff.
- As a result, they have brought nothing to the table in over 12 months.
- Not a single member of the VU Executive has EVER attended a bargaining meeting, instead they have sent representatives from People and Culture, including contractors.
- This has left the VU bargaining team to do all of the work to reach a new agreement. This work has included drawing up draft clauses, a draft agreement, and a recent settlement proposal; all of which we do not believe have been properly or fairly considered by management.
- For over 12 months, VU Management have not agreed to bargaining protocols including workload buyouts for the mainly voluntary VU bargaining team.
- VU Management has failed to provide the VU bargaining team with any of the workload data we are entitled to to back up any of their rebuttals of our claims.
- VU Management have dismissed our points about inequity, exploitation and wellbeing issues as the individual “lived experience” of the bargaining team and “special interest groups” rather than our members more widely.
**Remember - only union members can take protected industrial action.
Join now to participate.
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Union Conversations Training
Do you want to feel more comfortable speaking with colleagues about taking protected industrial action or joining the union? Attend a lunchtime conversation training workshop with our organisers to learn tips and tricks for talking union! To book into a session, please contact the branch at
[email protected].