14 December 2022

As I write this, the Provost and Vice-Chancellor have just announced the redundancies of nearly 80 University of Melbourne colleagues at the U-Vet Animal Hospital in Werribee. This is a critical reminder that what we win in our Enterprise Agreement has a real effect on our work and livelihoods. 

Check out a video update on what enterprise bargaining is and where we are at the table 

We started bargaining with UniMelb management back in August. For the most part, the formal process has been fairly dry and (nearly) predictable – on almost every item that members (and all staff) have identified, workshopped, developed thoughtful claims around and earnestly brought to the bargaining table, management has said NO!

NO to:

- Working from home rights for professional and academic staff

- Committing to a target on reducing casual / insecure jobs

- Improved parental leave

- Improved gender equity provisions

But then, a magic moment happened at the table, which left your union representatives dumbfounded. 

Yesterday, when we brought up our claims for management to finally do something about out of control workloads across the University, a UniMelb negotiator made a statement to the effect they ‘were unaware of any systemic issue of overwork, and far as they knew, overwork only happened in pockets around the University.’

You could imagine the collective groan our side of the table made. 

We’ll be back to the bargaining table on 1 February, until then happy summer everyone!